Movie of the Week: Edge of Tomorrow

[jacey]

Gorundhog Day meets Starship Troopers, but don't let that put you off. This is really good. It's time-loop story in which Cage (Tom Cruise) a public relations specialist with a nominal army rank of Major gets on the wrong side of someone with influence and ends up busted to the ranks without ever having gone through basic training. That's a bit of a problem because there's a war on - a war against implacable aliens.

It's a problem for our hero because he's... well... not excatly hero material and certainly not gung-ho. He bumbles his way through the first few moments of a beach landing without knowing how to take the safety off his weapon, but the aliens are overwhelming. Predictably he ends up dead... and suddenly his day resets itself. In fact every time he ends up dead he goes back to the same point in the worst day of his life, learning as he goes.

It's extremely well done, so you see enough of the repeats to get the differences and the forward steps, but not enough to get frustrated with it. Emily Blunt plays the female lead, tough super-soldier, Rita, who understands what's going on when no one else does.

This is an inventive take on the Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel "All You Need Is Kill" with a certain amount of humour injected into a bleak situatiuon. The aliens are convincing, the battle scenes are delivered with sufficient verisimilitude to make them viscerally realistic. The special effects are good but they don't dominate the characterisation. (A bonus for me.)

Go and see it. One of the better movies of the year so far.

Comments

[vaughan-stanger.livejournal.com]

Agree with your review. My only quibble was with the lack of tactical air support/artillery used by the humans. It was a rather feeble military operation, despite its scale. That apart, overall it was highly entertaining and well-balanced.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

It was certainly a cut above what I was expecting.

[vaughan-stanger.livejournal.com]

Same here.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I've heard a lot of similarly good things, and a few bad things, so it's definitely on my (long) list of recent movies to watch when I get the chance.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I think it's well worth giving it a try. It's certainly engaging.