Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
by Doug Liman
Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, and else.
Plot/Background
Aliens, Tom Cruise. OK, enough with his personal belief.
Anyway, it is a classic invasion movies. The beginning credit features a lot of newscasts from various real world media about the impending invasion from mysterious alien that landed in Hamburg. It then captures the whole Europe in similar fashion and outreach as the Nazi Germany back in WW2 (as shown in the map).
The alien is called mimic, semi-metallic creature with a lot of tendrils, very blindingly quick. Humans fight them with powered exoskeleton suit. They referenced Verdun, where a Samus Aran-like hero chic Rita Vrataski (which director Doug Liman says "Joan of Arc"-like) made her fame. Emily Blunt played her, complete with the sexy British accent.
Tom Cruise is Major William Cage, a US Army officer, now in UDF joint forces created by NATO to retake the mainland Europe. He is propagandist guy with not combat experience, and somehow are thrown into an all-out invasion of Europe, through the French coastlines. It is unclear why, because the plot fucks all logic, including the comical WW2 Normandy invasion repeat.
A supposedly unexpected landing was met with fierce resistance from the mimics, tearing up the soldiers landing on the beach. Cage, being inexperienced died after giving everything he had. But then he wakes up at the base, on the previous day, giving the impression that it was just a dream.
But he will soon find out what really happened and has to save the humanity with his experience and newfound power.
[SPOILER ALERT]
When he died in the first day at the beach, Cage's suicide killed an unusually large mimic using claymore mine explosion, ripping the mimic and Cage's body apart, therefore allowing their blood to mix together. This large mimic is called Alpha, and has the power of the mimic's hivemind brain, which is to reset time. The mixing of the blood, allowed Cage to conveniently resets time when he dies.
Sessions after sessions of repeat, from the main base at Heathrow to the French beach, he finally connects with Vrataski "Angel of Verdun." Together they overcome their gaming session with greater dexterity and experience. Joined by Dr. Carter (Noah Taylor), a scientist deemed lunatic by the UDF officials, they solve the puzzle on how to permanently defeat the mimics using their own power. Along with keeping up with the consequences of repeating your life numerous time while retaining your consciousness from the previous session.
Review
It is gamey-like, an action platformer. But that alone is a major spoiler, just like the tagline "Live-Die-Repeat." You are given a setting where you can be a game player, without the risk of leaving this world forever when you die, because there is a save point somewhere in the life which you can't decide exactly where. That's the main plot device in this movie.
Silly setting and background aside, the movie is a solid entertainer. Action, suspense, comedy, drama, love story. It is a complete movie in action game-based theme package. A total nerdfest. It must be a total blast for generally nerdy-positive 2014 movie goers. But it is also engaging for more mature audiences as well, because it contains some good amount of drama.
Personally, I think the movie is silly, a lot of plot holes, questionable military judgment, and forcefully thrown in plot devices (Tom Cruise's power). But like Pacific Rim and other movies with weak plots and storyline, it manages to polish the weakness with good acting and balanced amount of final editing. Re-watching all of the sequences of Tom Cruises' gaming sessions with his lives is surprisingly not boring here. We were made to imagine that he must have gone through +1,000 boring live-die-repeat and still manage to put his sanity together. Good job. Any gamers would have cheated half way through the attempts.
Verdict
It must be very difficult to tell such a complex story in less than 3 hours. The scene selections, the cutting, the editing is very brilliant. It doesn't require massive amount of intelligence to fully understand the whole plot concept, a rare thing in post-2010 movies. I give it a generous 7.5/10.
As a military hobbyist, you can't set aside those gaping stupidity of the whole invasion idea.
