Edge of Tomorrow

USA 2014
produced by
Jason Hoffs, Gregory Jacobs, Tom Lassally, Jeffrey Silver, Erwin Stoff, Hidemi Fukuhara (executive), Joby Harold (executive), Nicolet Scaletta (executive) for Village Roadshow/Warner Brothers
directed by Douglas Liman
starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Paxton, Jonas Armstrong, Tony Way, Kick Gurry, Franz Drameh, Dragomir Mrsic, Charlotte Riley, Masayoshi Haneda, Terence Maynard, Noah Taylor, Lara Pulver, Madeleine Mantock, Assly Zandry, Sebastian Blunt, Beth Goddard, Mairead McKinley, Andrew Neil, Martin Hyder, Tommy Campbell, Anna Botting, Jane Hill, Erin Burnett, Dany Cushmaro
screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, based on the novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, music by Christophe Beck, special effects by Sony Pictures Imageworks, the Aaron Sims Company, Nvizible, Rodeo FX, The Third Floor, visual effects by Cinesite, Framestore

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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The earth has been overrun by aliens called the Mimics ... until the humans proved they could bewat the mimics in the Battle of Verdun, also thanks to the heroics of Rita (Emily Blunt), also dubbed alternatively the Angel of Verdun and Full Metal Bitch, due to her all metal almost robotic armor. So the free world plans an attack on mimic-ruled France, with many battle-suits just like Rita's.

Cage (Tom Cruise) workd in the army's PR department and hopes he can watch the proceedings from waaay behind the front - when he gets an order to film the invasion. Refusing to do so, he's sent to the front as a simple private, supposed to join the invasion army ... but the invasion turns out to be a disaster as the mimics have laid an ambush, and Cage doesn't make it far, after killing a few mimics and an alpha-mimic, he is killed - and immediately wakes up one day earlier, when he's introduced to his unit, and the invasion starts anew, with the same results, only this time Cage does make a few changes and sees that he can alter the course of events before being killed again ... and again and again and again.

Eventually he happens upon Rita, the Angel of Verdun, and he saves her life, before being killed again. But he has the chance to talk to her and she believes he's reliving the same day again and again as it's the same thing that happened to her in Verdun, but she has since lost the ability. So the day earlier, Cage hooks up with Rita, and by the by the two of them figure out what's happening: Apparently, having killed an alpha-mimic has somehow altered Cage so he can re-set time - as can the leader of the mimics, or rather core of mimic power, omega. So all Cage and Rita have to do is to make it through the botched up invasion, evade the ambushing mimics and find it. Problematic, yes, but doable since thanks to Cage's special condition, they have tons of chances to try again and again - but at first it looks as if Cage was lured into a trap as the mimics try to get his blood (where his abilities to reset the time sit, apparently), which is why Cage and Rita have to raid army headquarters in London to get their hands on a tracer the army cannot even begin to understand. They succeed, but in the process of this they are arrested as deserters and Cage is injured and gets a blood transfusion, upon which he can't reset time anymore. But now they know where the omega is - in an underwater lake under the Louvre in Paris, France, and they, with the help of Cage's unit and a stolen air carrier, happily destroy it, even if it costs their lives ...

No wait a minute, now Cage wakes up much sooner in time and it was all just a dream.

Ok, the ending of Edge of Tomorrow sucks, big time, a desperate attempt to make this film as big budget Hollywood like as possible. The film that preceeds the ending isn't at all bad though, a well-executed and intelligently written science fiction war/action movie based on a few original concepts and without the fake hyper-patriotism many movies of its ilk are destroyed by. That said, the film isn't without its flaws: Though it has its tongue firmly in cheek at times, quite a few of the characters are too obvious caricatures to really come to life, some of the scenes are just too repetitive to not become tiresome before too long, some of the romance woven into the plot seems too much like padding, especially since there's no real chemistry between the lead characters, and as for Tom Cruise - while he's much better suited for the opportunist he plays in this movie than the grim action hero, one can see way too often that he just acts and not really feels his character.

Still, worth a look at least, and a film that would have deserved better at the box office than it did ...

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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