Oblivion (2013)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Jaime Lannister

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy)

Synopsis: Earth has been screwed over in a war with aliens, so a two-person crew is the best way to look after water-sucking machines. But is everything what it seems? No.

Best parts:
The only thing libraries are good for: FIGHTIN’.

Worst part(s): MAJOR SPOILER: When Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman sacrifice themselves at the end by blowing up the alien ship, the best closer they could come up with was, “Fuck you, Sally.”?

Best line: The dialogue kind of sucks.

Nudity: You kind of sort of see an underwater shot of the redhead’s ass, a little.

Overall: So I watched this picture while laying on the couch with a stomach bug that I think I got from a bad cookie at work, and I liked it. It’s not great by any means, the dialogue is very weak and some of it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but overall it’s a pretty decent sci-fi flick. It tries to be a little too metaphysical and it’s very transparent in that department, but it doesn’t bog the film down too much. Oblivion is definitely a better movie than Elysium, which has a pretty similar tone but makes zero sense and doesn’t have any likable characters. I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings, and while it’s pretty decently done in Oblivion, ruined Manhattan could have been portrayed much more effectively. I also thought the twist was good, and the action scenes were great. Your enjoyment of this movie may depend on how much you like or dislike Tom Cruise. I actually don’t mind him at all, even though he plays the exact same character in every movie and they’re all identical in tone (see Edge of Tomorrow this summer!). But you could do much worse for a movie you have to pause every 10 minutes so you can go to the bathroom.

Score: 7 sky-high skinny dips (out of 10)