Edge of Tomorrow

It seems to me that this is a pretty equal opportunity Tom Cruise movie. By that I mean that rather than having an overabundance of DON'T YOU FORGET THIS IS A TOM CRUISE MOVIE, we get a movie where we get to see some actual acting from good actors and a hint of what Tom Cruise can be capable of when he wants to try.

The sci-fi concepts in the movie aren't shoved down your throat from the get go either. Instead the concepts are introduced gradually. First the alien invasion is presented to us in the form of news reports, which at the same time introduces the main character William Cage (Tom Cruise). He is a PR officer for the United Defence Force and gets conned by General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) to be a frontline troop in an invasion that directly mirrors the D-Day landings that happened 70 years ago.

The origin of the aliens, or mimics, is never revealed. Nor is the type of being which they are. This is a detail that is irrelevant, however. All we need to know is what they look like and that they are bad news. They tear through soldiers like tissue paper, but they can be killed, as Cage finds out soon enough. Only the one he kills, ends up killing him too.

It's at this point that Cage wakes up the day before the invasion. In killing a particular type of mimic, he now has the ability to reset the day after dying. He does this time after time until meeting Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a war hero who once killed a thousand mimics. It soon turns out that she too once had the ability to reset the day. Once Cage awakes another time, he sets out to find Rita, who can help him find a way to stop the mimics.

In recent years there seems to be a push to turn Emily Blunt into some kind of sci-fi star. She played a telekinetic in Looper and had a part in the trippy sci-fi The Adjustment Bureau. However, Blunt has some real acting talent and is much better suited for drama films. I would really recommend everyone checks out The Five Year Engagement. Whilst it's a long film, she really showcases how good she can be in a film.

There are two fantastic cameos from Bill Paxton (Aliens), as a drill sergeant, and Noah Taylor (The Life Aquatic) as the seemingly crackpot scientist.

Verdict: A decent sci-fi flick that melds Groundhog Day, Starship Troopers and the D-Day landings.