Edge of Tomorrow

I have to say that this movie was surprisingly enjoyable. I did have my doubts about it. I always have doubts about movies that manipulate time. I guess one advantage the movie has is that it does not really involve time travel and changing the past to influence the future but “only” resetting a day and living it over and over again. The entire concept is of course still totally ludicrous. Even if we forget about the feasibility about resetting time altogether there are just so many things that are wrong with the concept. For example, is time reset all over the universe or just on Earth? Both of those avenues create their own issues further down the line of course. Even if we try to forget these larger issues there are the issue that as soon as Cage altered his own behavior from one repetition of that day to another he would alter the chain of events and what he knew was the events in the previous repeat would no longer be certain in the one he was living right then. Not to mention that he had a longer and longer chain of people to convince on a single day and still get the job done. Okay, enough harping about that. If you manage to lock out all these annoying issues with the story what remains is, as I wrote before, actually a fairly enjoyable movie. It is primarily a science fiction action movie of course and the action as well as special effects are not bad at all. We get treated to plenty of the classical déjà vu scenes were Cage tries to convince people by predicting their immediate future in minute details. Classical and very not innovative but well done and I have to admit that I am a bit of a sucker for these impress-and-surprise someone scenes. On the whole the movie managed to use the basic concept of reliving the day and make it feel reasonable fresh despite it not being a entirely new idea. The fact that the acting was quite adequate and that both Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt made a good performance as far as I am concerned of course helped. Naturally the movie builds up towards the climactic battle against the alien central organism and of course everyone (who Cage managed to convince) have to throw in their lives to get Cage in position for the final attack. Personally I liked the ending although I have to say that I was a bit miffed that the writer did not manage to come up with some more imaginative ending scene between Cage and Rita though. Bottom line, an enjoyable movie well worth watching.

Resetting the day. Edge of Tomorrow is directed by Doug Liman and collectively written by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth. It stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, with music by Christophe Beck and cinematography by Dion Beebe. It has proved to be a great decade for sci-f, it seems that for every misfire there are three great genre films to off set the disappointments. Sitting at the top end of the table is Edge of Tomorrow (AKA: Live Die Repeat). Adapted from Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel "All You Need Is Kill", the story has Cruise as William Cage, an American army Major who upon being thrust into combat against an alien race decimating Earth, finds he awakens to the same day after being killed in action. Seeking out Rita (Blunt), the most decorated soldier of the time, Cage must understand what is happening to him and hopefully save the future of mankind. So far so Groundhog Day/Source Code then, but Liman's film never lets up from the get go, frenetic with its action, funny into the bargain, and also sexy, it manages to blend audience pleasing conventions with clever thought and process. There's nothing new in the philosophy on show, and there are regular sci-fi tropes for familiarity of genre, but if you are going to recycle formula then do it with verve and swagger, which this most assuredly does. Boosted by Cruise turning in a good one as an unlikable character who develops into a protag to shout for, and Blunt as a super sexy bad-ass poster girl for the war effort, Edge of Tomorrow ultimately rocks. The science will obviously infuriate those who take such things way too seriously, but as the terror of this particular war unfolds on screen (nifty effects), and we have been bought wholesale into our heroes and their quest, its small failings are hardly worth cocking a snook at. 8/10

**An effective film that works reasonably well, but still feels like a pretext for massive CGI.** In recent years, it seems to have become a convention that it takes an insane amount of special effects to make a good movie. There are a lot of movies that look like excuses or pretexts for a ton of effects, CGI and amazing graphics, without great content to give them a solid foundation. This film, where we have an alien invasion and a soldier who discovers he can control time and relive the same day over and over again, is essentially another one for this list. In fact, the film feels like a cross between “Stargate” and “Groundhog Day”. It's a little preposterous in its premise, stretching the laws of physics to near fraying. The invasion of aliens is nothing new, even that idea of a single organism, with a single mind that needs to be killed. The thing is, despite the huge amount of action, it all feels pretty empty. The film compensates for this with a pleasant pace and puts a lot of effort into the effects, CGI and technical aspects. Tom Cruise is in his element. He is again a likeable soldier, very cute and good looking, pleasing to the female audience. I don't like him as an actor, and this movie won't change my opinion of him. Emily Blunt does a decent job, but it will never be the best of the actress, who doesn't seem to have been cut out for action movies at all. Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson and Jonas Armstrong provide effective and welcome support, but little else. Their characters are not well developed and are incidental.