"Edge of Tomorrow" (2014)

Tom Cruise, by virtue of his charm, charisma and ageless good looks, is one of those leading men that can sell the hell out of a movie simply by his presence. His job, stemming back to a lineage of stars such as Cary Grant, is to be the bedrock which makes the plot around him sing no matter how ludicrous it may be. But when the plot around him is also sharp and smart, like the proficient popcorn thrills of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, it elevates everything to a new level of efficient, involving entertainment. This is the case with Edge of Tomorrow, a sleek, smart, action-packed, sci-fi watch-a-ma-call-it that benefits as much from its no frills plot as it does from Cruise’s likable presence.

Cruise stars as Major William Cage, a former member of the military who now uses his advertising skills to market the war being waged in the near future against an invading alien race, referred to as Mimics. The war, going on five years now, is going badly for humanity, and the human race intends to mount one last counter-offensive with everything they have. Cage is told by the leader of the military forces, General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) that he will be embedded to cover the war effort from the front lines, and Cage, who has no intention of being near the action, strongly refuses and angers the stubborn general. When Cage wakes up, he learns that the general has sent him to combat, stripped him of his ranks and sent out a formal order stating he’s a deserter.

Cage is flown into combat for the Western European insurgent operation. The event is like D-Day re-imagined as if set in the future, bigger, more bombastic, more explosive and sleeker. Soldiers are in combative, robotic exoskeleton suits that make them look like super-soldiers or beefed up members of Starship Troopers. The aliens are squid-like, wriggling tentacles and the wisping mobility of phantoms; there are shades here of the Predator and the alien from the Alien films and the sentinels from The Matrix, but they stand on their own as something familiar but not bland. 

It turns out the aliens were waiting for the attack and it turns into a massacre. The aliens serve as mostly a plot device, a MacGuffin even. The film’s real interest lies in killing off Cage early … and then bringing him back to life at the beginning of his day, aware of the events to come. The film’s central conceit, which it uses cleverly and buoyantly, involves having Cage re-live the day over and over Groundhog Day style, attempting to save humanity from their doomed fate. In this mission Cage is helped by Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who had previously experienced the time jumping and attributes it to coming into contact with the blood of a special set of Mimics. 

The film plays out almost episodically. Cage learns of his circumstances and tries to convince anyone around him to listen (and mostly just fails). He’s unprepared for combat and is taught how to fight by Rita. Cage and Rita map out a way to get to the Omega, the central consciousness of the Mimics and the force responsible for the time reset. Doug Liman’s direction and Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth’s script are playful and emphasize the progression of Cage’s exacerbation and growth of knowledge in each of the contained scenarios. The film is at its most enjoyable when it considers in detail the consequences and possibilities of its neat central idea. Cage dies and the film often cuts immediately back to that same moment as Cage fixes his mistakes. Cruise has a lot of fun playing someone who has gradually accrued a wealth of knowledge of the situation he’s in and is slightly amused and tired of the tedium of it all. The film also gets a great deal of mileage out of the audience’s lack of certainty as to just how many times Cage has been through any given part of the day; sometimes it’s more than he leads on, and it adds to the thrill and uncertainty of where the film is headed. 

Liman shoots the film for maximum action, and the fight sequences have an immersive, you-are-there quality. While Liman’s background includes The Bourne Identity, the film adopts Bourne’s brisk, energetic pace and action setpieces, but doesn’t have its choppy, quick-cut editing or shaky steadicam shooting. It’s more carefully framed and uses wider angles more consistently. James Herbert and Laura Jennings’ editing must be given praise; the film’s editing adds to its fleetness. It’s tight, controlled and fluid – so seamless and integral to the action, like the best editing, you forget it’s being done. The film flows so smoothly and assuredly. It knows where it wants to head and it knows how long to hold a particular plot point before shifting to a new one. 

There is a video-game-y quality to the film. Not in the Paul W. S. Anderson and Resident Evil way, but in way that speaks to real time strategy and role playing games. The design of the Mimics and the military equipment could resemble anything from Warhammer to Mass Effect. The mechanisms for the film’s plot are isolated puzzles that need careful problem solving. The film’s immersion stems from placing you in the moment of the film’s reality and taking you along for its propulsive ride. We don’t question the logic of it because it becomes so compelling and vital; once it has created a logic unto itself, Edge of Tomorrow becomes addictive, and just plain infectiously hard to resist. 

Edge of Tomorrow could probably stand to have some greater meaning or purpose. It lacks the idea-driven nature of, say, Inception, and it doesn’t have the stealthy profundity of its clearest parallel Groundhog Day. The film lives and dies by how inventively and adeptly it makes use of its premise. Thankfully it mostly lives. And then dies. Then proceeds to live and live some more. 

Grade: A-