Topic: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)
This hasn't opened in the USA yet, but opened in Europe last week. For Christ's sake, don't read this as it contains spoilers!!!
95% on Rotten Tomatoes! This has gotta be the greatest thing since sliced bread, right?
It's been a year since Oblivion and Tom Cruise is saving the Earth from aliens again. It even ends in a similar way - the ol' suicide bomber-as-hero trope.
Like Oblivion, it's assembled from a dozen other sci-fi movies. But computer games are its primary inspiration... mech suits, respawning, helpful friendly frags, and boss levels. Primary demographic is 14-19 year old boys.
There's a lot of shooting (but at least there's no punching this time). Half the movie seems like it's relentless loud firing - of the ineffectual 'Starship Troopers' kind where it requires 10,000 bullets to take down one alien. Of course, Emily Blunt's blunt machete can kill instantly.
We've seen a lot of the set pieces before e.g. Matrix Revolutions' attack on Zion.
Off the top of my head, the ingredients are: Source Code, Saving Private Ryan, Matrix Revolutions, Aliens, Groundhog Day, Crysis, and Starship Troopers.
The chemistry between Cruise and Blunt ranges from mildly snarky to extra snarky. Everyone has Asperberger's, which is the standard characterization trope for 21st century Hollywood movies and TV shows. There are no real other characters. A few broadly sketched cardboard cut-outs we've seen done better elsewhere. As usual, Cruise sucks all the star power out of the rest of the cast. A Cruise movie is a movie where there's only Cruise. He doesn't do ensembles.
On the plus side, there's some good humour moments. As expected these days for any near-$200M movie, the VFX can't be faulted. I'm sure it's 90% greenscreen, but the compositing and CG is fine.
Some of the action is frenetic, and even sitting in the back row of IMAX, it was hard to tell what was happening sometimes. The 3rd act is at night and a little murky.
Score - loud.
Plot inconsistencies - why was a US Major (specializing in PR) assigned to the J-Squad grunts? Dunno. Why did Emily want to fly the chopper even though Cruise always told her there's a Mimic nearby? She listened to him up until then as he had prior knowledge of events. Why didn't she unhook the trailer? Why was there only one Alpha guarding the big boss Omega? On the final reset in the epilogue, why was the Paris power surge detected in the morning of the repeating day instead of that night? Why are they called "mimics" when they don't mimic? Why are there mimic squids buried at random places in the French countryside?
Does the movie end with Cruise becoming Bill Murray and learning to say the right things until he can bed Emily (who's young enough to be his daughter)?
In summary, I'd rank this slightly below Oblivion as it lacks the Oblivion's superb production design and M83 score. On the other hand it's got more action and humour. So depends on what floats your boat.
So what did you guys think? Would you rather play the computer game?
