Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)


A military officer is brought into an alien war against an extraterrestrial enemy who can reset the day and know the future. When this officer is enabled with the same power, he teams up with a Special Forces warrior to try and end the war.  Short synopsis of Edge of Tomorrow taken from IMDb.com   

"Edge of Tomorrow."  What, you couldn't come up with a title that didn't sound any more like a soap opera series?  Like maybe "Groundhog Day 2: Edgier Tomorrow"?

As for the film itself, I thought it was an interesting take on the alien invasion theme.  It was actually pretty cliche until the whole "aliens can manipulate time and that is how they plan to win the war against us"-bit.  That was very clever, I thought.


I thought that Edge of Tomorrow had an interesting take on how a character in a video game might feel if they had to play the same level over and over again.  Imagine that hero in some first person shooter ("FPS" for those in the know) was actually sentient, and they personally experienced the missions you keep dying on over and over.  Resetting every time they die to that first moment again.  That is, rather than being just encoded ones and zeros in a computer's memory.  And really, here's hoping all the video game characters I've gotten killed over the years didn't have real feelings, or else I am a terrible, terrible human being, and so are all those people who play games at all - you know who you are; no need to raise your hands. 

Anyway, the getting killed over and over and restarting at the beginning and having to do it all over would get pretty tedious, as the film demonstrates effectively.  But in many games, that is how they evolve their content (or should I say DON'T evolve, but that's a gripe for a different time and place), as the scripted events come at you like clockwork and once you know how to beat each, it is only a matter of just having great reflexes and a touch of good luck. OK, the video game analogy ends here.  You can breath a sigh of relief and proceed to the next analogy, good sir or madam.

Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  In this scene, Murray's character has discovered that he is repeating the same day over and over, and has decided to try suicide as a method of escape.  The obligatory "Don't Try This At Home, folks!" naturally follows here. / Source: livingrepeatedly.wordpress.com

It would be remorse of me to neglect specifically mentioning the whole Groundhog Day theme.  You know, the classic day from hell film from comedic genius Bill Murray?  Go look it up, if you don't know what I'm talking about.  I'd bet money whoever thought up Edge of Tommorrow's plot sparked on that movie at some point.  It'd be hard not to, really.

Hmmmm... What else?  Of course, I gotta gripe about the aliens being so dumb as to put something on the battlefield that actually can cause a temporal rift like that.  I mean, here's an alien critter that actually can be used by either side, if the humans are lucky and great caution is not exerted, to change time.  Change time.  No, I'm not stuck in my own temporal loop (or am I?).  I simply wanted to say that twice, because hey - that's damn significant! I know, the movie explains it away as the aliens being vulnerable to our innate "humanity," but still...  These are fundamentally dumb aliens, if you ask me.  If the U.S. government had a machine or artifact or snowcone maker that could alter time, you'd not find it in a million years unless you were specifically supposed to be allowed access to it.  And then you'd need a clearance level next to the Good Lord Himself in order to actually be in the same room as the thing.

Any sensible commander would never put something this potentially catastrophe-inducing on a battlefield.  And I know, they are aliens and so they don't think like we do.  That's why they lost. / Source: framestore.com

I did like that the depiction of the aliens isn't too easily related to by humans.  Finally something that isn't a giant bug or a squid or something else that is Earth-like.  Not these "Mimics."  These things could really be extraterrestrial.  For one thing, they don't move like much of anything that we humans know (except sea-life, but hey - truly envisioning something alien is tough for minds that haven't been touched by that sort of experience, I guess).  But I wasn't buying the aliens' "angry primal faces"-bit.  Yes, we as an audience need to feel some revulsion for the beasties, and so be able to relate to some degree to them, but the Mimics' faces were too earth-centric.  They evinced emotional states we can relate to, which breaks the alien-ness of the film's premise.

And of course, an alien species that fights us on our own terms?  Yeah, I actually believe in the alien that treats us like we'd treat a hive of particularly annoying and potentially pain-causing insects.  Bug bomb them into the stone age.  Low casualties for them, high for us.  That's what I mean.  But really, that makes a real dull action film.  So...  one-on-one action and battle scenes that any veteran of Normandy - all twelve of them left, that is (I salute the men and women who served in World War II and Godspeed/much happiness to you in the life hereafter, since it's been near seventy years since the war ended and those vets will soon all be gone from thus life) - would feel creepily familiar with.

I must say, I liked Cruise and Blunt's performances.  Especially how Cruise managed to evolve his character from a regular low-life coward to an alien killing-machine.  And kudos for making the team he goes in with, "J" squad, ugly.  Not a looker in the bunch.  And I did appreciate the guy who played Hudson from Aliens being the non-com.  I wonder if Paxton enjoyed the role as much as he seemed to, being the leader of these miserable dog-faces. 


The above video clip contains SPOILERS, so if you don't want to be in suspense on the film's plot, I suggest skipping it until after you've seen Edge of Tomorrow.  On the other hand, I always enjoy "Everything Wrong With" videos, as they usually hit all the issues that break a movie.

Edge of Tomorrow had other things going for it as well.  Such as the touches of humor it manages to use handily.  For instance, at one point mid-way through, Cruise's character attempts to escape from his army minders by rolling under a moving vehicle, and fails to make it, leading to his accidental death and his reset back to the beginning.  The reaction by the character to being hit by a car while trying to be all Jackie Chan-ish was funny, and relate-able.

I suppose in the final analysis and with all things considered, Edge of Tomorrow was worth the cheap seats admission.  Yes, its climactic scenes were predictable, with Cruise and company going in to find and kill the head alien, and of course, succeeding at very great cost (though the films concluding moments I liked, with Blunt's character being oblivious and Cruise's character all lovey-dovey). 

Overall, it was a good romp of sci-fi time travel.  Recommended for a once-over, at least.  And as of my notes, Edge of Tomorrow is in Redbox, so I'd certainly say it was buck and a half worthy.  In fact, I'll go so far as to say that it'll lose something on the smaller screen, because those battle scenes were sure pretty on the silver screen.  I found myself ducking occasionally as a piece of human technology would blow up and throw shrapnel all over the place.  Cool stuff.


The parting comment:


As for the whole video game "living over and over again in a loop"-theme, this short parody of the Katy Perry song "Wide Awake" handles it semi-humorously.