By  Tim DeLouchrey
Staff Writer

Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman, was released into theaters Friday April 19th. It topped the box office at approximately 38.2 million dollars over the weekend.

Oblivion tells the story of Jack Harper and his life as a repair man on a post apocalyptic earth. In the movie, the world has become a wasteland due to invasion and nuclear bombing. Cruise and his partner return to Earth in order to gather important resources for the space colony created by humanity.

The movie’s strongest point is its beginning. It sets the scene and explains the setting extensively and effectively. However, it slowly goes down hill from there. Many plot twists follow, some more well explained than others.

There are many unexplained actions and events throughout the story line. It is assumed that everything will be explained at the end and make sense but that does not happen.

It is nice that the viewer can make their own interpretations about what happened, however, it is perhaps too excessive. At times, the plot line is boring and difficult to pay attention to because it is not explained.

Also, the movie drifts its focus towards the romance between Cruise and multiple female characters. There is no problem with including a romantic aspect, but towards the end, the movie completely shifts its focus from sci-fi to romance.

Though the plot line can be boring, viewers at least have the visuals to keep them from falling asleep. The visuals were excellent throughout. It effectively generated the feeling of a wasteland, while still reminding characters that the world was once a better place. Action scenes were complimented greatly by the special effects and visuals.

As far as characters go, they were fairly simple. Besides Cruise, all of the other roles were very bland. Cruise’s character remained realistic as well as dynamic and entertaining. And as always, Cruise did a magnificent job playing his character.

The same cannot be said for others. With the only clear cut villain being artificial, there was not many opportunities for multiple dynamic characters. The supporting acting was done fairly well, however, there wasn’t many opportunities for them to mess up.

Overall, the film was disappointing. With excellent visuals, a strong cast, and a good idea, a viewer could have expected more. The movie was not bad, but nothing special either, and feels cut short. Many sci-fi fans will likely be disappointed by the movie’s failure to live up to its potential. Overall, this movie receives a mediocre rating of 5 out of 10.