Oblivion (Film) *spoilers* in The Book of Judgement

I try my best to go into movies and games with as little information as possible, with just enough knowledge to peek my curiosity. Perhaps a witty title, a friends recommendation or a happen chance peek while surfing, just a glimpse. Then I shut it out, I don't ask about it, I don't look it up, I don't want to know whose in it, what it's about and what the big bad is.

This once made me assume Cloverfield was a period drama for 8 months before being bored enough to watch it and having a big (and pleasant) shock and it made me think "Star Trek" was going to be all, you know, "Star Trekky" and awesome (it wasn't) and it set me on the road to Oblivion thinking, Tom cruise has adventures with a fancy gun and that's all I know.

It's a good way to go into it, and it pays off when out of the blue Morgan Freemans in it and it's cool voice is speaking in the night and is that? oh yes, the King slayers here too. I got to go on a wild little ride that jumps steadily from one major scene to another, never lingering too long, never really rushing you along, It meant I got blown away when I saw the crippled moon, when I saw the detritus of society and had that wonderful sudden shift from fearing the skavs to emphasising with them

What I got was a fairly on the button Dystopian future sci-fi romp that mixed Nabiru with the techno porn future of minority report shot up with the adrenaline of independence day plusa pinch of Space Odyssey and a dash of a demented robot ala GLaDOS of Portal fame (actually a lot of the aesthetics are stolen from there) and just a hint, a subtle little bit of 1984 in the daily communications from "Sally" and here oh so insidious "Are you an effective team?"

What I mean by all that is ever bit has been played before, there is nothing new here and you know what? That's not always such a bad thing. The first mixes up the stories that have been told to death, adds little elements that people are into these days, add a love story,some savage big booms a little allegory of nature > tech and you have yourself a roller-coaster to thrill and amuse. That's what it sets out to do and it does it well.

But then there are a few special little things that really had me sold (that let me forgive the monologuing at the 1:34 mark), there's the drones in the base scene with all the "oh bugger" ness of it,plus their eerily personalisation via sound effects, there's the moment he meets himself or when Victoria lies to Sally and the Orwellian nature of Tet slips through and the big one for me the moment when they tell Julia her entire crew it dead. First watch through her reaction comes across as you would expect, "oh no my crew" but after all the twists and the reveal that they were her crew, I was like "hang on a mo, Julia must of known them?!?!" I replayed the scene and well, it's right there in her "What d'you mean?" reaction, when you see that change from her just being a patient to knowing something is really quire wrong. it was well done and it made me happy.

So the movie made me happy, there were shiny little effects and big guns to keep the little boy in me, lots of people went pop which kept the misanthrope happy and there were some plucky survivors which made the little rebel pray for the underdog. There's about as much blood as the German version of Carmageddon courtesy the ratings boards and the endings a bit wet but hey the twists are good and the Skavs look awesome.

I think it's taken a lot of flack tho because it's a little derivative because it doesn't try to be some sweeping genre changing piece and that we're too damn spoilt these days. It's a blockbuster adrenaline flick, you know that, it does exactly what it set's out too on the tin.

Hell it was good enough to make me decide to start writing piss poor reviews eh?

Here's the trailer :-