The film Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi actioner that stacks up pretty well as a blockbuster. All the bells and whistles are there for your enjoyment – explosions, aliens, underdog hero who happens to be a human with a great smile, and Tom Cruise is on board too!
The film opens with quick cuts of fictional BBC newscasts covering an alien invasion, and we note that one of the military experts being interviewed during the coverage has a very familiar face, as a military helicopter makes its way to Whitehall. In the chopper is Major Cage (Tom Cruise). He is a PR man for the war. He is selling the world on how the war is starting to turn in humanity’s favor. Seems optimal for the grinning guru that is Tom Cruise, right? You think who better to do PR for the human race than he? He is awesome at being friendly after all.
Meanwhile, Major Cage is quickly shown to be an utter coward and a rather despicable human being in the film’s first few minutes. His punishment, at the hands of General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), is a new career in the military as a private on the front lines. There, Cage meets Master Sergeant Farell (Bill Paxton). Farell has been put on this earth to make certain that new recruits hate the fact that they have been put on this earth. Cage learns this quickly and is then the oldest, untrained private in an army that is set for a major offensive in 24 hours. Private Cage is then forced into battle the following day. It is a disaster and he dies. Then he wakes up.
Cage wakes up alive at the entry of the base about to meet Farell, again. Thus starts the time-loop that the trailers for the film celebrate with the tagline, “Live. Die. Repeat.” The crux of the story here is the time-loop. Bear in mind Cage has not been trained in combat. So to just get to the point where he can have a brief conversation with another character he naturally dies over and over again. It is a bit disconcerting at first – but you get over it. Watching Tom Cruise get pummeled was sort of cathartic in a way.
Eventually Cage becomes competent, or lucky, enough to encounter another soldier. It would be hard to miss this soldier. She is Rita Pitasky (Emily Blunt), a decorated war hero, who looks like a fashion model more than a warrior until she starts killing everything around her. Like I said she is hard to forget. Turns out she is familiar with the time-loop phenomena herself and she and Cage start to work together. By which I mean, she starts to train Cage to not die in minutes – and he dies a lot all over again trying to learn that lesson.
Tom Cruise in “Edge of Tomorrow .” Photo by Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture – © 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
The hero’s journey is what we are treated to here. Cage starts out a bumbling fool and coward. He eventually learns to fight. The subtler transition here is Cage is forced to watch Rita die over and over again, due to his own incompetence mostly, and so naturally gets attached to her and more importantly connected to his own humanity for what we strongly suspect is the first time in his life.
The trick now is can the battle ready pair do anything to help turn the tide of the battle? Well they try to in several ways. Amidst a great deal of first-person shooter style action and violence Cage and Rita seem to find a way to make a difference – until they don’t. Then they go back to the blackboard and try again. The repetitiveness inherent in the time-loop plot mechanism is maybe a bit tough for the average viewer to follow at times. That is a downside for sure. The pacing is upbeat enough to defray that a bit, thanks to the direction, but still the loops get a bit much at times.
The big upside to Edge of Tomorrow is that Cruise has not been this good in a sci-fi flick since Minority Report (2002). Blunt and Paxton are both terrific. I expect that of Paxton. Blunt was a pleasant surprise. Also, kudos must go to the writers who kept all the loops understandable and realistic.
The biggest negative and this is not something that everyone will agree with me on, is the denouement. It felt Hollywood, tacked on and runs counter to the flow of the rest of the film. I really enjoyed about 90% of the movie. Then the end came. Still, Edge of Tomorrow is a good movie – just not a great one.
Steven Gahm
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