Today's Review: Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow: ***/*****, or 6/10

Remember Oblivion? Odd question, considering the meaning of the word, but chances are good you don't. It was a rather poor Sci-Fi blockbuster released last year, in which mankind has left the planet after a devastating war with an alien force, and now Tom Cruise is harvesting the last few natural resources. Or so he thinks, as things are not what they appear to be. Apart from Cruise, the movie co-starred Tom Cruise as several clones of the protagonist. That didn't save the movie from becoming overly convoluted. A cynic might be inclined to think Edge of Tomorrow repeats Oblivion's many mistakes, and he or she would not be fully wrong. Edge of Tomorrow, too, has a rather messy plot involving aliens in which Tom Cruise dies multiple times, at which point Tom Cruise takes over. However, Edge of Tomorrow utilizes a more tongue-in-cheek approach to its overall plot to, hopefully consciously, underscore the absurdity of the situation. Good thing too, as it is indeed all quite laughable and too serious a tone would not have worked in its favour. Too bad such a tone does creep in eventually, to the film's detriment.

Edge of Tomorrow is set in the not too distant future where a strange extraterrestrial enemy has rapidly conquered all of Europe and threatens to do likewise to the rest of the globe. Earth's human nations have banded together in an attempt to fight off the adversary together. All their battles have been lost, save for one, where metal armoured female soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) made the difference in defeating the aliens. By applying similar combat harnesses to every soldier available and sending them en masse to invade France, humanity hopes to retake the continent and annihilate the enemy for good. Of course, things are not as simple as they seem, and the aliens have a few tricks up their sleeve yet. For one thing, time loops.

Enter the much dreaded Tom Cruise, who does a most unusual thing here: he plays against character. In this film, Cruise is not starring as the monotonously brave action hero as is his wont, but instead as a cowardly marketing agent for the military, who suddenly finds himself accused of desertion when he makes it clear he doesn't feel like covering the invasion to a stern and gruff general's face (Brendan Gleeson). Thrown in with a bunch of ragtag recruits – a merry band of comic relief characters, angry loudmouths and assorted personas that wouldn't fit in any regular regiments – Cruise is dragged off to battle and there left to fend for himself. Of course, he quickly kicks the bucket in a close quarter skirmish with one of the vicious alien monsters. And then he wakes up back at base, and everything starts over again, much to his dismay as he doesn't do better the second time. Or the third. Try convincing your commanding officer – a distinctly over-the-top Bill Paxton, now given command of a similar batch of marines he once belonged to himself in Aliens – of being stuck in a time loop ad infinitum. Needless to say he doesn't, so Cruise must find a way to discover what has happened to him and how to use it to his advantage, instead of continue dying without end.

So far so good, as the notion of time looping, a trite but true concept few audiences will be unfamiliar with thanks to movies as diverse as Groundhog Day and Source Code, is handled with enough confidence and fun not to feel repetitive (no pun intended). In fact, repetition is cleverly avoided after the first few loops, as Cruise's character remembers events and tries to alter them in differently enough ways so as not to get boring. This approach too causes problems in the long run, as Cruise dies so many times (hundreds, if not thousands, it is suggested) that the plot soon trots along and seemingly ignores the whole concept, just to further the ever more intricate story. The reason behind the time loops and the method of fighting the sinister aliens that caused it soon start to become so convoluted and ridiculous that the ingredient of fun which at first characterized it is ever more lost. What's worse, Cruise resorts to playing a more typical heroic role as the film progresses, while it's the sleaze bag aspect to his part that initially made him interesting to watch. At least his chemistry with the tough but emotionally unapproachable Rita, who faced a similar ability in the previous battle but lost her looping powers, is watchable enough as long as the Hollywood romance looming in the background is kept at bay. In terms of acting, Paxton's cocky performance suits the tone of the film best, which makes it all the more regrettable that the moment he's out of the picture, Edge of Tomorrow schizophrenically feels the need to get serious. Naturally it includes an all too predictable 'what the F!' type ending that suggests you need to think things over to see if it all fits, but unfortunately doesn't make you care enough to do so.

Until that time there's enough to make the viewing experience passable at best. Aside from Paxton, Blunt too does her bit with plenty of pizzazz as the strong spirited yet haunted and not too morally correct power girl, rife with entertainingly flamboyant demeanour. Nevertheless, it's the grandiose battle scenes that demand the most attention, as Edge of Tomorrow makes it progressively clear it intends to be an action movie more than the self aware comedy it could at first be accused of being, until the comic elements are just thrown out the window entirely. The notion of a futuristic landing on the beach of Normandy – not coincidentally reminiscent of the actual D-Day Allied landing in World War II – where men in battle armour fight weird alien creatures, proves hard to resist, but its execution leaves a few things to be desired. In many cases it's not easy to make out what exactly is transpiring, mostly due to the extreme detail and chaotic camera work, which do make the mass fights seem more realistic. The design of the aliens also doesn't help, as they keep violently moving about which makes it hard to see them as something other than a shapeless bunch of tentacles rolling around. It enhances the sense of battle immersion, but makes it difficult to appreciate the digital craftsmanship that went into designing what otherwise might have been epic scenes of war.

Edge of Tomorrow is a definite step up from the thoroughly forgetful Oblivion, but still a far cry from, say, Minority Report, Tom Cruise's earlier venture into the realm of science fiction. The movie sadly switches tones halfway through, without successfully having secured the audience's allegiance to accept such change. Worse, the more the plot progresses, the harder it is for the audience to remain focused, as things have to be taken with too big a grain of salt eventually, while the good humoured use of time loops ultimately gets lost in the mess of an incoherent plot. Cruise, always hard to take seriously as an actor due to his larger than life star status, pleasantly surprises the spectator in the beginning, before reverting to his standard performance. In this regard, you could state his career is caught in a similar loop; minor variations do occur occasionally, but he always reverts to his established routine.