About halfway into Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, I started to feel sorry for screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Jack Reacher) and brothers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth (Fair Game). While I was intrigued by the Groundhog Day-like gimmick of Tom Cruise repeating the same miserable day over and over again, I was beginning to doubt how the concept could be maintained for another hour without me standing up in the theater and shouting, “ENOUGH ALREADY! LET’S MOVE ON!” But I was wrong. Edge of Tomorrow may seem like its painting itself into a corner, but just when you think all is lost, it breaks out of its own trap with a surprising amount of creativity, style and intelligence.
Here’s the deal: It’s the near-future — near enough that the world looks pretty much as it looks now (but with no Joaquin Phoenix high-waisted pants, thank God!). Oh, there’s just this one little hitch: an alien race has invaded our planet and has laid waste to much of Europe. Worldwide domination is imminent and humankind is doomed. Gulp. An international military force has been formed to fight the invaders but the aliens, vile spider-like creatures called Mimics, are somehow able to anticipate every move and they seem unbeatable. A ray of hope has finally appeared in the form of Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), known as the “Angel of Verdun” by some because of the large number of Mimics she was able to kill during a recent battle in France, and “Full Metal Bitch” by others because of her no-nonsense, intimidating personality
When we first meet Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), a high-ranking PR guy in the military who has never been near the front lines of any war, he is busy putting a positive face on the conflict with the aliens, publicly emphasizing Rita’s achievements to an increasingly (and understandably) panicked world. But an exchange with a superior that does not go well changes everything for Cage, and he suddenly finds himself dropped at Heathrow Airport with papers claiming he is a deserter and orders to report to an infantry unit that is about to head out for a final (and surely suicidal) battle with the aliens on the beaches of France. Despite his protests, the grossly unprepared Cage (he has no idea even how to use the very cool body suits the military has developed to try to defeat the aliens) makes it to the front and after seeing the Mimics murder nearly everyone around him, including Rita Vrataski, he somehow manages to kill a large Mimic himself. He gets drenched in the Mimic’s acid-like blood, and dies.
But, wait! At the moment of his death, Cage suddenly wakes up with a jolt, back at Heathrow Airport in the same position he found himself the morning before. He goes through the same conversations, the same protests, the same fate of being dropped from a plane into the hopeless battle, and is promptly killed again. Again, he wakes up a day earlier at Heathrow. This happens again and again. Having seen Rita killed over and over again, Cage figures out how to save her in one of his loops. When she realizes he knows what’s about to happen, she tells him to find her the next time he wakes up. Huh? And then they’re both killed…again.
I don’t want to give away too much of the plot but suffice it to say that Rita understands Cage’s odd predicament because she had been doing the endless time-loop thing as well — that’s how she was able to emerge victorious at that battle in Verdun — but she lost the ability and is now convinced that Cage is the key to figuring out how to beat the aliens at their own game. But no matter how far the two get, Cage keeps dying and having to approach Rita again (for the first time) and convince her that he can help. Over countless loops, we see Rita teaching the combat-shy Cage how to be a fierce warrior and how to figure out the Mimics’ overall game plan. Those nasty creatures can manipulate time themselves and the clueless humans are no match for them — unless they, too, have the benefit of resetting the clock.
I can’t imagine what kind of Beautiful Mind-like flowcharts director Doug Liman had to have on set to help the actors keep track of the endless time loops. But it somehow works, even as we see the characters going through the same scenes over and over and over again, with slight variations based on whatever Cage has learned about what’s going to happen in his previous loops. I’m not saying the convolutions of the plot would stand up to analysis by a team of phycicists (or even persnickety film critics), but the overall effect is a wild ride that is refreshingly imaginative — with none of the by-the-numbers notes that often infect early summer blockbusters.
In my view, this is the best performance Tom Cruise has given in years. I’m not saying it meets his Academy Award-worthy turn as Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July (sorry, Cruise fans, I do have to go back a quarter of a century to remember the last time I was rooting for Cruise to take home a Best Actor Oscar) but it’s the kind of role that Tom Cruise was born to play: a charming but deeply flawed in-over-his-head action hero.
Key to the success of this film is the kick-ass performance of Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski. I’ve always been a fan of the actress, from her Devil Wears Prada days to her stint as the young Queen Victoria and quirky roles in indie fare such as Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Your Sister’s Sister. Still, when I heard she was starring opposite Tom Cruise in this film, I have to admit that I was skeptical. Could she pull it off? And why would she even want to? All I can say is that from the moment we see Blunt in her killer yoga position meeting Cruise for the first time (again and again and again), the woman owns the screen. Apparently Cruise and Blunt did many of their own stunts, and that is quite impressive. There was never a moment where I didn’t buy the fact that Rita was the most highly trained and lethal physical specimen in the military. As for 51-year-old Tom Cruise, I will simply say, holy shit — can we all chip in and get a few hours with his personal trainer?
The talented cast also includes Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Noah Carter and some excellent, funny turns from Cage’s ragtag band of fellow soldiers. Dion Beebe’s cinematography is gorgeous to look at, the 3D is effective and restrained, and it’s always fun to see world-famous locations destroyed by aliens (I was particularly impressed with the images of a felled Eiffel Tower).
With wildly entertaining performances by Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow is violent, scary, funny, preposterous, poignant and thought-provoking all at once. It is Groundhog Day on steroids. If the rest of this season’s Big Budget Films are half as clever, we should be in for a very good summer.