There have been a lot of movies about time travel over the years, some where the traveller moves physically through time while others only going there via their consciousness. The recent X-Men: Days of Future Past represents the latter and joining it this week is Edge of Tomorrow, a futuristic time travel-themed actioner from director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith), based on the Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill.
Set in the near future when an alien race has invaded and desolated much of the Earth, Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), an officer inexperienced in combat, is deployed against his will into the battlefield. Barely lasting minutes before he is killed, Cage mysteriously wakes up in the day before the planned battle that would eventually kill him, soon discovering he is stuck in a time loop that allows him to repeat the battle over and over in order to try and defeat the aliens.
It’s a neat premise and one that Liman’s film mines for all its worth. Though it seems at first that the idea would become tiresome and repetitive, it does enough things different as it goes on to keep things playful and unpredictable, crucially cutting down the time we see Cage mechanically going back over and over the same day – waking up, trying to convince the others of his predicament, remembering when and where is the best place to go once they land on the beach and so forth. It’s basically the cinematic equivalent of a video game, with each reset effectively being a player going back to a pivotal save point to give it another go, this time with the knowledge of how they might get that bit further before being killed once more. In that sense is this the best video game movie to date?
The film sits somewhere between Source Code and Saving Private Ryan and although nowhere near as clever as the former or visceral as the latter, it does offer an enjoyable blend of those films and many others before it – The Matrix, Minority Report, Aliens and, with its moments of comedic relief, even Groundhog Day. And unlike last year’s Cruise-led sci-fi film Oblivion, this doesn’t just feel like a hodgepodge of ideas taken from other films and polished to make it seem like something new. It genuinely provides something fresh and interesting in the blockbuster arena.
The secret weapon here is Emily Blunt. Though not the focus of the film, she plays a key supporting role as (literally) the poster girl for the hope of humanity in combat, nicknamed The Angel of Verdun and, more crudely, Full Metal Bitch. What could have been a two-dimensional plot device of a character is fleshed out into something more by Blunt’s committed performance, providing an interesting dynamic to the usual Hollywood leading man cliché in so far as she’s the strong and capable one and Cruise is left to learn by example. The two have solid chemistry together and make for a compelling duo both in and out of battle, even when the film’s script sometimes ties itself up in knots somewhat with its complex time loop plot or trying its best to give a backstory for the two leads via occasionally clunky exposition. They are an effective team, to reference Oblivion once more, without the film feeling the need to force a love interest angle into the proceedings for the sake of it.
Liman has proven himself a very capable action director in the past – he paved the way for Paul Greengrass with the first Bourne film and elevated Mr. and Mrs. Smith to a level better than it had any right to be – and he doesn’t let himself down here. The action is full-on and consistent, utilizing the attacking aliens in inventive and uniquely threatening ways. It’s not exactly what you would call gory but it makes you feel the impact of the invasion and every time Cruise shuffles off this mortal coil. Part of the visual aesthetic here is that the soldiers doing their utmost to defend humanity in a D-Day-esque beach battlefield are wearing robot-like exosuits equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers. It’s ultimately a gimmick but a visually arresting one that provides something a little different to what you usually see in this type of film.
Edge of Tomorrow slams together two of the biggest staples of science fiction – time travel and aliens – into an entertaining and compelling blockbuster that has more between the ears than most and a seemingly convoluted premise that actually works very well on-screen. Yes there are the types of plot holes found in every time travel story but it’s a testament to the film’s balance of slickly executed action, engaging cast and moments of welcome humour that even the many logical inconsistencies can’t derail the enjoyment of it. This should prove to be one of the 2014 summer blockbuster season’s strongest offerings.
Edge of Tomorrow is released in UK cinemas on May 30th.
