Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow

Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow

Rated PG-13

113 minutes

Directed by Doug Liman

It feels so good to be validated. I've been this films #1 champ since Comic-Con 2013, saying that this could be great, and despite naysayers along the way, I've stayed with this film through and through.  And I have to say, the thanks I get is a huge validation, a feeling I don't feel enough. This movie is great fun, with all sorts of great action sequences draping the halls.

I like that this movie doesn't consider us to be idiots, and decides that showing us the same sequences over and over is a bad thing. Instead, except for the first three times, the film focuses on telling a story, letting us know that time has passed, Will Cage (Tom Cruise) has been through these things a lot, and that we have enough memory to see the changes Cage goes through. Also, the film doesn't cop out by having the plot device of "if you shoot this one thing in battle, everything will be ok!" They could've done a "kill the alpha, kill the rest" type thing. Instead, the writers and director decide to make the thing that would weaken the creatures require a huge amount of effort, and that the humans have no chance of winning without dying. That so rarely happens in movies that it feels refreshing.

It's really entertaining also. Seeing Cruise die repeatedly is darkly funny, as well as Paxton's reactions to death/Cruise's warnings. The action is well filmed, as the scope is wide and the film shows it clearly. A lot of the entertainment comes from Cruise, who plays the coward-turned-action hero so perfectly well. He's a sniveling little brat in the beginning, and seeing the character turn into a macho action hero is fun to see.

Edge of Tomorrow gave me something I don't get a lot. I put about 6 months into being the film's backer, and I got rewarded greatly. This is a well-executed film that's one of the best blockbusters of recent summers (as seems to be the case with a lot of this summer's blockbusters). This summer's proving to be a great one for movies. The validation=received.

4/5

B+