Edge of Tomorrow
It's a good popcorn movie, mainly because, although nothing especially new, its groundhog day format is enough to make it entertaining for the duration. Of course, expect no intelligence and you won't be insulted - this is a screenplay as half-baked from a logic point of view as everything else in the Hollywood blockbuster category and subsequently chock full of utter stupidity that you need to calmly overlook.
Things like:
- The thinness of the time reset premise serving as a vehicle for an interesting movie format. "Oh look, these aliens can reset time and because you absorbed their blood, you can too - because human beings are very likely to be a symbiotic species with an alien race who look like Bob Marley's hair on liquid nitrogen.
- If the aliens can reset time and know Cage is coming, why don't they just reset time to prevent him reaching the Omega in the same way they reset time to win the war. That's surely the dumbest missing link in the movie, especially since they already acknowledged the Omega can find him by telepathy.
- How utterly unbelievable it is that Tom Cruise - a character who has been introduced as a deserter that will do anything to get out of combat, manages to convince an entire crew of soliders to fly with him to Paris on the very first meeting. Granted him knowing all their backgrounds might be a fancy trick, but abandoning base the night before the biggest conflict to fight alongside him at the Louvre - that bunch of dumbheads? No way Jose. They also managed to skip the part where they all magically got out of the base and commandeered a dropship.
Anyway, allowing yourself to look past the holes, stupidity, and inconsistencies usually present in such movies, there's fun to be had. The first twenty minutes are a bit oh dear-ish, but once the reset begins it becomes progressively more engaging.
Performance wise Cruise has got to this kind of serviceable level. He's not an actor as such, and never will be, but he can ably fit into a character role where you just accept him as Tom Cruise and is likeable enough. Emily Blunt was well cast aesthetically, but also quite bland and also just about serviceable.
Bar Bill Paxton the supporting cast are fucking atrocious - utterly useless - and served to highlight all the scripting weaknesses. It all feels so Aliens wannabee and all so mis-timed, poorly delivered and haphazardly written that it errs on embarassing. Script is one issue, but the acting, particularly amongst the generic rag tag squaddies, is appalling. The best way to describe it is like a portion of the Big Brother house winning a task where they get to be in a Hollywood movie, being dumped straight in and made to reel off lines. It's that amateurish.
The promise of the design and visual concept is baked up to about half its potential. It's really all about the suits and the bitch sword - remove those from the set and it would look pretty generic. The alien design is also average at best.
The combat and special effects sequences are good and there's a little tension here and there. I think it falls into that middle section where it's almost an inspiring fresh concept marred by formulaic Hollywood superficiality and thin scripting.
Not overly memorable but better than some, I'd recommend this on a no-brain entertainment basis. See it once (but please only once) and enjoy it for the gimmicky but engaging premise and big explosions. Additionally, the video game theory is undeniable, meaning there's an additional layer of intrigue for us pattern learning fruitcakes. That Cruise basically needs to learn enemy strategy to battle through the movie to defeat boss has clear parallels to gaming concept, and although it doesn't do anything especially more than that, it's still kind of nice play the game alongside him.
