Last night I went to the BFI IMAX in ye olde Londonium.  When I got there, there was a camera crew doing some filming about the architectural design of the place.  Look, I even have evidence of this :-

Anyway, I went to see the following :-

First things first, it was a very visual movie.  If you can view it in IMAX then do so.  It does look spectacular.  The film does take a lot of influences from other sci-fi films(e.g.  Star Wars, Wall-E, Blade Runner, Moon, 2001, Independence Day, Dark Star, Silent Running and many others) - so much so, that it can become a game of how many you can spot.  It was trying to go down the more cerebral sci-fi film side(e.g. Moon, Silent Running, Logan's Run) which to some extent it did quite well setting up the feeling of loneliness and isolation of the main characters.  I did quite like the plight of Andrea Riseborough's character and how that was handled dramatically.  As for the rest of the storyline, well, I'd say that you probably have seen it all before, apart from one plot twist in the middle of the film which I didn't see coming, but other people might.  That seems to be the problem of the film, we'd seen most of it all before.  Whilst the homages are nice it didn't add anything new.  A visually stunning film - yes, but lacking an emotionally compelling narrative.  Had it been about 30 minutes shorter(the first hour seems to be about the visuals and setting the scene - far too long in my opinion) and developed the storyline better then it could have turned out better.

It was entertaining enough, but if you compare it to two recent sci-fi films such as Moon and District 9 then it pales into significance.  They managed to combine spectacle and ideas much better than this film did.

I just got back from watching Oblivion in IMAX.  Definitely worth watching on such a huge screen given the visuals.  Storywise, I did find it to have a good sci fi premise but the story does borrow from a lot of other sci fi movies/stories and is lacking in originality.  In an of itself it is not a bad film and the premise is actually fascinating.  It could have been a superb movie had they been less derivative in the story. 

On another note, I did love the score for the movie.  That is some music I will be getting. 

Last night I watched this :-

It was Arnie before he became the governor!    Anyway, it was quite cheesey in places - although, I love some of the dialogue :-

Arnie : "I'll be back Bennett."

Bennett : "John.  I'll be ready, John." 

It did lack the panache of his more polished action films like The Terminator and True Lies, but I suppose it was fun in its own way.