Cruise briefly branched out with two sci-fi films that saw him shoot futuristic guns, operate futuristic vehicles, and put his grimacing face under straightforward titles Cormac McCarthy would be proud of. Edge of Tomorrow was profitable and lauded for its clever, pacy take on the time-loop thriller … and then there was Oblivion.

Oblivion turned a profit too — it’s difficult for a Cruise movie to not bring audiences in — but reviewers were split down the middle, and it’s rare to see it looked back on with the same fondness as Edge of Tomorrow. Even the generic title, an obscure reference to the movie’s exploration of memory, is appropriately forgettable, and its relatively slow burn isn’t friendly to fans looking to watch Cruise gun down aliens with a smirk on his face. But there’s a lot to like here, even if you can feel the genre trappings warring with the Cruiseisms.

It’s 2077, and Jack (Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are the only humans left on Earth. Decades ago, humanity fought off an alien invasion that destroyed the Moon and left Earth uninhabitable, and it’s Jack’s job to oversee a fleet of drones that mop up enemy survivors and convert the planet’s oceans into hydrothermal energy. He reports to a woman named Sally aboard the orbiting “Tet” space station, and with the job almost complete, the trio is due to join a colony of survivors on Titan in a couple of weeks.

Brace yourself, but not all goes as planned.