On the surface, Oblivion looks like a predictable Hollywood vehicle for the evergreen Tom Cruise. He gets to fly a futuristic ship, ride a motorcycle, and do his patented Tom Cruise run (head back, chest out, fingers straight) all within the space of a few minutes. But far from the generic sci-fi action blockbuster its trailers might have implied, Oblivion is in fact a refreshingly absorbing and intelligent mystery thriller.

Cruise plays Jack Harper, an airborne repairman in a post-apocalyptic future. Years before Jack’s birth, invading aliens destroyed the Moon, and a nuclear war on Earth decimated the extraterrestrial threat but left our planet a ruined husk. With Earth’s surface all-but uninhabitable, humanity’s remnants have built an ark named the Tet, which it plans to use as a means to set off for a new life on a terra-formed moon orbiting Saturn.

Jack’s one of several survivors who’ve been given the repetitive yet important task of patrolling Earth’s surface and repairing a network of drones, which repel the invaders’ remaining forces – called Scavengers – and allow the humans to make their final preparations before heading off for less radioactive climes. Jack has just a few more days before he too can join the throng, but for one reason or another, he has some misgivings. For one thing, he loves his native planet, and is fascinated by the remnants of its history he finds in the carcasses of old buildings. But also, he has recurring dreams about a mysterious woman (Olga Kurylenko) who beckons to him from an early 21st century Manhattan he never saw first-hand.

Director Joseph Kosinski’s debut movie was the slick, visually distinctive Tron: Legacy, which proved to be technically compelling yet sadly empty in terms of characterisation and plot. At first glance, you might be forgiven for thinking that Oblivion might follow suit, with its post-iPad designer apocalypse and Cruise providing his bankable mix of charm and athleticism. But Kosinski brings far more humanity – not to mention urgency – to his second feature than we’d expected. Oblivion unfolds like a graceful enigma, taking time to introduce Jack – a hero with just enough tics and quirks to make him something more than a stock Cruise hero – his colleague Vicca (Andrea Riseborough), and the woman from Jack’s dreams, before gradually introducing a series of unexpected complications.