Don’t read that 2011 press blurb about Tom Cruise’s latest movie, Oblivion, if you haven’t seen the film. It gives away some of the best twists in a pretty satisfyingly twisty and stylish science fiction outing. It may show up as a link on GooglePlus; I wanted to see what had been written about the film back when the project got Tom Cruise to commit and was shocked to see that the premise and biggest surprise twist was awkwardly given away.

What I found satisfactory about the film was that I was still trying to work out the “bedrock premise” about 3/4 through the run time. I’m a long-time science fiction fan, and I’ve been disappointed before by big-action blockbuster “SF” stories that are just popcorn delivery vehicles IN SPACE.

The cinematography is both beautiful and disturbing, contrasting the dystopian Earth and the sky-dwelling utopian lives of a very effective team (Cruise’s character is a “drone repair” tech, partnered with a beautiful communications tech).

Don’t read any reviews, don’t look it up, just go and see the film and form your own conclusions. I’ll say that Tom Cruise is NOT a favorite actor or action star of ours, but my husband David and I have formed a kind of grudging respect for the work he’s done in high-tech action movies, although personally I liked “Minority Report” (based on a story written by an actual SF writer) much more than any of the Mission: Impossible movies, which are simply spectacle.

David remarked, as I was writing this, that he also really liked the movie, “even though it had Tom Cruise in it.” So don’t let your pre-conceived notions hold you back: see the movie with an open mind, and prepare for it to be blown.

Watch the film, and ponder what happens to all of human creativity and culture as you do. Think about art and music, as well as architecture and literature. Think of all the precious things that could be lost in a planet-wide cataclysm, whether we bring it on ourselves, or it’s brought upon us via some sort of deus ex machina.

Here’s the old preview from Huffington Post, which does NOT contain the spoilers in the quoted portion, but does ruin the premise if you read it and haven’t seen Oblivion. The movie turns out to be quite a bit more than the press blurb leads you to believe; see it, then come back here and tell me what you thought. I checked Twitter last night for comments on the film, and it was about 3/4 “good movie” and about 1/4 “durr, whut?” comments.

While the rapture hasn’t quite gone down yet on Saturday, the end of human civilization on Earth as we know it will have already come and gone in Tom Cruise’s newest film commitment.

via Tom Cruise Joins 'Oblivion,' Joseph Kasinski's Sci-Fi Film.