Review: Edge of Tomorrow

Cruise and Effect

“Does this 85 lb exo-suit make me look fat?” *pause* “No, Tom, don’t worry”

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Paxton, Noah Taylor

Tom Cruise can be a ‘marmite’ actor to many people, somewhat in part due to his connection to the Scientology movement, but there is little denying that he still has the star power to draw audiences. For every Jack Reacher that under-performs, there is a Mission Impossible sequel. Edge of Tomorrow certainly falls into the quality of the latter category, not only because it’s wildly entertaining, but because Tom Cruise also plays against his recently self-induced typecasting.

Fighting back an alien invasion that is ravaging mainland Europe, United Defence Force Press Officer, Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) makes a living out of promoting soldier enlistment and championing the war effort. When his superior officer, General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), wants to put him on the frontline of a D-Day style invasion of Normandy, to report on the battle, Cage tries to weasel his way out of it. However, Cage ends up being demoted back to a Private and gets put on the front line as a soldier.

Frightened and totally unprepared for the carnage on the beaches of Normandy, Cage dies on the battlefield quickly, but not before killing one of the ‘mimics’ (the invading aliens) and getting covered in its blood. Suddenly, Cage finds himself waking up at base camp (Heathrow Airport, of all places) and then starts reliving the day of the D-Day-esque landings again and again, dying in a variety of hilarious and brutal ways. Trying to figure out his predicament, Cage joins forces with war hero, Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who experienced her own time looping episode during a battle earlier in the war against the mimics.

Edge of Tomorrow, in many ways, resembles a video game. Tom Cruise starts a level, he dies, he goes back to the last save point; he tries again, hoping to learn from his previous mistakes. Slowly, he tries new approaches and gains muscle memory to avoid the same obstacles and as such, he can progress further, but always carefully, as one misstep will send him back to his last save point. It’s harsh, it’s brutal and in some cases just seems plain unfair. Edge of Tomorrow is the cinematic equivalent to playing Dark Souls …

Of course, the other comparison that can be made is to Harold Ramis’s classic, Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. Both films have a similar time-loop premise and both Murray and Cruise’s characters are arseholes to begin with, but the comparison stops there. Edge of Tomorrow is not a romantic comedy like Groundhog Day and it’s refreshing that Emily Blunt’s Rita is no damsel in distress. Coined throughout the film by others as the ‘Full Metal Bitch’, Rita is much more of a Mr. Miyagi character for Cruise’s William Cage; a mentor who is not afraid to put a bullet in his head to ‘reset’ the day, when he does something as simple as breaking a leg during a training exercise.

It’s also a delight to see Tom Cruise playing quite a slimy, cowardly character, at least at the beginning. William Cage is not a soldier, he’s a journalist and his frantic screams and inability to disconnect the safety protocols on his exo-suit during his first experience of the battle, emphasises how out of his depth he is. As the film progresses, Cage becomes more likeable, but it’s always clear that he’s neither a natural soldier nor a natural leader.

Edge of Tomorrow is also nicely atmospheric, evoking Saving Private Ryan and other WWII set war films, except with Matrix style exo-armour and a modern day/near future setting. The storming of Normandy is as brutal as it is strangely fun, particularly as, on so many occasions, Cage never gets off the beach before being killed. The director, Doug Liman, has a good hand with these action set pieces, bringing both brutality and comedy, no doubt taken from his experience directing The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Edge of Tomorrow keeps a nice pace and despite the time loop premise, stays particularly fresh. Even though the day might reset constantly, the plot and emotional narrative arcs are always moving forward.

The script also plays with the audience’s perception of how long William Cage has repeated the day. We’re never too sure how many times he has lived it, whether the sequence being shown in the film is the first time he has experienced the scene as a character or not. There is actually some nice emotional resonance to this approach and it adds some nice character development between Cage and Rita, particularly in one scene where adding three sugars to a cup of tea becomes a major plot point.

As stated at the beginning of the review, Edge of Tomorrow plays out like a video game on a cinema screen, but it actually works really well. Ironically, Edge of Tomorrow might be the best adaptation of a video game that isn’t based on a video game at all. In fact, the film is actually based on a book called ‘All You Need Is Kill’. Both Cruise and Blunt are excellent in a thoroughly entertaining ride, although it’s a shame that the violence couldn’t be more comically brutal, having to be cut back to obtain the holy ’12A’ rating, but this is a minor flaw.

Watch. Repeat. Watch. Repeat. Etc. Etc.

In a nutshell …

Somehow being the best film adaptation of a video game, while not being based on one at all, Edge of Tomorrow plays really well on its high concept premise. Even though it’s a film reliant on cinematic clichés, it does so with a nod and a wink. This is Tom Cruise’s best sci-fi film since Minority Report.