Edge of Tomorrow
The first thing I found interesting as I was finally watching Doug Liman’s new sci-fi thriller, “Edge of Tomorrow,” is how the studio chose June 6, the 70th anniversary of D-Day, to release the film, which centers on a massive military incursion on the part of the good guys into enemy territory during a global war. I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t hear more about this at the time of the film’s release, but really, as I’m bringing it up, I find myself question why it would have needed to be brought up at all, since the comparison doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie. It’s just an fascinating coincidence, perhaps.
Regardless, “Edge of Tomorrow” would be fascinating no matter where it landed on the release schedule. The film may have drawn comparisons to “Groundhog Day” with it’s perpetual reset back to a particular day and time, but Liman (whose last sci-fi film was the limp actioner, “Jumper”) is a director who doesn’t shy away from playing with storytelling conventions when it serves a rich story. (Remember “Go” and “The Bourne Identity?”) And even though the screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez & John-Henry Butterworth plays to formula more than a few times, Liman injects some real energy into the film that a lesser filmmaker couldn’t muster. It doesn’t hurt that his stars are Tom Cruise (who is always up for a challenge) and Emily Blunt, neither of whom are devoid of experience in sci-fi intrigue.
Cruise stars as Major Cage, a US public relations officer who is sent to the front lines of a massive offensive in an alien-human war that has been confined to Europe, but risks spreading throughout the globe because the aliens in question, known as Mimics. He tells the commanding officer (Brendon Gleeson) that he’s not wanting to go on the front-lines– he’s a desk man, a talking head. He’s not ready for combat. Before he knows it, Cage is knocked out, handcuffed, and is woken up by a hard-ass officer (Bill Paxton) and taken to his squad, which is sort of the rejects pile, and will be among the first to drop in massive exoskeleton battle suit, which have helped turn the tide of the war. Little do the forces know that they’re dropping into a slaughter, even with a star combatant named Rita (Blunt), know as Full Metal B@%!* after a stunning victory against the Mimics. But Rita knows something, and Cage is about to learn something, that will have deep ramifications as to the outcome of this war, for better or worse.
There’s not a lot of depth to the story beyond that– it doesn’t become a commentary on war and how things are worth fighting for, and simply works as a cinematic video game, as Cage “respawns” after he dies because he has absorbed the Mimics’s blood when we see him on the battlefield. The truth is, the film works perfectly fine on that level, and is a smart piece of technical filmmaking from Liman and his collaborators, driven by a compelling hook of a story and strong lead performances by Cruise (who has a blast playing each variation of Cage’s day) and Blunt (who really should be a bigger star by now). This is an action thriller with brains and some imagination to it, which is never a bad thing during summers where most filmmakers would rather have their audience just check out, and not think about what they’re watching. I’ll take something like what Liman offers up any day of the week.
