Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise & Emily Blunt: Smart, Fast, Funny, Emotional

Premise

Aliens called Mimics have invaded the earth, and they are winning. Humans’ chance of survival has increased slightly with the invention of metal suits with several weapons.

The war’s one of the most successful and courageous soldiers is British sergeant Rita (Emily Blunt), also called Full Metal Bitch.

Major Cage (Tom Cruise) is the PR specialist of the US army, an advertising guy who had to join the military after losing his business. Before another battle with the Mimics led by British general Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), Brigham asks Cage to lead a film crew, and record what’s supposed to be a not-so-deadly front.

But when the freaked out Cage declines, and tries to blackmail his way out of it, Brigham sends him off to a base as a fresh recruit/runner, and poor Cage is sent to fight a war with no skills and no knowledge of the weapons they need to wear.

But the supposed mild battle turns into a bloodbath as the aliens knew they were coming, and Cage doesn’t make it through the day alive.

Except he wakes up, day reset, right when he first met his commander Farrell (Will Paxton) yesterday. He can’t figure his way out, and he can’t survive again.

But the day keeps resetting, and when Rita understands what he’s going through, she tells him to find her when he wakes up.

So they start training, and with the help of the brilliant but literally resourceless Carter (Noah Taylor), they try to find a way to win the war.

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Edge of Tomorrow is the ideal big budget movie: it has great CGI to justify the cost, riveting plot, a lot of action with heart, decent character development and with enough emotional and funny moments to balance the sci-fi and action.

What I especially liked is that our protagonist isn’t a born, trained or willing fighter in the beginning. He’s just a regular, albeit well-educated and healthy, Joe who doesn’t want to die on a battlefield. He’s no soldier. His being in the army isn’t by choice, really. Cruise’s transition from the funny blood-averse man to the mandatory kick-ass soldier is well-performed, and well-timed.

It’s currently 8.2 on IMDB voted by about 40,000 users, and I think it even deserves a 9.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE FILM (Not Mine)

Of course there are some popular complaints about the movie, but most of them aren’t relevant to the plot. Let’s go over them one by one anyway:

1)    The lead should have been Asian.

Because the script was adapted from a Japanese graphic novel called All You Need Is Kill, loyal readers aren’t happy the lead is the very white Tom Cruise.

The point is, not everyone reads all graphic novels. I know I don’t. I didn’t even know what the script was based on before researching details after I’ve seen it.

But we are talking about a 178-million-dollar movie here. It doesn’t matter which ethnicity the actor comes from. The producers want to take the least risky path, and who better to front a movie like this than Cruise?

His action/sci-fi movie revenue record speaks for itself. He is also an Oscar-nominated actor (3 times). So basically, if I were a director/studio executive/producer, and could get someone like Tom Cruise or Denzel Washington, I’d be crazy not to.

2)    Tom Cruise is 51.

And? The graphic novel character might be a 25-year-old, but his character is this movie is a Major in the US military. He’s also supposed to have his own advertising business before joining the military. Add the numbers up, and his age makes a lot of sense.

One could argue 51 is too old for to lead an action-packed movie, but if the actor is fit and badass enough, who cares how old he is? And I’m not the only one who thinks Cruise is fantastic for his age or any age in general.

3)    Emily Blunt is 3o.

You can hardly tell there’s a two-decade age gap. She looks ageless, and so does he. They have great chemistry, and they are terrific in their parts. Also, this movie isn’t about their characters falling in love, getting married and raising kids together. Yes, there’s an emotional connection, but considering their circumstances, it makes more sense than majority of the action romances/pairings Hollywood has presented.

4)    The ending doesn’t make sense.

In order not to give spoilers here I won’t get specific. But I find the ending quite right. It fits the logic of the world described in the movie. And since what happens in the end (and what causes it) is the first time it happens in the movie, so previous events can’t be used to refute it.

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Personally, I loved the movie in its entirety. If there’s a sequel, I will watch it. But I think I prefer this one as a one-off.

Favorite Moments

–       How Tom Cruise recites everyone’s lines before they could say anything to make his point.

–       How his character logically and emotionally transforms from an ordinary, violence-averse guy to a leader true/hero through training and what he experiences.

–       The relationship between Rita (Blunt) and Cage (Cruise). It’s for the most part a friendship/comradeship. But an emotional bond is inevitably formed, and not just because Cage gets to experience the same day with different events with her, and getting to know her, but also because she can empathize with him. Even though she technically spends one day with him, he tells her what happened, how she died and how they can last longer. She also had the time-resetting ability he did before.

–       She just shoots him whenever he gets injured or risks captivity. The loss of his own blood, and transfusion of new blood, will cause him to lose the ability, hence forever destroying their chance of winning the war.

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Please do share what you think about Edge of Tomorrow.

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