Tom's Epic 'Oblivion' Explained

Tom Cruise's sci-fi thriller Oblivion soars into theaters and IMAX a little over one month from now on April 19, and we've got a closer look at the storyline that accompanies the film's jaw-dropping, post-apocalyptic imagery.

"It's epic," says Tom. "It's just an epic story."

The new movie from Joseph Kosinski, the director of TRON: Legacy, finds Tom as Jack, one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth, part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of conflict.

"Jack is one of the last humans left on Earth after a massive war that has left Earth basically uninhabitable," says Kosinski, adding, "It's very dangerous when Jack's on the surface because he's always vulnerable to an ambush."

"He's a futuristic blue-collar guy, basically – he fixes drones," explains Tom of his character. "He's fascinated with relics from the past, [like] the Yankees cap which he finds. When he finds the structures of old Earth, there's a connection to it that he can't quite explain."

Patrolling the skies and ever-vigilant of the deadly enemy on the ground, Jack's soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger (played by Olga Kurylenko) from a downed spacecraft. In an effort to rescue her, Jack comes to realize that her arrival has triggered a chain of events that will force him to question his mission and very existence.

"Everything he knows becomes inverted," reveals Tom. "Literally, the world is at stake."

Related: Tom Cruise is Living in 'Oblivion'

Oblivion co-stars Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo and Morgan Freeman.