Oblivion is another alien invasion story but with a couple twists. First, the story takes place after a successful invasion and second the main character doesn’t know the aliens won nor does he know he’s in fact working for them against the remnants of Earth’s last surviving human defenders. Other than that, this is a pretty formulaic story.
In short, aliens show up to loot the Earth of some resource plentifully available throughout the universe – in this case energy in the form of heavy water from the Earth’s oceans – but first have to subdue the natives. This was more or less successful, chiefly through destroying the Moon and unleashing global tsunamis and earthquakes, though as noted there are still some resistance fighters. The hero, also as noted, takes a few twists and turns before becoming humanity’s last best hope but finally delivers a nuclear bomb to the alien mother ship, destroying it and sacrificing himself in the process. With the mother ship gone all the killer drones on the surface stop functioning and the resistance is saved in the nick of time.
There is a love story side plot involving the hero’s wife, who had been in suspended animation since before the Earth was conquered. He saves her, their love is rekindled, and she helps him see he’s a tool of the alien invaders. Love will hold us together.
Oh, and the aliens in this story are in fact a single very powerful artificial intelligence operating a giant space-craft capable of cloning huge numbers of humans and manufacturing all manner of equipment from battle drones to gigantic heavy-water harvesters. There is no hint as to what the giant robot ship’s purpose is, who built it, why, etc. It apparently just wanders around the galaxy sucking up fusion fuel from the oceans of worlds like Earth. Of course that premise is preposterous, but that’s the key problem with this sort of story. It’s very difficult to find a reason to invade the Earth.
The film looks good, the story is neat and tidy – too much so, in fact – and Tom Cruise delivers a fine performance, as usual. There’s some sex, plenty of violence and a jealous betrayal. But as with most stories of this sub-genre the premise is stupid, nor is it all that believable that the AI alien invader needs human clones as maintenance workers for it’s killer drone fleet. But it was still fun to watch.
2.75/5.0