What do you get when you cross Groundhogs Day, Independence day, and Super Mario Brothers?
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“The Edge of Tomorrow” stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in an action filled Science-Fiction War flick where Cruise’s character finds himself waking up to the same day over and over and over again, and how he uses this strange phenomenon to fight an aggressively attacking alien race. The movie is high concept and high octane, two things I’m usually a big fan of, but did they work for me here? Yeah, they sure did.
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I had a blast at this movie. Let’s start off with the fact that the movie is just made well. It’s tight, well paced, and just flat out good film making. It’s exactly what a summer blockbuster should be; clever, fun, and edge of the seat entertainment. Plus it gives Tom Cruise another vehicle to just be Tom Cruise. He seems to have found this pretty nice little niche for himself in these high concept sci fi thrillers that allow him to both be an action hero and a journeyman. Whether it be Oblivion, Minority Report, or even War of the Worlds, Cruise has this aggressive stubbornness to him that fits really well with that kind of material. And it’s no different here. He’s given a really fun playground and he leaps through it with fervor. Emily Blunt is also solid as his eventual partner in this discovery. A discovery, by the way, that though fairly high concept is handled with a real sense of truth to it. Many times these kind of science fiction ideas seem under thought out, or blind to their own faults, but I found the way they explored the idea of these day repeats to be conceptually sound and really, really interesting. I would even say the best thing. I never once found myself caught up in logical missteps or ridiculous reality challenges (with one major exception I’ll get to later). Now, I know so many will reference Groundhogs Day when talking about this film, and for good reason, but for me the concept was much more video game than movie. You could just feel things like checkpoints, restarts, and real life cutscenes informing how they shot and edited this. I’m not sure if you’ve ever played the time shifting game “Braid” but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was was watching a demo reel for the next COD, “Call of Duty:Braid Protocol” maybe, I don’t know. But those homages are all over the place.
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And that’s actually my main issue with an otherwise really solid flick, it feel like we’ve been here before. Though the moments and concepts were interesting, I rarely felt like a hadn’t seen it somewhere else. Almost as if I had lived this movie before. I know, ironic, right? Truthfully though, those were fleeting moments and the strength of the plot and performances quickly moved me back into this world. Plus I have to mention that I did find the end to be a conceptual stretch and a bit confusing, but it’s the one exception to an otherwise sound movie experience.
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At the end of the day, “The Edge of Tomorrow” is a great movie experience. Even if the concept might give you a bit of deja vu, the clever action, and solid performances make for movie I don’t mind repeating. I give it an A-
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