Live. Die. Repeat (Edge of Tomorrow) [2014] -- Sci-Fi, Action

Grade: B
Stars: 8

"It was basically a cross between Battle L.A and Groundhogs day. It's fucking awesome."


Edge of Tomorrow is a recent summer sci-fi flick featuring Tom Cruise. This movie is similar but less gritty sci-fi than Elysium and less novel than District 9. It was good, not amazing. The action was pretty fantastic though--and that's really what this movie was at its core. The basic premise of the plot (again there will be spoilers) is Tom Cruise (Cage) gets forced into battle, fights an alien, and somehow acquires the Alien's power to reset the day every time he dies. It was interesting.

This movie was what I consider "self-aware" but only to a fault. The movie avoided many of the cliche tropes, and kept very true to the style of "serious business" and didn't transgress too far into the gray area of cliches. To elaborate on this, there was none of the following: Ringing ear scene, generic comic relief black-guy line, stupid over played generic slow-mo, massive explosions etc.

However, it still held true to the cliche of cyber-punk, featuring the classic scenes like 'first person view HUD display', mech suits, bad ass babes, and aliens. It was basically a cross between Battle L.A and Groundhogs day. 

The movie itself was not as stunning as I wished it was, but did seem relatively realistic. Basically, this movie was no Sucker Punch, but at least it made some sense. It's more of a chase movie than a thinking movie. True to form, it's almost explicitly the same movie (save for plot) in style, delivery, and dialogue as MI3 (also Cruise) [not 4].

There are some pretty interesting scenes in it, which certainly makes the movie worth a watch, but there isn't anything profound like Minority Report (another Cruise flick). The technology is pretty badass and the exo-suits aren't overplayed, making it very believable. The acting was decent and certainly a step up from last years catastrophe that was Oblivion (also Cruise).

But, now comes my problem with it. The plot. The god damn plot or lack there of. Anytime you mess with time travel you're doomed. One of the things Groundhogs day did so well was highlight the realism of what it would be like to live the same day again and again. This movie fails on that front, and a fails very hard.

Cage (Cruise) is supposed to meet up with some bad-ass "Full metal bitch" and get her off the Normandy (I think) beach. For days and days and probably years he relives the same day again and again, each time memorizing like a video-game save state how to get off the beach. Eventually, he does. Yay...right? But here was my problem. Without giving tons of spoilers, suffice to say that in all the time he has to re-live the same day again and again, you would think rather than concentrating on going back to a beach and dying every day again and again...maybe he'd just commandeer a jet?

Further, the power is acquired via blood. The girl he meets explains that she used to have the same power until she lost it. She gives some half ass explanation about "You'll get visions of the omega alien is closing in on finding you" (the one that resets time when it's alphas die). Imagine the eye of Sauron. But here's the problem. He asks "well how did you lose the power" and she says some bullshit about getting hurt and having to get a blood transfusion and therefore it removed the alien blood and she lost the power. Now, assuming she could somehow "sense" that she lost the power, she'd have to be extra careful not to die...It's a pretty big plot hole and leads into the incredibly broken final act of this movie when Cage gets said transfusion and "doesn't feel" the power anymore. It's pretty bad.

The plot, similar to Star Trek, existed only to show cool things. The plot was scattered, disconnected, and unexplained. The amount of major plot holes is astounding, and inexcusable. If you're going to see this movie, don't go in assuming it's going to blow your mind. It's an average sci-fi flick. I had very high hopes, and it under preformed. Granted, not as hard as Oblivion did last year. Overall, the tech was cool, the plot was ass, the aliens were cool, and the action was cool enough for a PG-13 movie. Part of what made D9 and Elysium so good was their darker vibe that this one lacked.