Not-as-bad-as-you-thought Cruise big-time SF actioner
This review was written 1 year too late
You’ll love Edge of Tomorrow if you don’t love Tom Cruise. Watch him die, die and die again. As William Cage, a slimy army PR man pressed into frontline service in a losing battle between earth and invading aliens, he drinks alien blood by mistake and suddenly finds himself living every day over and over again.
I’ll let you make up a Groundhog Day reference. I can’t be bothered.
With each repeat, he learns more and more about how to survive and manipulate events. Eventually, he connects with Emily Blunt’s uber-warrior Rita (Rita? Sounds like a dinner lady) who’s had the same experience and offers advice and training. Eventually, he dies enough times to figure how to beat the aliens. No surprise there, then.
What does surprise is the film’s predominantly London setting, with Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 transformed into a vast military base, Tom being accused of cowardice by an old geezer in a boozer, and alien thingies racing up the Thames.
We’re so used to grand invasion disaster to happen Stateside, this really was refreshing. It also has enough humour, with Cruise seemingly aware that more than a few people in the audience will enjoy his repeated demises, and playing subsequent deaths with a resigned irritation – squashed rolling under truck wheels until he gets the timing right. Need I say more?
“Bourne” director Doug Liman gets the pace spot on, cutting the repeats perfectly so we don’t get bored of watching too much of the same stuff over and over. Emily Blunt delivers in spades as the kick-ass talisman of the army and PR people. FX are pretty neat too.
Give it a whirl. But once is enough.
Trailer
