Did I write this already? No, wait, stop me if you’ve heard this. Yeah, I know all my reviews sound the same. Screw you. But this one – is this really new or am I rewriting the same thing over and over?
I kid. I kid, because Tom Cruise has found yet another Sci-fi action world to conquer. And when I say, “conquer,” I mean that he gets to conquer and conquer and conquer until he gets it right, finally, and there ain’t no enemies left, capisce? His life is almost literally a video game constantly resetting to the start every.single.day.
Cage (Cruise) is a Major in an international armed effort to thwart alien invaders who look a lot like the robot octopi in The Matrix. I suppose they might look like some of the CGI Transformer enemies, but as I haven’t stayed awake for the entirety of any Transformer film, I can’t say for sure. Cage’s role is sidelines war cheerleading, much like the entirety of the Fox News staff, and when
General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) requests Cage take part in a D-Day effort, Cage refuses. Next thing we see is Private Cage awakening in a military base handcuffed and dazed. This is the video game reset point. Just like Bill Murray awoke every morning in Punxsutawney to “I Got You Babe,” Cruise wakes every morning to handcuffs and a pile of military “luggage.” This is his cage. Get it?
The invasion is a massacre and novice soldier Cage (yes, he was a Major, but knows less about fighting than your average middle child) mostly bumbles around watching other soldiers buy it. And yet, he does manage to take out an “Alpha” before dying himself. Get this – the Alphas reset the clock. They learn and replay the day. This, of course, made me wonder, “wait a sec. How did the aliens know the first invasion was coming?” Never mind. Doused in Alpha alien blood, Cage becomes an Alpha too, and gets to re-live every day with constant memory accumulation so long as he dies during it. (This gets morbidly fun once we get Emily Blunt involved.)
Rita (Blunt) likes taking on the galactic forces of evil with an oversized cricket bat. To each her own. She’s literally the poster child for the war after being the MVP of Verdun, the only human victory in the past five years. How’d she do it? Let’s just say she knows what Cage is going through. I like giving Blunt to us as a guide so we aren’t so blind as an audience; she and Cage naturally share an affinity and it’s nice to see how much more relaxed Cage becomes as his days and deaths repeat, however, I found the weakest part of the screenplay in the need to find sexual tension in the pairing. Would the same occur had Rita been a man?
After Cage is first introduced to his new bunk mates, there’s a throw-away moment that speaks to the quality of the writing in Edge of Tomorrow. Distracted by evidence of a card game, Master Sergeant Farell (Bill Paxton) halts his Cage-baiting to deal with the issue, “how do I feel about gambling?” He barks. 
The Company stands at attention and half-heartedly mouths in unison a philosophy that gambling implies an element of luck of which the sergeant has no tolerance; he believes you control your own fate. Then he makes the soldiers eat the playing cards. The direction makes it clear this isn’t the first time they’ve done this.
I absolutely adore this moment for three reasons:
1) It’s exactly the kind of minor event that can easily lead to the difference between J Company buying into Cage’s story or not at a future date
2) There’s an element of repetitiveness in it. J Company has lived this moment before; in a way, nobody here is any different from the guy who is literally living the same day over and over
3) (And most important) Cage does control his own fate. He gets to live and re-live the day until he gets it right, whatever right means. The element of luck doesn’t apply here; Master Sergeant is more brilliant than he knows.
Edge of Tomorrow will be fairly and unfairly compared to Groundhog Day. It isn’t as good as that (few films are), but it’s nice company to keep. Personally, I love the story line of letting somebody go until he gets it right. Life is so much about routine; it’s easy to imagine the days blending together as if there’s nothing unique among them. It’s a consequence of age. Movies like this are reminders that each day does have something unique to offer if we choose to see something different in it. And maybe we can get it right from time to time. Real life parenting is like this all the time.
Conclusion – this must be the first time I wrote this because otherwise I’d have gotten the review better by now. Solid recommendation all the same.
♪Sitting in cuffs on a runway
Getting called a ‘maggot’ or worse
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday
It’s like a curse
And now I’m back where I started
Died from wounds in combat again
Day after day I get up and I slay
Something alien♫
Rated PG-13, 113 Minutes
D: Doug Liman
W: Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth
Genre: Violent Groundhog Day
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Obsessive video gamers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Leonard from Memento
♪ Parody inspired by “Do It Again”
