Sunday 1 June 2014

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) Review


Edge of Tomorrow (2014) Review
Director – Doug Liman
Stars – Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt

As soon as we heard that Tom Cruise was making another action movie it wasn’t a huge surprise. After all Mr Hollywood has managed to be cast in a variant of ‘photogenic hero’ since the 80’s and he isn’t showing signs of slowing down. However this isn’t a criticism, Cruise has been ‘ahem’ cruising (sorry) through a major blockbuster pretty much every year, each one a standing testament to what he does best. This time round he is joined by Doug Liman who is also an action veteran (The bourne Identity, Mr and Mrs Smith) Thus far so good. Based on the critically acclaimed Japanese novel ‘All You Need is Kill’ by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, the film has a great foundation to work off of and also has high expectations from the original fans.

Within 10 minutes of the film we get a huge chunk of the plot; most of the earth has been taken over by ‘mimics’ jelly fish type robots (think ‘The Matrix’ sentinels with superior CGI) and the cowardly Major Cage (Cruise) has been sent to the front line for an imminent battle across the English channel. Within this battle lies a majority of the action and film. After Cage kills an Alfa Mimic, in the process killing him, he gains the Alfa’s ability to‘re-set’ the day thus giving a ‘Groundhog Day’ effect. This enables Cage to live (and die) the same day over and over again, as this progresses we meet the infamous Rita AKA The full metal Bitch (Blunt). Blunt gives the film a different dynamic as she is the dominant solider, being the first time cruise has played catch up we see a nice element of comedy in the otherwise dramatic battle fields. Liman provides plenty of these action sequences which are able to grip and entertain us, whilst giving them a subtle edge of grit which suits both Cruise and Blunt well. The movie places most of its emphasis on these two leads who share great chemistry, and although we aren’t given a huge amount about Rita’s back story we can grasp a basic idea of her motivation within the war. It’s also refreshing to see a headstrong woman making Cruise feel slightly inferior, her hard exterior makes us attached to their story and the difficulties they face. This said it would have been great to have seen more of both of Cage and Rita’s past and also their future as the film does decide to end with a semi-teaserish feel.

All in all this is defiantly not a standard blockbuster, it has a great script, cast and heart that make it more notable than most of this summer’s offerings. It’s only flaws can be forgiven and although it spoon feeds most of the story it’s hard to judge with its leading man and lady giving it everything on screen. If only more big budget productions based their ideas on well written books rather than Hasbro toys (that’s right Optimus Prime) we would have a higher calibre of cinema.

RATING 4/5


By Joshua Tanner

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