Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel All You Need is Kill, Doug Liman’s (The Bourne Identity) Groundhog Day-style sci-fi actioner Edge of Tomorrow puts the fate of the world in Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt’s hands.
Set in a world under attack from an intimidating and incredibly skilled alien race called “Mimics,” media specialist Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) is ordered to the front line by the United Defense Force General (Brendan Gleeson) without any combat experience or training. After declining to join and waking up to find that he’s been coined a deserter, Cruise finds himself with the first wave of soldiers heading into battle. After getting dropped onto the beach in what was initially supposed to be a surprise attack, Cruise enters a warzone that was ready for the invasion and eventually kills a Mimic creature called an Alpha whose blood seeps into his body. When Cruise is killed, he wakes up to find that he’s back at Heathrow Base to relive the same day of training. Eventually, he begins to learn to fight and soon saves a Special Forces soldier named Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) in one loop. She realizes what Cage is going through and tells him to find her when she wakes up. Soon the two begin working together in an attempt to find a way to end the war, but to do so Cage will have to keep dying as they play out different scenarios in their attempt to discover a victorious solution.
Edge of Tomorrow starts off as a really strong film as it sets the audience up for the loops that Cage will be experiencing throughout the movie while also establishing a solid foundation for what’s actually going on in the world. The first 20 minutes has Cruise shifting from a proud officer to a pathetic private in the military and it shows how talented he truly is as an actor, visually going through a wide array of emotions. It hits an emotional peak when the soldiers are dropped into a futuristic Normandy-like warzone with explosions going off everywhere and people dying all around. Tack on the cool weaponry and a brutal foe and this scene becomes the closest thing I’ve seen to the greatness of Saving Private Ryan’s storming of Normandy, that’s how much it impressed me.
If there is one reason to see the film it’s for the effects and mechanized warfare mixed with a bit of anime style weaponry like a buster sword. If you love the technology behind films like District 9 then you’ll eat up the tech in Edge of Tomorrow. The mech suits have a variety of cool features and guns that can turn anyone into a badass once suited up and familiar with the gadgets. Hell, Emily Blunt was able to ditch all of her girlish traits and surprised me as a convincing and potential new ass-kicker. She’s one of the most respected warriors of the war and doesn’t take shit from anyone. It’s her no-nonsense approach that’s really refreshing for a military-style film.
As for the effects, I thought the way the mimics were portrayed and fought was really cool. They were extremely intimidating and reminded me of a combination of a blue or orange Suicune (pokemon), mixed with the fighting skills of the comic character Blackheart, and the speed of Sonic the Hedgehog. The way they moved, coupled with great sound work, was a pretty frightening and deadly sight.
While our first experience in the battle against the mimics is one of the most intense war scenes I’ve seen in ages, the climactic battle involving a grounded plane against a horde of mimics was probably the coolest scene in the film. It was just such a great climactic battle to help bring the film back up to the pace it needed to be at.
There are definitely some issues with the film. Without spoiling anything there are a few scenes and decisions that are made that you’ll definitely question, especially since all that Cage’s character has is a learning curve. This curve gives him an opportunity to figure out every possible scenario yet that idea somehow gets thrown out the window in a certain helicopter scene and one or two other places. As for other tidbits, if you start thinking deeper it’ll be easy to come up with questions like “why did the General find it necessary to send him to the frontlines, what would that prove?” or “if the mimics have the capability to reset the day and learn from the past, why don’t they decide to strike first if they know there will be an attack?” I chose to disregard these things since I feel like I can find out in the book but some won’t be able to let these things slide.
My chief complaint is that the movie does get boring from time to time, mostly because of how many times they decide to show loop sequences without much after actually changing. Tom’s training, he dies, the day restarts and so does this loop until he gets the hang of things. It slowed the pace of the film down too much for me. Honestly, I probably would have loved the movie if the pace was just a little bit faster.
Overall, Edge of Tomorrow wasn’t as good as I was hoping it to be, yet it still managed to entertain and even surprise me on more than one occasion. I walked in having only seen the original trailer months ago, so I didn’t know what the aliens looked like nor could I remember what the action scenes were like. This gave me a child-like wonder as I saw things appear for the first time, giving me more joy than it may others. Regardless, the leads give fantastic performances, the technology and effects are terrific, but the film simply slides on random inconsistencies and not providing answers to obvious questions we may have.
Rating: A cool concept that’s visually excellent but begins to falter as the repetitions mount (6/10)
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