Edge of Tomorrow is
an action movie with an irresistible sci-fi hook. It’s the near future and
humans are fighting a war against aggressive alien invaders. The creatures are
fast, brutal, and seemingly unstoppable. Europe has fallen, occupied by the
spindly, insidious beasties. The forces of Earth are mobilizing for a
last-ditch effort to beat back the extraterrestrial beings before it’s too
late. This is all laid out for us in one of those rapid-fire news footage
montages that feature real anchors delivering this fictional news with grave
sincerity. One of the army’s top public relations men (Tom Cruise) is asked to
chronicle the impending attack. When he’s told it’s not a request, but an
order, he tires to run. He’s branded a coward and a deserter. His punishment: a
spot on the front lines. It’s there that he experiences first hand the carnage
of the conflict. He’s killed in action and is surprised to wake up the day
before. He’s caught in a time loop.
The rest of the movie features Cruise’s fearful,
inexperienced soldier gaining strength and smarts by reliving the battle over
and over and over. He repeats the day, getting a better grasp on the
situational tactics and big picture with each replay. He’s like a gamer getting
better and better each time through a level. The invasion is a chaotic sci-fi
version of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Humans wear mechanized battle suits
as they land on the beach, firing off into the distance at an unseen enemy as
they trudge forward. The aliens burrow under the sand, then burst forward
grasping, blasting, chomping. They are biomechanical, multi-tentacle beasts
that look truly otherworldly, incomprehensibly strange and self-evidently
dangerous. It seems mankind’s only chance is the trial-and-error suddenly
available to this one man. Again and again he dies only to be born again, ready
to fight the same fight once more, but this time with a slightly better idea of
what he’s in for.
Cruise is a perfect actor for this kind of role. He not only
has the sympathetic hard-charging action hero role down to a science, he makes
it look new each time. As a movie star who has lived through action movie
carnage that’d kill a real person dozens of times over throughout his career,
it’s a shock to see him die, let alone in a context that’s quickly edited for
an almost comic effect at times. At one point, there’s a training montage of
sorts in which he’s killed with every edit. He’s shot, stabbed, exploded, run
over, squashed, chopped, and otherwise destroyed, but still he bounces up
again, waking on the day before. Here his professionalism and determination
grow steely through a sense of discovery that’s fun and tense. A lesser actor
might let the whole project grow repetitive or wearing, but Cruise charges
forward, all energy and willpower.
He meets one person who believes him, a tough soldier (Emily
Blunt) who once got caught in a time loop herself a few battles back. She
immediately recognizes the symptoms in him and agrees to help him. Too bad he
has to reintroduce himself every day after his every death. He gets her up to
speed and they set out to plan their attack like two kids who’ve lost each time
through a multiplayer level and are sure this
is the time they have enough information to win. They look at their blueprints and
diagrams like it’s a strategy guide.
The screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and
John-Henry Butterworth, from the novel All
You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, constantly resets. Each repetition
brings with it a new understanding of what needs to be done, or at least a
reframing of what approaches won’t work. It’s cleverly plotted, if thinly
developed. There’s not a lot to it, but what’s there is competently told. It’s
all forward momentum, with the reason for the time loop tied inextricably to
the way to win the war. It’s tightly wound and briskly told, no time spent on
treacly backstory for our main duo, defining side-characters (played by good character actors like Brendan Gleeson and Bill Paxton) beyond their mere
presences, or providing humanizing families back home. It’s lean and straight
to the point.
Director Doug Liman, who, with the likes of The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, is no stranger to
staging fun action scenes, gets to riff on one setpiece in a variety of ways. He
moves through the hectic, gray, and muddy alien D-Day sequence multiple times
from an assortment of angles. Cinematographer Dion Beebe finds fluid and exciting
images that are cut together by editor James Herbert in a propulsive pace. It’s
not a great action scene – it’s indistinct and often incomprehensible in its
fog of war – but the variations develop smartly. I didn't feel it in my gut, but my head enjoyed the ride.
We get a little farther with some repetitions, and as the movie
progresses we jump into the action at later and later points. We know Cruise
and Blunt can fight their way so far. They’ve done it hundreds of times. No
need to repeat every beat of the action when we can skip to right where they left
off. The action is digitally enhanced rattling and battling with characters
able to leap and shoot, running and gunning. Aliens flip and scuttle about,
popping up and spinning around in a dance of death with the humans who slowly
learn to anticipate their moves.
The movie makes smart use of its time travel mechanics. Like
Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, Cruise
takes advantage of his ability to predict behaviors simply because he’s quite
literally been there, done that. There’s some wit in his knowledge of a
multitude of possible events for any given scenario. At one point late in the
movie, Blunt says, “What now?” Cruise responds, “I don’t know. We’ve never made
it this far before.” Like most time travel movies, push a little and it doesn’t
quite add up. But Edge of Tomorrow moves
so unrelentingly quickly, features a pair of solid star performances, and features
a plot-heavy script a tad smarter than you’d think. It’s a fine popcorn
entertainment.
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