Rapid Review: Edge Of Tomorrow (2014)

“Come find me when you wake up!”
– Rita Vrataski

SYNOPSIS: An alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world. Major William Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop-forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again…and again. But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Vrataski take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy. – via IMDB

Let me just say this: this movie was infinitely better than the trailer I watched all those months ago suggested it would be. I actually had quite a bit of fun, and there was some humour sprinkled through this too (particularly looking at the first roll-under-the-truck scenario). Tom Cruise handles his material well, and takes Cage from some ridiculous television persona in a military outfit that has no idea what wearing that actually even means, and creates a character we actually start rooting for – after we’ve had a good cackle over his predicament a few times… and his ability to still feel his toes! Emily Blunt also gave a solid performance, and while I enjoy her work, I do not understand the raving about her all the time. She and Cruise work well together, and he is a great sport on being knocked on his ass quite a few times. Blunt portrayed a great character: she was strong, confident and capable, and she was nobody’s bitch. It was a refreshing change, and one I appreciated. I was not particularly a fan of the romance that cooked up between Cage and Rita, though it is a stock standard formula I expected from the action film. It was certainly handled better than most. I know that there is a lot of repeating going on in the movie, and it speaks volumes about the way it was dealt with in that it never actually gets old, and I appreciated that. Edge of Tomorrow was a bit of a different concept (for me, at any rate) and I actually thought it was entertaining, and a pretty good action flick. It manages to bring in a slightly deeper side, too, but that’s never really the most important of it. The effects were terrific, and this film oozed blockbuster, but definitely on the superior side of the spectrum. Doug Liman did a wonderful job directing this, bringing it all together, and maintaining a certain standard. The dialogue was fun, and the camerawork was very good, too. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sword that Rita hauled around – I just thought that it could have been way more awesome and brutal. As it is, it is not the worst weapon, it is just a bit chunkier and more bland than I would have liked. Edge of Tomorrow was clever, slick and above all, entertaining. I had a blast with this, and I was shocked by how much better it was than I expected it to be, definitely my surprise for the year (seeing as I had written it off).