Review: Edge Of Tomorrow

Ditching Groundhog Day for a more ground-and-pound approach.................

______________________________________________

Doug Liman has already proved himself in the action genre with directing The Bourne Identity and Mr. And Mrs. Smith. So how does his latest sci-fi action thriller Edge Of Tomorrow, adapted from Hiroshi Sakuruzaka's All You Need Is Kill, hold up against his previous outings?

When a meteor hits central Europe and releases an invasion of alien beings named 'Mimics' who begin killing millions, resulting in them controlling most of Europe. The worlds forces unite, creating a new mechanical exo-suit that enables even the untrained civilian to take a place on the battlefield. When Major. William Cage (Tom Cruise), a public-relations officer for the NATO-led United Defence Forces (UDF), is summoned to London a day before a planned attack to re-take France. He is tricked by the General and taken to a military base which will be the launch-point of the attack. Stripped of his rank and branded as a deserter, Cage now faces the reality of going to the battlefield for the first time. When the combined military forces reach the beaches of France the enemy is unexpectedly waiting for them. In the chaos of the battle Cage kills a strange Mimic and dies as a result of it's blood burning him alive. Suddenly Cage wakes up on the military base the day before, with events happening in the exact same way. After dying and repeating the same day over and over, Cage saves the life of Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a famous soldier known as "Full Metal Bitch" and the "Angel of Verdun". When Rita tells Cage to find her when he wakes up, Cage soon learns that he may be mankind's last hope in winning the war.

First off I would just like to say that I have not read All You Need Is Kill so I'm not familiar with the source material so this is just purely a review of the film itself.
When I first saw the trailer for Edge Of Tomorrow my Thoughts were "Meh, just another bleak sci-fi invasion film that will flop!" but boy how I wrong! It just goes to show how much harm a bad marketing campaign can do to a film. A good movie trailer should capture the tone of the film and give us an insight of what the film is about, and the trailer for this film completely missed the mark. In the trailer it gave you a sense that this movie was going to have a doom and gloom tone and didn't really give us a sense what the film was about. When In reality the film is actually full of humour that works perfectly in keeping you entertained throughout. 

What is by now a concept that feels like it has been nearly worn out is executed perfectly thanks to a rocksteady script and Doug Liman's expert direction. Tom Cruise plays the role perfectly as you see him transform from a guy with genuine fear and cowardice into a complete badass. Plus it was a revelation to see that Emily Blunt is a very capable in an action-heavy role, which is something I couldn't have imagined before seeing the film. The way the film is edited makes you feel frustrated, but in a good way, for Cruise's character because you can't help but imagine how horrible it must be for this character to live the same events and see the same people die over an over. Plus it's paced really well and doesn't drag out explanations more than it needs to.

It really angers me when I see a mega-franchise like Transformers pumping out steaming piles of crap and making hundreds of millions in box office revenue when you have a funny, intelligent, great piece of sci-fi like Edge Of Tomorrow being dismissed because of a bad marketing campaign. If you're looking for well thought out, entertaining sci-fi then watch Edge Of Tomorrow, and unlike Transformers, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Rating: ★★★★☆

By Matthew Trick