Oblivion

Oblivion is an odd film.  What I mean is that you can tell the director is predominantly focused on the set design and world building. As a result, when forced to have a plot he just grabbed a bunch of cliches/tropes from other sci-fi films and just throws them out there to get a narrative flow/ending.  The blatant nature of this is actually kind of interesting as the set pieces are pretty much wholly lifted from other films (most glaringly Moon, the Matrix movies, and Independence Day to name a few).  I sort of appreciated how blatant the ripping off is and how uninterested the film was in doing anything other than letting Tom Cruise run around and fix drones. That part of the film (which makes up most of the first half) actually looks pretty great and its enough to keep you interested for awhile.  Eventually though the languid pace gets a bit tedious, and while its fun to play 'spot the other film this scene is ripping off' for a few minutes during the second half even that gets old after awhile.  Oblivion isn't worthless or unwatchable, it just never really engages on more than a technical level.  Which is more than I can say about the director's last film  Tron: legacy.

Few other random observations:
-The voiceover is really bad.  Again then this could be a direct result of nobody being that interested in anything other than the visuals.
-Morgan Freeman is in this for like five minutes, contrary to what the trailer would have you believe.