Let me preface this review with a fact. I am the biggest fan of Tom Cruise a guy can possibly be, without making others question my sanity and sexuality. I I own and enjoy all of his films. Anything the guy is in, is gold in my eyes, so this review is biased. If you aren’t a fan of Tom’s films, take this with a grain of salt. Edge of Tomorrow was for me, another shining paragon of sci-fi indulgence. Even if this film hadn’t starred Tom Cruise, I would have still come out of the theater feeling a great sense of enjoyment and money well spent (movie tickets are $25 in Sweden, this statement still stands). All-in-all the film just worked.
“Open Your Eyes”
In every single review ever written for this film, you’ll find the words Groundhog’s Day, relating to the Bill Murray film, and what is pretty much now becoming its own genre. This review isn’t an exception. This film is a sci-fi action Groundhog’s Day and I could give you multiple scenes from both movies and match them up to each other and you’d realize why everyone compares them. Tom Cruise plays Major William Cage (everyone ever named Cage is automatically awesome right?), who is a spokesman that convinces young men and women to join the NATO-led United Defense Forces against an alien threat, these so-called Mimics. When he is told he’ll be going to the front line, let’s just say he doesn’t take it very well, and wakes up at the forward operating base at Heathrow Airport. This is where the Groundhog’s Day effect always takes him back to. He’s basically thrown into combat, even though he’s only ever been a spokesman and never really received any sort of combat experience ever. They put him in a mech like suit and drop him into battle where he promptly freaks out and gets killed. Well turns out, the thing that killed him gave him the ability the alien alphas have to rewind time whenever one dies. This is the basic premise of the film. When Cage dies, he wakes back up at that same exact moment at the airport.
Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski
Cage eventually survives long enough to meet the beautiful Rita Vrataski (aka the Heavy Metal B-word) played by Emily Blunt, and finds out she went through the same thing he is going through. Well by the end of this film, if you weren’t a fan of Emily Blunt after her performances in The Adjustment Bureau or Looper, you should undoubtedly walk out a fan after this film. She is a rock star. I mean, here is a gorgeous woman in a robot suit, killing aliens with a helicopter blade sword. It melts my heart just writing that. She and Cage end up working together, using her knowledge of his power to guide him in using it against the Mimics.
If you didn’t already know this movie was based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill. Like the novel, the film has a perfect blend of action, comedy and drama within its reasonable 113 minutes screen time. I saw the movie in 3D and the effects were pretty good! The aliens are “Sonic the hedgehog like squid-wolves” and the 3D really makes their sporadic moving tentacles fly off the silver screen and out towards your face. You have the typical explosions and gunfight that always works well in 3D as well, so I highly recommend seeing this film before it leaves theaters.
After seeing the film I immediately found the novel All You Need Is Kill and loved it just as much as the film, so check that out as well if you love graphics novels. Overall this was a highly entertaining sci-fi action film, using a soon-to-be (but not quite yet) overused plot mechanic. Fantastic acting, great effects and well worth the time to go watch it.
Watch it or else!