Edge of Tomorrow (2014): Review

This weekend there were two movie that came out that I have been waiting to see and the first one that I saw was the new Tom Cruise action movie Edge of Tomorrow.  Going into to this movie I was expecting a little more then I usually do with most alien attack/ special suit action movies because it is a Tom Cruise movie and I tend to like his action movies. I am happy to report that this was a solid movie and worth seeing for anyone who likes action movies.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014) is set in a future were the world is at war with an alien race called the Mimics, who crash landed in Europe and are spreading outward in an attempt to concur the Earth. Tom Cruise plays Major Cage, a man who has been working in Public Relations for the America Military trying to recruit people into joining the war and fighting in these super soldier suits.  When General Brigham, played by Brendan Gleeson, assigns Cage to film the initial wave of the next attach against the Mimics, Cage refuses and is sent into the war as a private charged with impersonating an officer and attempting to flee from duty.
 He is under the watch of Master Sargent Farrell, played by Bill Paxton, and the J squad. The J Squad includes: Jonas Armstrong as Skinner; Tony Way as Kimmel;  Kick Gurry as Griff; Franz Drameh as Ford; Dragomir Mrsic as Kuntz; and Charlotte Riley as Nance. Major now Private Cage tries to get people to listen to him but no one will and is suited up and deployed with the first wave against the Mimics in France.  When they make it to the beach, the Mimics are waiting for the attack and start a massive slaughter.  During this Cage is just trying to survive but ends up killing being killed by an Alpha Mimic and hijacking his power, which results in Cage living the same day over and over again, being reset every time he is killed.  While living this day over and over he eventually teams up with Sargent Rita Vrataski, played by Emily Blunt, who is famous for a previous battle with the mimics.  Rita helps Cage because she previously had the same power of restarting the day but lost it before she could kill the main alien called the Omega and ending the war.  Can Cage and Rita work together to find the Omega and kill the Mimics and what will this cost themselves and the people around them?
Like I said this a solid action movie and once again Tom Cruise has a good performance in this role.  Although I am not a general Tom Cruise fan, I have discovered over the years that I do like him in your standard actin role.  I don't really like when he goes out of this role but he is able to bring the right attitude to the role of the action hero.  In this movie, he is able to grow as a character from a person who you don't really like at the beginning of the film, to someone who has seen his share of battle and wants to save the world and the people he has come to care about. I think Tom Cruise does a good job of showing this change through the repetitive days and it was cut together in a way that took the audience along with him through this journey, although there are times when you have obviously missed many days as he figured things out and is frustrated by all the dead ends he has experienced.

I am impressed with the way that this movie was cut together, because with this kind of story it is very possible to get lost and not have any idea of what is going on or proper path to get the audience where we need to go.  There were moments where I wanted to see more of his repetitive day, and since it gave me enough to keep me interested and follow the story line, but still wanting to go back and watch it again, I would say that it did what it was suppose to do.

There was a lot of CGI in this movie and since I saw it in IMAX 3D there were lots of changes for this all to look really poorly done and too video game.  I am happy to say that the production value in this movie was high (another reason why Tom Cruise action movies tend to be better) and you can tell that the time and money was spent on this to make it come together.  Yes you can tell its CGI but it fits together without being obnoxious or pulling you out of the movie. The 3D added dimensions to the movie, especially all of the movements of the Mimic and this is one movie that I think benefits from being seen on the big screen and with the 3D. This movie does do the thing that I continue to hate in action movies, where it has scenes and sequences that are shoot really tight up to the actors and jump around, but the positives of what I just stated outweighed it for me.  There were also some bigger sweeping shots but not really during the actual action scenes.

I think what ultimately got me to give it a higher ranking then the standard action movie is that it has a great cast that had a fun dynamic together.  There were people who were interesting, who got screen time and some development, but did not pull away from the story of movie. I enjoyed all of the sequences between the J Squad and you could feel that although they were misfits they were a team.
I recommend that anyone who likes the bigger budget, robot/alien action movies go see this movie and while it is still in the theater.  The big screen really adds to the overall experience of the movie.

My Rating: 3