Edge of Tomorrow
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Paxton, Jonas Armstrong, Tony Way, Kick Gurry, Franz Drameh, Dragomir Mrsic, Charlotte Riley, Noah Taylor
Rating: (M)
3 stars (out of 5)
Three years ago I saw a movie called Source Code, in which Jake Gyllenhaal played a man who died in an explosion and then through diabolical science is forced to relive over and over the last 20 minutes of his life until he can work out who set the bomb.
Edge of Tomorrow (Rialto) is pretty much the same film except Tom Cruise plays Major William Cage, a slimy PR guy sent into battle against aliens for no good reason except that General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) does not like him.
Cage does not last long in combat, but for some strange reason keeps coming back to life and reliving his last day.
It is not a day that anyone would willingly return to, but once Cage gets used to the notion that this is how he will be spending his time from now on, he starts to push the boundaries of just how long he can fight the aliens until he dies again.
Fortunately, the movie mostly spares us the tedium of the endless loop as Cage gets his skills up and running.
He finds an ally in Rita (Emily Blunt), a highly decorated soldier who lived her own time loop until the effect wore off, and together they inch their way towards defeating the aliens. And that is pretty much it.
Source Code ran out of steam because Gyllenhaal's character could never get off the train. Here Cage has more scope, being able to roam at will but mostly it is the same thing over and over.
Best thing: Cruise does an excellent job playing a yellow-livered PR hack for the first part of the film. It is a pleasure to watch him be killed.
Worst thing: I am not sure that I buy the premise that if you kept reliving one day you would be able over time to train yourself to become a super-duper killing machine.
See it with: A hunger to see Tom get it - over and over.
