Making sense of the apolcalypse

Oblivion (12a)
Running time 126 minutes
Rating:***
Perhaps someone has re-calibrated the Mayan Disaster Calendar, but should we all be worried about the plethora of ‘end-of-the-world films’ in recent years?
There’s the outbreak of disease scenario (28 Weeks Later), the alien invasion (Super 8), or manmade disaster (The Happening), plus of course the volcano, flood, fire and chemical disaster films designed to make everyone nervous at nights.
Still, you don’t have to see all these films to make yourself a nervous wreck, watch instead Tom Cruise in Oblivion and you are re-introduced to the elements of many of the significant sci-fi movies of this generation.
Despite this single opportunity to make yourself thoroughly familiar with the characteristics of the genre in one hit, you will get to see a Tom Cruise movie which is actually rather good, despite having made an unpromising start in life as an (unpublished) graphic novel which attracted Disney until they realised it would need a considerable amount of violence, sex and other unpleasant things removed before it could be offered under their brand.
Oblivion tells the tale of a ravaged Earth, devastated by war with an alien race called the Scavengers, who picked on Earth because of its natural resources.
Cruise plays Jack Harper, a repairman who looks after mechanical drones guarding processing plants, sucking up the oceans in order to establish new life for humans on Saturn’s moon, Titan.
He has a good life, flying around in a cool aircraft, killing the remaining Scavengers and, after a hard day’s killing, returns home to his base for steamy sex in a swimming pool with partner Victoria (Andrea Risborough).
However, he is troubled by memories of another woman, and another time when Earth was not in ruins. Always the troublemaker, he sets off into the desolation to find some answers.
It’s a straightforward story, with a reasonable twist, told with clarity in a film directed by the writer and producer, Joseph Kosinski (Tron Legacy).
There are elements of Planet of the Apes, The Matrix, Logan’s Run and even a little Stargate, which risks it being a cinematic mess. Instead, it works against the odds with Cruise making the most of his familiar ‘I’m really perplexed expression’, helped by solid support from Morgan Freeman and Olga Kurylenko.
Perhaps the best part of all is the elegant and totally convincing landscapes against which the action is played – a sand, lava and desert wasteland that suggests Man does not need the intervention of Aliens when it comes to ruining his own world.