The name of Joseph Kosinski is more and more on everyone’s lips thanks to his absolute triumph taking ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ to fly high and land firmly. All an award for a career of painstaking work, never raising your voice too much or putting yourself above projectsbut focusing on these having a minimum of personality and character.
Before we have highlighted his previous work ‘Heroes in hell’, a formidable drama full of classicism that is a good example of his maturity as a filmmaker in a short time. Today we are going to focus on its beginnings. And these are not situated in the realism -or relative realism- of these recent proposals, but are in the realm of science fiction. And they are more than interesting works that can be discovered (or rediscovered) in streaming right now.
An ambitious and estimable sequel
His film debut seemed like one of those assignments where you’re looking for someone effective but inexperienced to deliver exactly the product the executives want. In this case, ‘Tron: Legacy‘ was a clear case of wanting to capitalize on the cult following of the first filmalthough this is based mainly on its revolutionary special effects rather than on other cinematographic aspects.
But this sequel turns out to be more effective than it probably should be. Share your ambition for special effects, which still look dazzling more than ten years later, and Kosinski shows a special sensitivity when considering and developing them. His previous experience as an architect is worth it to design a fascinating world, careful to the millimeter that is as genuine as a cyber world can be.
It also manages to create an effective film from the emotional, despite what its austerity and its few shrillness may appear. The generational and paternal conflicts that we will later see in both ‘Heroes in Hell’ and ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ are present in this film to give it an effective emotional core.
Although it is not effective all the time, he achieved a really estimable film, perhaps even superior to its predecessor thanks to its perfect setting and greater rhythmto which the fabulous soundtrack of daft-punk. A small cult film that we can recover on Disney +.
The first meeting with Tom Cruise
A few years later he had the opportunity to return to science fiction, this time away from franchises to develop a totally original and partly risky concept. But you can afford certain risks when you have one of the biggest movie stars in the world as your guarantor. Thus, with Tom Cruise on the poster, I come into the world ‘oblivion‘.
‘oblivion’ It is not a film intended for consensus, and we can find staunch supporters as well as people who are not at all enthusiastic about the proposal. Because despite its, once again, exquisite designs and ambitious blockbuster appearance, the film’s story seeks to reach a emotional intimacy that we find more commonly in modest or indie films. Kosinski also uses the values of adult cinema to shape conflicts and the world.
It is also true that sometimes it is dropped for more spectacular and bombastic moments. At times effective, but not always impressive. Besides, his interest in hiding as much as possible the mysteries around this dystopian world suffer a bit from the whole. That inconsistency means that he does not reach his full potential, although it is true that time has suited his ambitions.
After almost a decade of its launch, ‘Oblivion’ still has current ideas, and it is more recoverable than other more noisy proposals that we have received after it. Perhaps more effective, but also less memorable. A reason to want to see more of Cruise stepping into science fiction, and the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And it’s to watch on HBO Max.