Tense,Exciting and full of Surprises.
Oh, Tom Cruise, you will never give up will you? At the tender age of 51, you just keep trying. Sometimes, you hit the nail on the head, like “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol†while other times you leave me staring at the screen going WTF? (see Oblivion). But this time, you might have just proven that you are not too old to keep playing angst filled action stars. It must be those boyish good looks.
The “Edge of Tomorrow” is a near future alien flick where an alien race is attacking earth and just giving it a good old fashioned smack down. Enter Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) a completely unseasoned military officer who has never seen a day of combat. Seeing how useless he is, the military sends him on a suicide mission, where he is almost instantly killed. Then starts a kick ass Groundhog Day premise, where Cage is forced to live out the same battle over and over and over again, getting increasingly better every single time. He is assisted in his mission by butt-kicking chick Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who is stuck in the same time loop with him. The only way they can escape it is to defeat the enemy.
Cruise seems to have gotten out of his ‘high-intensity all the time’ mold and has made this character more human and relatable. In most movies I’ve seen him in; he seems incapable of showing fear. In this one, he actually seems the best when he’s most afraid.
The premise is a good one and Cruise shines in these sci-fi style movies that he’s grown so much in. This is not your Cruise of Top Gun fame anymore. Instead, he’s a flawed captain who you want to see triumph.
I liked the fact that the female lead was tougher than the guy in this one and Blunt shines as Special Forces Warrior Rita. She isn’t just ‘the girl’ as often happens to females in action roles. Instead, she is a fully fleshed character in her own right, whose story unfolds throughout the movie.
Usually with these Groundhog Day movies, the repetition can become too drawn out and make you a bit sick of the movie. In this one, because Cruise gets a bit further each time, you never feel like you’re watching the same tedious scene over and over and over again. Instead, each new trip in the loop is filled with new revelations and new excitement. Cruise’s character goes through his own gradual transformation during these trips, no matter how many times he’s brutally killed.
As for my complaints on the movie, the special effects really weren’t that special. The aliens were giant metal space bugs…so overdone. Cruise has a scene where he has to make it to the bottom of the fully submerged Louvre. The scene is reminiscent of The Davinci Code…which is something that all movie makers should avoid under all circumstances.
Also, cruise in a giant metal suit is too overpowering. He looked like a little boy dressing up in his big brothers’ Transformer’s uniform.
But other than that, the movie is tense, exciting and full of surprises. If you every wanted to see what would happen if Groundhog Day had Transformers and giant metal space bugs, the Edge of Tomorrow is worth the watch. Watch the official Trailer Below
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