10 Thoughts About the First Trailer for Tom Cruise’s Oblivion (and One Thought on After Earth)

The first trailer for Oblivion, Tom Cruise’s upcoming foray into sci-fi with Tron director Joseph Kosinksi, was released last night. Here are some initial thoughts upon repeated viewing:

1. Tom Cruise is never less convincing than when involved with sports. “The last Super Bowl was played right here … classic game. They call them ‘games.’ Right? Not matches? Anyway, nameless quarterback throws a prayer pass. Touchdowns!” See also: His awkward free throw at 1:23, his total inability to toss a baseball to his son in War of the Worlds. (And he’s still rocking the same Yankees hat. Of course he pretends to like the Yankees. Sigh.)

2. This is going to be one of those sci-fi movies where they wear clean, white suits, bucking the dystopian trend of all clothes being dirty and rust-colored. That’s a welcome change; no matter how bleak the future gets, we’re still probably going to have laundry detergent technology. (If anything, there will be incredible advances in dry cleaning.) Not everything has to be Blade Runner filthy.

3. He’s named “Jack Harper.” This is in keeping with his recent run of all-Jack characters: “Stacee Jaxx,” “Jack Reacher,” “J. Ethan Hunt,” and “Lt. Col. Bill ‘Jack’ Cage from 2014’s All You Need Is Kill.

4. “60 years ago, Earth was attacked. We won the war, but they destroyed half the planet. Everyone’s been evacuated. Nothing human remains. We’re here for drone repair, with a mop-up crew.” There have been more succinct taglines.

5. Prediction: Morgan Freeman is going to eat Cruise alive in their first scene together. There can’t be a fair fight while he’s wearing those glasses. He’s bringing a laser rifle to a knife fight. He’s also bringing a cigar, because this ain’t gonna take long.

6. Hibernation pods. Every sci-fi movie needs hibernation pods. Future-naps are going to be so amazingly refreshing.

7. In accordance with his pro-partial-nudity rider, Cruise will be shirtless (see 1:56), exposing us, once again, to his weird torso, which always looks like someone’s stretched one of those padded superhero costumes with the foam abs over a whiskey barrel. We get it, you whale on your core, dude.

8. Cruise’s spaceship is pretty cute. It looks like a couple of robot testicles bolted to a cross. Your child will want one of these, and you’ll feel weird about it.

9. Meet you all at the Cruise-Kurylenko wedding in March.

10. There’s no way you’re not seeing this, right? Don’t even tell us that you’re more excited about Will Smith glide-racing giant birds with M. Night Shayamalan in After Earth, which looks like a 300 percent less-insane Avatar. Team Sci-Fi Cruise.

Filed Under: Oblivion, Tom Cruise, Trailer of the Day, Trailers

Mark Lisanti is an editor at Grantland.

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