Arts & Entertainment

This Week at the Movies

'Oblivion' is visually striking, but narratively jumbled, while Rob Zombie's 'The Lords of Salem' is moody, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Both of this week’s new releases are genre pictures that borrow liberally from much better films that came before them.

Joseph Kosinski’s “Oblivion” is a visually impressive – and occasionally confusing – sci-fi star vehicle for Tom Cruise that samples everything from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Total Recall” to “Wall-E.”

In the picture, Cruise plays Jack Harper, a technician who travels from his space station in the clouds to repair drone robots on planet Earth, which has been left uninhabited following an attack by an alien species. But as he explores the Earth’s surface, digging up Led Zeppelin and Procol Harum records in the process, Harper stumbles upon a woman and a possible conspiracy.

For a movie of this sort, “Oblivion” moves surprisingly slow in its first hour, which is a bit refreshing when you consider how most Hollywood sci-fi pictures just pile on one special effect after another. It’s not until the movie’s second – and slightly jumbled hour – when the chase scenes, the fights and the explosions set in.

A few plot twists are thrown into the mix that only serve to make the film’s storyline more opaque. Kosinski’s previous effort was the slightly better “TRON: Legacy,” which was also visually spectacular, but a mixed bag narratively.

If anything, “Oblivion” goes to prove that Cruise is still a genuine movie star, despite a few recent fumbles – “Rock of Ages” comes to mind. He is given the opportunity to dig a little deeper here than what is typically required for an action film of this type.

He brings a much-needed human element to a film that frequently feels much more concerned with its artificial intelligence.

Every time I watch a Rob Zombie movie, I am able to recognize the talent without actually endorsing the film. Despite that I wasn’t sold on “The Lords of Salem,” his fifth film as a director, I still maintain that Zombie has all the ingredients to, perhaps, one day make a great horror film. 

The heavy metal singer-turned-filmmaker obviously knows his stuff. “The Lords of Salem” includes nods to everything from Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski to Dario Argento’s “Suspiria.”

And – as was the case with the director’s previous efforts – Zombie has mastered the ability to create genuinely creepy and unsettling images. If only the combination of those images added up to a complete whole.

The picture opens on a satanic rite being performed by a group of nude, haggard witches in Salem, Massachusetts during the 1600s. Several centuries later, Sheri Moon Zombie – the director’s wife – plays a Salem D.J. who begins to have increasingly frightening visions after playing a record by a group known as The Lords on her talk show.

All hell literally breaks loose after she falls under the spell of three creepy sisters who live in her building, setting the stage for an apocalyptic finale that is scored to The Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties.”

As I’d said before, I’ve admired elements of Zombie’s work, including the visual style of “The Devil’s Rejects,” the first half of his “Halloween” remake, some of the imagery in “The Lords of Salem” and his eerie use of classic rock tunes. But I’m still waiting for a Rob Zombie film that I can wholeheartedly get behind.

“Oblivion” is playing at Douglaston’s Movie World, while “The Lords of Salem” is screening at the College Point Multiplex Cinemas.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Bayside-Douglaston