Edge of Tomorrow Review

June 24, 2014 Dean Ravell

*Disclaimer: Spoilers – like, a lot of them.*

I heard Tom Cruise was doing a movie where he was going to save the world or something. I was like, “Cool, so he’s doing a Tom Cruise movie.” But this level of save-the-world-or-die-trying was on another level entirely. It was almost Nicolas Cage-esque. So imagine my excitement when I heard Tom Cruise was playing a dude named William Cage. I mean…I don’t even… It’s like Hollywood just winked at us.

I was skeptical when I heard it involved time-travelling. But then I discovered it’s more a “do-over” or “reset” movie, this got me excited. Groundhog Day was brilliant. Even the short-lived series Daybreak was good in my opinion. I love this take on time travel so walking in I had expected something good.

Similarly to Groundhog Day, Cage gets stuck reliving the same scenario over and over again and grows a little frustrated after a couple hundred attempts at rectifying the whole ordeal. I predicted this would happen, it’s a staple of this type of movie for the hero to become discouraged when no progress is in sight.

But instead of continuously trying to kill himself and end the misery like Bill Murray, he’s still Tom Cruise and there is still a world that needs saving.

Tom Cruise is this Major/media/communications/PR guy for the military but he’s never been in combat. But then he gets told to suit up and even his Tom Cruise smile cannot get him out of it.

There’s a shit storm happening with hardcore alien octopi that spring up from the ground, and the humans have to wear like these iron man robotic gear. Just strange enough to make the whole damn thing interesting. Classic Cruise film.

Cage reluctantly goes to war with this rag-team of losers named J-squad who bust his balls from day one, telling him he’s a dead man. They don’t even tell him how to turn the safety off of his war machine gun – which is kind of a dick move but it’s funny.

Doug Liman is a director that I really like. I enjoyed Go and Swingers is one of my favourite movies. We know he is no stranger to high octane action scenes after his work on Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the Bourne Trilogy.

The initial battle scene, especially the dive from the plane, was done quite brilliantly. It’s not exactly Saving Private Ryan but it does the job quite nicely.

One thing that cannot be denied is that Liman and co. got the comedic aspect of the entire film spot on, combining the use of the resets and Cage’s inexperience on the battlefield. He dies in the stupidest of ways sometimes but we can be assured that Cruise will respawn and have to do the whole thing over again.

Cage as the noob soldier does pretty well at first, until an alien octopus thing – or Alpha – decides to attack him. Cage grabs a bomb and they blow up together – with Cage’s burning face getting a nice coat of alien blood. But he’s going to die, right? Wrong.

Cue the reset. Cage wakes up back on the base just like the previous day. None of the battle scene happened. He tries explaining the reset but they all look at him like he’s Tom Cruise or something. To be fair, I give Tom Cruise a LOT of grief most of the time but he is the quintessential movie star and he does a solid job in this one.

Cage’s only saving grace is the Full Metal Bitch aka Rita aka Emily Blunt who went through this reset thing before. I’ve always been a fan of Blunt and I knew she could play tough but vulnerable after seeing her in Looper.

On the chemistry in the film – I really wasn’t feeling it. I mean Tom Cruise is supposed to kiss the girl which ***MASSIVE SPOILER*** he does in this film as well. Or rather she kisses him.

I feel like a hug was better suited since they had a strong bond but I didn’t feel like there was anything romantic about it at all. Then again, hugs are not dramatic enough.

The big plan in Edge of Tomorrow is simple: get to the brain or “Omega” and destroy it, thereby destroying all the alien octopi. Kind of like The Avengers except…no…wait, it’s exactly like The Avengers, because ***MAJOR SPOILER*** Cage drops a grenade it lands in the Omega, which explodes and kills it. But he makes the sacrifice and he gets stabbed and dies. It sounds very similar to Tony Starks heroics with the Chitauri and the nuclear missile.

Cage doesn’t die after his heroics because time is reset again but this time the enemy is defeated. Cage is back and feels like a hero when he didn’t actually do anything since – you know – time was reset and none of the events happened. Or something. I’m not sure. I’m all for happy endings but I feel like this was a bit too much,

Anyway, everyone who died is now back to life, including the entire J-squad and the Full Metal Bitch but nobody remembers Cage or what he did/didn’t do. You know what I mean? Yeah, me neither.

I didn’t quite understand how on earth he managed to survive. Why did he reset further back than before? I don’t understand why they didn’t just kill him. But then again, he got killed like twenty billion times in the movie so maybe it was only fair.

Slashfilm does a much better job at describing exactly what was wrong with the film’s climax. But it was underwhelming to say the least.

Aside from the ending falling flat, I think the film was actually pretty good. I loved Groundhog Day so I figured I would at the very least enjoy this one. Also, in Groundhog Day the love interest (Andie McDowell) is named Rita – yeah, obvious homage is obvious.

OK, in a nutshell, pretty good popcorn flick. It didn’t blow my mind and ending was meh but I enjoyed it. Humour, action, Tom Cruise, alien octopi, and the continuous resets make you think it’s all one big video game. I saw it in 3D but it makes no difference at all in my opinion.

Bit of trivia: The first writer on the film, Dante Harper, who did not receive final credit, sold his spec script to Warner Bros. in 2010 for over $1 million.

Comedic brilliance: Cage tries to evade the J-squad and his Sergeant by rolling under a military vehicle that drives past. He doesn’t time it perfectly and he gets run over.

Notable performance: Emily Blunt was pretty badass in this one. Full Metal Bitch is an awesome war name and she could honestly be Wonder Woman. Seriously, why isn’t she Wonder Woman?