Let's Go Out To The Movies: Edge Of Tomorrow

Directed by Doug Liman

Alo Party Peoples.

Lindsay Ellis once called Tom Cruise "a one man lifeboat for non-franchise scifi movies", I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, and if it is, that's only recently, but his movies do tend to do well, and in the Franchise Age, original anything is in short supply.

Sure, Oblivion wasn't exactly Hugo Award material, not by a long shot, but it was something new and it at least tried to play with some big ideas. That's something else to cherish, when most blockbusters assume that the audience either can't handle or just don't want any challenge from mass entertainment, it's nice to see films that dare to aim higher.

I imagine the pitch for Edge of Tomorrow went something like "let's cross Aliens with Groundhog Day to make the best video game movie ever." Five years into a meteor borne alien invasion, the beasties have taken over most of Europe. In a last ditch effort to save mankind, an assault is planned from London. Tom Cruise plays a U.S. Army Major whose been managing PR for the war effort and promoting the Halo/Starship Troopers/Call of Duty inspired exoskeletons used in the invasion. Unfortunately for him, he gets drafted onto the front lines, and dies within ten minutes of landing in northern France. Fortunately, he's now discovered why the aliens are so good at killing humans, they've got infinite continues.

Every time the humans came close to winning, they could just restart the level and try again. After killing one of the alien commanders, Cruise has acquired control over the temporal Game Genie, and he's found Emily Blunt as someone who was in this situation before. They decide to train him to find the alien's hive mind/get to the final boss, and take them out for good.

This is probably the best original sci-fi movie I've seen since Pacific Rim. I keep coming back to the video game comparison because that really seems to be the visual inspiration, the main recurring action beat looks like something straight out of Mass Effect, and I could see EA or Activision deciding to take their by now finely tuned first person shooter engines and releasing tie-in DLC for this movie.

Tom Cruise is great in this, at first he comes off as just the worst kind of person. He even states that he took the job of PR manager just to stay off the front lines, and his character development is shown by him slowly becoming the natural born action hero that Tom Cruise plays so well, and Emily Blunt as Cruise's mentor, the "Full Metal B****" totally sells the hard bitten soldier routine.

Edge of Tomorrow is probably going to come off to some as counter-programming to The Fault In Our Stars, which has been kicking Edge's ass at the box office. For now, this is strongly recommended, it's an entertaining action movie, there are some good performances from some good actors, and it's one of the most inventive pitches I've seen at the movies this year.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B