Christopher Tookey‘s pan of Oblivion in the 4.11 Daily Mail is funny. He was clearly feeling his hate oats as he wrote it. I’ve been there. I know how it feels. A certain form of exhilaration.

But then I came upon this sentence: “[Tom Cruise‘s] performance here is even more robotic than in his last turkey, Jack Reacher, where he bravely attempted to play a tough guy 12 inches taller than himself.” That’s raw and intemperate. Jack Reacher was an absorbing, finely crafted exercise and an admirable throwback to old-fashioned, less-is-more action values. So right away I pulled back. He’s obviously not stupid but if he missed what was good about Jack Reacher what else has he missed?

Oblivion review excerpt: “As you would expect from a film of this magnitude, the scenery is spectacular. The trouble is that you’d find a good deal more excitement simply by staring into the Grand Canyon. The whole folie de grandeur is ponderous, humourless and derivative. Even the score is a rip-off of Hans Zimmer’s music for Inception.

“If you wish to see films based on similar premises, I would recommend Wall-E, the original Planet Of The Apes and particularly Moon. All are far superior to this.

“After more than two hours, I was surprised to discover that my cheeks were wet. I was, quite literally, crying with boredom.”