Very Effective

Today I got to check out two great, yet completely different films. Tom Cruise's latest, Oblivion, which received mixed reviews, and Robert Redford's, The Company You Keep, which you probably haven't heard of at all. 

I enjoyed both immensely, but I could understand why audiences had issue with certain aspects of each film. Let's start with Oblivion:

I didn't know what to think when I saw the trailers for this one. Sure, it looks epic and mysterious, but it also left me feeling like it was just another version of Total Recall. 

Then I see it, and within the first thirty minutes, I just kept saying to myself, "Total Recall. Total Recall. Total Recall." But it wasn't. It was actually Total Recall meets 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Independence Day meets The Matrix. Confusing enough for you? 

Thankfully the film itself wasn't very confusing, but it did take awhile for audiences to understand exactly what the endgame in all of this was. The director for this one was also responsible for the Tron: Legacy so you can expect nothing less than a beautiful production.The visuals were stunning and, for the most part, pretty original. The story unfortunately was not, unless you consider combining four (or more, tell me if you can think of any others if you see it) classic Sci-Fi films into one to be groundbreaking.  

We find Earth has been destroyed and all of it's inhabitants evacuated. We got into some turf-war with some pretty badass aliens and used our own nukes on our own planet as a last resort. It did the trick, the aliens left, but that meant we had to as well. Oh, and the moon's gone, sad face. (it actually looked super badass all cut up to shreds in the sky, just sayin')

We moved on to a planet, okay moon, Saturn's moon; that will sustain us, however we still need water, or at least more water than our new moon/planet has. So we erected giant water treatment facilities to extract and purify Earth's sea water (how do you make water non-radioactive? I don't do science...) and we need a small group of folks to monitor these giant machines. I'm sorry, did I say small group? Yeah, I meant two people.... I know, now that I'm explaining this the plot seems to be getting thinner and thinner. Stay with me. 

There are supposedly a group of rogue aliens still inhabiting the planet's surface and trying to screw with our nice clean water treatment plants. So our guys, again, only two of them, one who doesn't even leave the "house", are charged with keeping these huge ass Brita Filters in space safe from a small alien militia. 

Well, our hero, Mr. "I Jump on Couches" Cruise, ends up getting captured by this naughty militia and things just go bananas from there. 

I wish I could go into further detail but I really hate spoilers and am trying uber hard to tell you everything but holy geez, I'm not selling this one well at all am I? All I can really say at this point is, I liked the movie overall. Yes, there was a lot of stuff that didn't add up; yes, you can blatantly see the influence of the above mentioned classic films in this one epic production which, if you ask me, is kind of a bummer; but yes it is visually stunning and yes, Mr. "I'm almost too short for action films but make it work somehow" Cruise has once again shown us why we still pay to see his stuff, his own personal craziness aside. 

I want to tell you to see it, I really do. I just don't want you to hold it against me if you hate it. I'm a very forgiving soul so I can look past the plot holes, and I did see it in IMAX which might have helped "shiny up" the bad bits. So this one you have to decide for yourself. Keep funding Tom's shoe-lift fund, or wait for it to hit HBO, or whatever downloading program you use to steal things.

And now for one I'm pretty sure you won't see:

Well, unless you're older, no offense you silver foxes. 

I wanted to see this one after seeing the trailer once. I like every actor in it and I enjoy stories like this. And seriously, it's Robert Redford in front of and behind the camera, sweetheart can do no wrong. 

Everything starts off pretty normal in this film. Susan Sarandon is standing in her kitchen, waiting for her kids to set off for school and her husband to rush off to work. She takes her ID and credit card out of her wallet and leaves. She stops to fill her car with gas and is suddenly surrounded by FBI SUVs and arrested for murder?! Hold on, what?!?!?! Now you're interested right?

Turns out girlfriend was a part of some young radical group in the 70s that believed starting a war at home would give the government cause to stop the war overseas in Vietnam. Interesting plan; only while committing one of their terrorist acts (robbing a bank), a cop is shot and killed. The group then scatters and each member goes into hiding for the next 30 years. Then Sarandon is captured and the film kicks into high gear (okay not true, it's not a Bourne film or anything) and the search for the remaining members of the group begins. You see, Sarandon ain't no snitch and won't help the Feds lock up her pals. But here comes Shia LeBeouf! 

Shia is a young, arrogant writer for a two-bit local paper and he begins looking into the case. He discovers Sarandon was actually on her way to turn herself in when the Feds capture her and he can't help but question  how they knew where to find her after 30 years of hiding. He begins his own investigation and the story begins to unfold.  

Again, I won't give anything away, but as Shia gets deeper and deeper into what really happened, his character begins to change his opinion about everything. At first this was just a big story he got lucky with but in the end he learns way more than he ever expected and has to figure out exactly what he'll do with all of this new and damaging information.

Don't get me wrong, the film isn't about Shia, it's about the radical group. Redford was marked as a member and person of interest in the murder investigation and while Shia is trying to track him down, he's busy trying to get the band back together, so to speak.  

I liked this film a lot. It played out kind of like Argo in fact. It was slow and not very suspenseful; but the drama of the story itself was something that keeps you interested. You never knew exactly how it would end and I like that. It did actually end just as I hoped it would but that's not to say it wasn't entertaining. 

If you enjoy Redford's films then you'll like this one. If you're looking for some action adventure type picture, this one isn't going to be for you.