Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence, profanity and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.6.14
Think Groundhog Day on
steroids.
This is slick and suspenseful
action sci-fi, fueled by an intriguing premise and pulse-pounding momentum
courtesy of director Doug Liman and editor James Herbert. Veteran scripter
Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Jack Reacher) and colleagues Jez
Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth clearly have shaped their narrative to fit
star Tom Cruise’s outsized presence, but not in the way that one might expect
(at least, not until the final act).
 |
| As Cage (Tom Cruise, center) listens, his confusion mounting, Carter (Noah Taylor) and Vrataski (Emily Blunt) explain that the thousands upon thousands of ferocious "Mimic" warriors should be regarded as mere appendages of a single controlling hive-mind. Well and good, but where does that leave our outnumbered and overwhelmed Earth forces? |
Like many action stars before
him, Cruise has been “handling” his advancing age — 52 and counting — by
ignoring it completely. In fairness, he has done a pretty good job of that, relying
on muscular feats such as scrambling up the side of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, with
the élan of a stuntman half his age.
Cruise also has a couple of
signature stunts that apparently get written into all of his scripts: You can
always count on at least one scene where an explosion savagely hurls him from
one end of the screen to the other; and another scene that involves surviving a
lengthy fall and a bone-crunching thump as he lands on his back, his pain-contorted
features conveniently facing the camera.
You’ll find both stunts in this
film, as well.
But I come not to bury Cruise,
but to praise him; the march of time notwithstanding, he makes such brawny hokum
work. More to the point, Edge of Tomorrow plays against Cruise’s usual role
as the smartest and most capable person in the room, in this case making the
signature ear-splitting grin and Mr. Slick aura work against the character in
question. That’s both unexpected and clever, not to mention rather savvy on
Cruise’s part; it makes both him and the film that much more interesting.
Edge of Tomorrow started life
as All You Need Is Kill, a 2004 sci-fi novel by Japanese author Hiroshi
Sakurazaka and illustrator Yoshitoshi ABe. The futuristic setting finds Earth
under siege by an invading alien armada of ferocious biomechanical “Mimics”
that seem able to overcome anything we can throw at them (and, rather
unfortunately for this big-screen adaptation, bear a striking resemblance to
the nastier Decepticons in the Transformers movie franchise).
Sakurazaka’s protagonist is a
ground-level grunt in the United Defense Force. Taking an entirely different
approach, Cruise stars as Maj. William Cage, a smooth-talking military
glad-hander who has called upon his previous experience as an advertising exec,
to orchestrate the gung-ho PR campaign that has made so many young men and
women eager to don battle armor and die for the global cause.
Cage has been careful, however,
to ensure that dying is something for other people; he wants nothing to do with
the front-line assault that has been mounted against the otherworldly invaders
that have captured all of Western Europe. Unfortunately, Cage unwisely
irritates a four-star general — Brendan Gleeson, perfectly cast as the dour
Brigham — who has no patience for smug “bystanders.”
