Lemme kick this one off with a little trivia: The one and only Tom Cruise has played two Jacks in the last couple of years (in 2012’s Jack Reacher, obviously, since he obviously took on the title character, and in Oblivion last spring) as he attempted to a comeback and then another – per everyone else’s thinking.
Which, I maintain, is silly talk ’cause the Cruiseter never really went anywhere, IMHO.
Either way, the actor is taking a break from Jack-in’ around to play a Bill in Doug Liman’s surprisingly unbuzzy (seriously, WTF!) Edge of Tomorrow. The adaptation of the Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Of the three movies, this one’s the better proposition because this one – and I mean no disrespect at all to either Rosamund Pike or Andrea Riseborough – has Emily Blunt more than holding her own opposite the superstar, as the badass that trains his character, a cowardly military mouthpiece, shaping him into the weapon that will save the planet.
Now what is this sci-fi business about reliving the same day over and over again, Groundhog Day- or Source Code-style?
Cruise plays Maj. William Cage, you see, a public relations man who has just sold the world on these super-powered exoskeletons the world’s armed forces should use to fend off the Mimics, these arachnid-y, squid-y out-of-worlders that have taken over most of continental Europe. That is humanity’s best hope, yet, for whatever reason, a British general (Brendan Gleeson) has decided that Bill should join a platoon scheduled to arrive in France (shades of Normandy) the next morning.
Which – Playing Against Type Alert! – isn’t Bill’s kind of mission: he is not in the least combat-ready...or into blood.
Alas, this isn’t a suggestion but an order (Bill Paxton pops in as his new sergeant), and Bill ships off (OK, the reason is he has to chronicle the success rate of the armor), and while he tries to figure out HTF he’s ever gonna make it, he comes into contact with a very special sort of alien that unwittingly bestows on him a very special ability that basically allows him to reset the day, taking with him the knowledge he starts to gain with very new tomorrow.
He takes everything he learns to Blunt’s Rita Vrataski, a Special Forces legend who once got caught in a similar loop herself and, together, they set off to liberate mankind.
Which they attempt to do, repeatedly and ever so entertainingly.
Going to the Edge of Tomorrow is what you should do this summer. The logic behind it is totally sensical, so, you know...that’s half the battle right there.
And the action’s top-notch, as it would be the wont of any Cruise vehicle, but it is especially so because Liman (working off a script by written by Cruise’s current favored go-to guy, Christopher McQuarrie, and Jez and John-Henry Butterworth) intersperses good doses of humor in between story repeats rather expertly.
Edge of Tomorrow very well may be on the edge of your musts this season, but it would be a mistake to skip it.
It’s a good thing.
My Rating ***1/2
Photo: WeGotThisCovered.com.
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