Since Oblivion is the kind of movie that it’s best going in knowing as little as possible[1], I will endeavor to keep this missive short and sweet. Remember when everything was basically fine on Earth, and aliens had not shown up to attack us and destroyed the moon and we had to retaliate with a bunch of nukes and therefore the planet wasn’t mostly a barren wasteland from which pretty much everyone still alive had emigrated to Titan? If so, you share at least a little in common with Tom Cruise, who despite the mandatory memory wipe has occasional flashes of memories that he knows aren’t really his, about the old days. When he isn’t having paradoxical contemplations about Earth-That-Was, Tom mostly flies around troubleshooting equipment (that is being used to collect what remains of the planet’s resources) or defending that equipment from the remaining aliens that still pop up to cause trouble now and then. When not on the job, he hangs out in a floating sky palace with his mission controller, Victoria.

Okay, that gets you through about the first five minutes of the film, and I am quite sure that’s all I want to tell you, except to say that you should see this one. It’s not a “run, don’t walk” kind of scenario, but if you like thoughtful science fiction, this is where you want to be. And Cruise, like Bruce Willis, has in my estimation been very reliable about picking the right sci-fi scripts. If you needed evidence outside my opinion about this one time, I mean.

[1] For example, don’t read footnote 2.[2]
[2] For real example, I wish I had been able to not know Morgan Freeman was a cast member, but every preview and the media blitz made it perfectly clear. Alas.