The movies:

[column size=”one-third”][/column][column size=”two-third” last=”true”]Released in 2012, Jack Reacher follows Tom Cruise as the eponymous character, a former Military Police investigator-turned drifter, who gets enrolled in a case involving one his former suspects, a sniper who allegedly opened fire on a crowd of civilians.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who previously co-wrote the Cruise-starred Valkyrie and more recently co-wrote and directed Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and based on the novel One Shot by Lee Child, Reacher received incredibly mixed reviews and was among the lowest-earning Cruise films in the recent decade.
[/column]

[column size=”one-third”][/column][column size=”two-third” last=”true”]Oblivion stars Cruise in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner that takes place after the humans were forced to use the nukes on their alien invaders. This was released in 2013, nearly right alongside Will Smith’s After Earth, a different post-apocalyptic movie that performed much more poorly than Oblivion.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski, who also directed Tron: Legacy, this movie is based on an original story by Kosinski. While Oblivion didn’t perform spectacularly, it at least performed better than After Earth.
[/column]

Plot:

Oblivion takes place on a ravaged Earth, after the Scavs invaded, forcing the humans to use the nukes. They defeated the invaders but lost a large part of the Earth in the process. Most of the humans are living on the Tet, a space station hovering over the planet, using the oceans as fuel to prepare for a deep space trip. The two remaining humans are Cruise and Andrea Riseborough, who serve as a technician team that looks after the drones that patrol for remaining Scavs. While out on a service call one day, Cruise makes an important discovery that forces him to question everything he thought he knew. Oblivion is based on a storyboard idea by the director Joseph Kosinksi, who was able to make the movie after his idea was auctioned off to the highest-paying company.

Jack Reacher is based on the novel One Shot by Lee Child. Lee Child has written a long-running series of novels featuring Reacher, a former Military Police officer-turned-private detective. After a lone gunman shoots down a handful of innocents one bright, sunny morning, the supposed perpetrator is arrested and asks for Jack Reacher. Who should saunter into town, but Reacher himself, who teams up with the perpetrator’s public defender to investigate whether the man actually committed the crime.

I do enjoy a good mystery, but extra special bonus points go to Oblivion for being based on a graphic novel idea written by the director himself. That, on top of the fact that the story struck me as entirely original and refreshing, make Oblivion the winner here.