There is something akin to a Tom Cruise revival going on right now in Hollywood, that started when he knocked it out of the park in TROPIC THUNDER in 2008. Cruise is a notoriously limited actor, but he's getting spoon-fed interesting projects that highligh his strengths and conceal his strengths. Tom Cruise is cool again and he's riding a coolness speculation bubble he's created for himself, so expect him to get cooler by the minute until he breaks a hip or something.
EDGE OF TOMORROW is the latest project of Christopher McQuarrie, the golden boy of Hollywood action screenwriting. The movie is not inherently bad, per se, but it's unfortunately suffering from cases of extreme paranoia and visual baditude, and it's borrowing some credibility from Tom Cruise's legendary status. Did I mention it's not all that original either? It's well-structured and cleverly written, but c'mon guys. We've been there already. Many times.
Major Cage (Tom Cruise) is placed under arrest after a run-in with General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) over a political disagreement about the upcoming military offensive against the alien forced occupying the Earth. He is disposed of, sent to the barracks, treated as a private and sent into battle where he actually DIES. But he wakes up and lives through the day again and DIES again. Cage goes through that loop until he's told by warrior-princess and human resistance symbol Rita Vrataski (the delicious Emily Blunt) to come see him when he wakes up. She tells him the truth about the aliens' evolutionary superiority, but together they decide to try and exploit a hitch in their time-controlling system that involves killing Tom Cruise. A lot.
The following bit of criticism is extremely unfair to EDGE OF TOMORROW, I am 100% concious of that. I gotta get it off my chest though, what is with war movies and the nobility of combat? There are a thousand interesting storytelling aspects about killing, but it's neither sexy or noble. What rubbed me the wrong way about EDGE OF TOMORROW is that it used science-fiction as a mean to mechanize the act of killing. None of the human soldiers are actually killing humanoid things, they're just destroying machines. It's all OK if you're destroying machines like it's just a video game, right? Right? When PREDATOR has a greater moral dilemma than your movie, your movie has issues. EDGE OF TOMORROW is far from being the only movie guilty of this, but it's wallowing in its combat-loving pseudo-propaganda like a dog in a mud pit.
Sweaty, sexy combat heroine. Of course. I'm not even going to waste my breath on that.
Apparently, EDGE OF TOMORROW is based on Japanese novel ALL YOU NEED IS KILL, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, It's not the only source of inspiration, though. You can find allusions to GROUNDHOG DAY and GEARS OF WAR. The latter is a blatant visual inspiration for the movie, both in the suits and in the visual tones. I'm not against the idea of using several inspiration sources, COLD IN JULY did it extremely well. I don't seee how EDGE OF TOMORROW add up to more than the sum of its parts though. I didn't see what's proper to it that I hadn't previously seen in video games or other movies of similar ambition. Honestly, a lot of its claimed originality is based on video games ideas and I've been there a lot of times. EDGE OF TOMORROW is well executed and translates the excitement of a video game dramatic architecture more often than not, but the content felt tame and overused.
I'm being super harsh here, but I didn't hate EDGE OF TOMORROW or anything. I thought it was OK. Not great. Not good. Just OK. I liked its philosophical standpoint on repetition. Because there is a LOT of repetition in this movie and while it takes its toll on the characters moral, EDGE OF TOMORROW preaches the very Taoist idea that perfection is only attainable by repetition and that monlike patience is the cornerstone of great achievement. That, I liked a lot and I thought it's what made the movie's use of repetition fun and engaging and slightly different from GROUNDHOG DAY. I thought it was by far the best thing it had to offer and it's already better than your run-of-the-mill war movies, which usually has nothing to offer at all.
I don't think I would've watched EDGE OF TOMORROW under any other circumstances that being on a plane. It's a fluid, scrappy movie that integrates a couple of fun Taoist ideas to a scatter shoot of unoriginal, sometimes frustrating concepts. I can't recommend it with any enthusiasm like many other critics did, but as far as paranoid baditude movies are involved this one wasn't complete was of time, I suppose.
I don't think I would've watched EDGE OF TOMORROW under any other circumstances that being on a plane. It's a fluid, scrappy movie that integrates a couple of fun Taoist ideas to a scatter shoot of unoriginal, sometimes frustrating concepts. I can't recommend it with any enthusiasm like many other critics did, but as far as paranoid baditude movies are involved this one wasn't complete was of time, I suppose.
