Review of Edge of Tomorrow (2014) by Lee W — 15 Mar 2015

Ever play one of those fiendishly difficult action platform games of the NES era? You know, where the only way to succeed was trial and error: try, die, learn, repeat? Well, that's the central concept with Edge of Tomorrow, which sees Tom Cruise's military PR tosspot become the hero of all mankind when he gains the unlikely ability to reset the last day of his life every time he dies fighting alien interlopers in this watchable sci-fi mashup of Groundhog Day and Saving Private Ryan.

I say watchable, because that's what it is; take two of the most engaging stars in Hollywood in Cruise and Emily Blunt, whose very presence seems to elevate everything she appears in, chuck in director Doug Liman, known for Swingers, The Bourne Identity and the underrated Go, and adapt a popular Japanese young fiction novel and you end up with an efficient, if not spectacular, sci-fi actioner. The difficulty with Edge of Tommorow is that taking a second to consider pretty much anything that happens reveals just how ridiculous the entire story is; it's at the same time an example of how great and how terrible high-concepts can be.