Andrea Riseborough – Chris Barsanti

Tom Cruise contemplates 'Oblivion'. — Tom Cruise contemplates ‘Oblivion’.

Just one of this year’s post-apocalyptic mega-budget sci-fi projects, Oblivion is a somewhat ambitious piece of work that doesn’t ultimately know what to do with itself. In part, that could result from the ever-amped presence of Tom Cruise, who doesn’t ever seem able to tamp down the Maverick long enough to register any true doubt in his own abilities to save the world. Again.

Oblivion hits Blu-ray and DVD today. My review is at Short Ends & Leader; here’s part:

Oblivion starts as some blissed-out spread in a post-apocalyptic edition ofArchitecture Digest before moving into Big Revelation science fiction. Tom Cruise plays Jack, a happy-go-lucky tech who’s one of two humans left on the Earth’s surface in the year 2077. Jack and his partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough, lithe and ghostly) live in a gorgeously sleek pod of a place elevated hundreds of feet off the blasted landscape. It’s like one of those moderne postwar glass bungalows in the hills overlooking Los Angeles, only it floats above the clouds and is packed with all manner of gadgetry that would make an Apple fetishist’s heart beat dangerously fast…

Here’s the trailer:

shadowdancer1 — Clive Owen as an MI6 agent trying to use an IRA operative to spy on her own family in ‘Shadow Dancer’

Clive Owen continues to frustrate with his choosing of roles in films that no amount of his innate greatness can save. Case in point is the glum Shadow Dancer, which opened yesterday in limited release. Though it boasts Owen, a solid supporting cast, nail-biter premise, and crackerjack director (of documentaries, at least) James Marsh, the film barely registers a heartbeat.

My full review ran at Film Racket, here’s part of it:

The pregnant pause is one of the more useful items in a director’s toolbox for heightening drama and tension. One can’t have just nonstop chatter and explosions, after all, no matter what the oeuvre of Michael Bay might argue to the contrary. But like any tool, it can be overused. Case in point: Shadow Dancer, a smartly cast but drearily inactive IRA thriller that tries to be all pregnant pause. This constant sidestepping manner means that by the time the credits roll, viewers understand as little about the characters on screen, and the morality of their actions, as they did when the film began…

You can watch the trailer here:

Chris Barsanti

Tag: Andrea Riseborough

New on DVD: ‘Oblivion’

New in Theaters: ‘Shadow Dancer’