Tom Cruise returns to the screen to excite audiences with his very presence in “Oblivion” as another “Jack” character — see his film a few months ago, “Jack Reacher” — set on discovering the truth and saving things. Basically, Cruise is back to playing a character that is familiar territory for him.

This time, he is dealing with the aftermath of aliens on Earth, kind of like Scientology. No, no, I’m just kidding. I couldn’t help myself. Everyone knows Scientology’s aliens weren’t invading.

Anyway, Cruise plays a repairman-soldier named Jack that has a partial memory wipe to prevent enemies from gleaning information, should he be captured. This also conveniently keeps him from fully remembering other nagging “problems” with his mission.

You have to love screenwriters that give characters a form of amnesia so that the coming plot holes and flimsy explanations are at least tolerable.

Long story short, there is more to the reality of what his superiors are telling him, and the movie plays out as more than merely another action extravaganza.

That isn’t to say the plot is not predictable at points. Nor is it to say the plot is too predicable. “Oblivion” is a sci-fi mystery at heart. Though it still offers up some fancy and fairly-pretty effects for explosions and other action stuffs.

But yes, I would be remiss to say there weren’t the same sort of plot challenges in “Oblivion” as when folks ask why Frodo didn’t just fly the damned One Ring to Mordor on the back of an eagle and save the extreme-survivor journey across Middle Earth.

But back to the good stuff: Morgan Freeman also appears to be all cool and full of star-power influence. And like most Freeman appearances, he is awesome. But then, how can you have one of, if not the most, soothing voice on the planet and not be seen as awesome whenever you appear on screen?

So what you have from “Oblivion” is some solid effects, but nothing to write home about. You get Cruise being a hero, but without the fun banter and with less full-blown action than you would expect. You get a sci-fi story with some twist to it, but nothing that hasn’t been done before.

From “Oblivion,” you get yet another movie to watch when you have some down time. Nothing to jump out or become excited about, but not something to outright ignore. Overall, waiting for Netflix or Redbox would be a safe move.