MOVIE REVIEW: EDGE OF TOMORROW



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Bill Cage is not a soldier, but through bad attitude and some bad luck he ends up in the middle of a decisive battle with an alien race that humans are about to lose. Killed moments after the landing on French shore, he wakes up twenty four hours prior to his death. Pretty soon it is clear that he is doomed to re-live the same day again and again. No one believes him, until he meets a war veteran, a woman everyone calls Full Metal Bitch. Together they are going to use Cage's ability to the battle advantage.

EDGE OF TOMORROW is based on the Japanese light novel ALL YOU NEED IS KILL by young independent author Hiroshi Sakurazaka. The book sums up what Japanese SCI-FI is about: action for thinking people and intense violence designed to highlight the even more intense human drama at its core. THE EDGE OF TOMORROW successfully manages to transpire it all to screen, adding an element of humour, that compliments, but doesn't dismiss the dark tone of the film.

The movies about time loops have one disadvantage - they struggle to find the probable explanation behind the happening. EDGE OF TOMORROW fabulously deals with the problem, making it original and satisfying.
Tom Cruise had an interesting character on his hands with opportunity to build him up from scratch. When we meet Cage in the first scene he is afraid of a paper cut and by the end he will defy the fear of death. Cruise manages to gradually change his looks through the film, as experiences of the battlefield turn him into a completely different beast.

But the real show stealer is Emily Blunt, who combines strength and fragility with ease. Her character is fierce and calculating at the same time, and it is interesting to watch her true feeling showing as if she lets Cage closer little by little.

The great achievement of the script that it is rather easy to understand for a film dealing with such a convoluted time travelling premise. The action scenes are a hallmark of what modern 3D and digital sound are capable of. During the movie I was worried that after so many set pieces the ending will be disappointing (a good example is Pacific Rim), but the final confrontation raises the stakes enough to make us worry and will end on a high note.

The Edge Of Tomorrow had been described as a typical American blockbuster, Groundhog Day with an Alien twist, but in fact, just like the original novel, it has conventional Japanese values at its core - good fortune on the battlefield, just like in life, is nothing without the skills obtained by a hard repetitive work.

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