Review: Edge of Tomorrow

Earth has been invaded by a war-mongering alien race called Mimics, who are seemingly unstoppable, though we’ve just scored a minor victory in battle. Enter Major Tom Cruise, a Communications officer (PR guy for the military) and frankly a bit of a smug coward. General Brendan Gleeson thinks it might be a good idea to send him to the front lines to film the latest battle, thinking things are headed in our favour. Cruise objects, is tasered and wakes up in an infantry unit, demoted to Private for desertion and sent into battle with no weapons or special armour training whatsoever. It doesn’t go well, his entire platoon is wiped out, and although he somehow manages to take out a Mimic, he also gets killed. It’s almost as if the Mimics knew they were coming and were fully prepared. The next thing he knows, Cruise has woken up to the same day, the same events, and the same conclusion. No matter how hard he tries to avoid the outcome, death keeps coming to him and his platoon. Eventually he works out a way to save celebrated war hero Emily Blunt (but not himself), who tells him to come and find her when he wakes up again. Seems she knows a little bit about what Cruise is going through. Kick Gurry plays a member of Cruise’s platoon, Bill Paxton (in borderline R. Lee Ermey mode) is a no-nonsense Master Sergeant who doesn’t have time for Cruise’s bullshit, and Noah Taylor plays Blunt’s brainiac scientist associate who knows more about the aliens than anyone.

It’s “Starship Troopers” (or “Pacific Rim”) meets “Groundhog Day” (or “Source Code”) in this rather classic 2014 sci-fi actioner from director Doug Liman (“Swingers”, “Go”, “Fair Game”). Based on a Japanese graphic novel, Tom Cruise and ‘sci-fi’ prove a winning combination yet again. Like the previous year’s “Oblivion”, Cruise is in a sci-fi film that is quite familiar but well-told and an easy watch. There’s something very computer game about this repetitive premise when you think about it (Cruise getting better each time he is ‘killed’ and starts over), but that’s not at all a criticism and it’s definitely a film experience, no doubt about it. The special FX are pretty damn good, especially the futuristic military ships. The battle scenes are excellent imaginings of what warfare might be like in the future against aliens. They look quite realistic, a little “Saving Private Ryan”-esque. The aliens are particularly well-designed, following my line of thinking that aliens really shouldn’t especially recognisable or discernible. It’s an incredible-looking film, very well-shot by Aussie cinematographer Dion Beebe (“Miami Vice”, “Collateral”, “Chicago”), and thankfully not nearly as shaky as some films like Liman’s “The Bourne Identity”. The sense of scope in the battles is really impressive, with wonderful landscapes on show. The terrific, thunderous music score by Christophe Beck (who has otherwise scored awful films like “The Hangover II”, “This Means War”, “The Watch”, “Due Date”, “The Sentinel” and “Garfield”- WOW!) is a major asset too.

Tom Cruise may come across as an arrogant nutjob off-screen, but here he’s really well-cast and easy to take as a guy who starts out as a selfish, cocky, cowardly jerk, a typical Cruise character in some ways but like in “A Few Good Men”, “Rain Man” and the underrated “War of the Worlds”, he never quite loses your sympathy. That’s because you know he’s about to go on a journey, he’s going to be thrust in the midst of battle and be forced to be proactive for a change. His character’s journey is actually somewhat old-fashioned, when you take away the futuristic trappings (It could almost work as a pro-military or pro-war film if you were to take all this nonsense seriously enough). And it gets really interesting when the “Groundhog Day” stuff reaches its delirious/despondent phase for Cruise’s character (Who comes to realise that he’s doomed to repeat history anyway, whether he forgets it or not).

Emily Blunt isn’t the first actress I’d think of for a film like this, but she’s excellent and hot. That last part is important, by the way. It’s certainly a better film and performance from Blunt than the overrated “Looper”. She and Cruise certainly make for an easy pair to latch onto. There’s also great support from Aussies Kick Gurry and Noah Taylor, who seem to have been able to keep their native accents (Taylor’s got a bit of a posh accent, but it still sounded Aussie to me). I still have no idea what sick parents would name their child Kick, though. Best of all, Bill Paxton is here to essentially play the Al Matthews role from “Aliens”, amusingly. I prefer Paxton being wild and crazy, but he’s certainly versatile and is one of the more entertaining things about the film.

This is a really good, action-packed sci-fi film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel and doesn’t need to. I really can’t say anything bad about this one, it achieves what it sets out to and is what it is: A dressed up, entertaining A-budget, B-movie. The screenplay is by Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects”, Cruise’s “Valkyrie”, the underrated “The Tourist”) and Jez & John-Henry Butterworth (Liman’s tolerable but rather disappointing political/CIA film “Fair Game”).

Rating: B-