January celebrates two notable dates in science-fiction history, “National Science Fiction Day” on January 2 and Arthur C. Clarke’s HAL 9000’s birthday on January 12. Accordingly, I’m dedicating January to celebrating sci-fi with an event I call “Sci-Fanuary”.
Released: 6 June 2014
Director: Doug Liman
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Budget: $178 million
Stars: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Noah Taylor, and Brendan Gleeson
The Plot:
When public affairs officer Major William Cage (Cruise) unexpectedly gains the ability to reset time after his death in battle against the aggressive alien “Mimics”, he teams up with the heroic Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Blunt) to defeat the invaders.
The Background:
In 2004, Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Yoshitoshi Abe collaborated on the spectacularly named “light novel” All You Need Is Kill, the story of soldier Keiji Kiriya, who’s caught in a time loop that allows him to improve his fighting skills against invading aliens. Nominated for the 2005 Seiun Awards, All You Need Is Kill caught the attention of producer Erwin Stoff, who optioned the rights to create a live-action adaptation. Despite being intimidated by the source material, writer Dante Harper produced a screenplay that was listed as one of the best unproduced works doing the rounds. After Brad Pitt declined the lead role, Tom Cruise joined the project, and the script underwent additional rewrites after he and Emily Blunt were cast, with writer Christopher McQuarrie and director Doug Liman struggling to produce a satisfactory ending. The cast and crew spent an unexpected three months filming the complex, action-heavy beach assault on a large soundstage surrounded by green screens. The UDF exosuits were designed by Oliver Scholl, Pierre Bohanna, and Kate Hawley and modelled after real-world exoskeletons and built as largely practical suits that bruised and battered the stars. In contrast, the Mimics were digital creatures courtesy of Sony Pictures Imageworks; the designers worked hard to make them an otherworldly mess of dangerous tentacles that had a tangible reality to their otherwise fantastical appearance. Despite a worldwide box office of just over $370 million and largely positive reviews that praised the direction and execution, and the time loop twist, Liman and Warner Bros. were left so disappointed by the film’s reception that they pushed to re-brand the film to the clever tag line, “Live. Die. Repeat”. Indeed, while some found the film tedious and strangely limited in its scope, Edge of Tomorrow is widely branded as an under-rated sci-fi romp. Though talks of a sequel have done the rounds since its release, it seems we’re more likely to get a TV spin-off than a direct follow-up any time soon.
The Review:
So, two caveats before we get into this film: one, I’ve never read All You Need Is Kill (though my fondness for this movie makes me want to sit down with it some day) and two…I absolutely cannot stand Tom Cruise. I don’t care how many of his own stunts he does or about his weird personal life; I’ve just never bought into him as an actor and find his characters very bland and unlikeable. Thankfully, Cage is written to be pretty unlikeable. A smarmy, confident, well-dressed spokesperson, he’s effectively become the face of the UDF’s counterattack against the Mimics, frequently appearing on television and in interviews to encourage viewers to join the military, hyping up the combat prowess of the armoured exosuits worn by their soldiers, and painting Vrataski (the so-called “Angel of Verdun”) as a heroic symbol. In Edge of Tomorrow, humanity was completely caught off-guard when a seemingly innocent meteor landed in Germany, only to spew out a legion of weird, tentacle-like aliens that swiftly overtook most of continental Europe. Because of their uncanny ability to seemingly anticipate their enemy’s actions, the aliens are dubbed “Mimics” (an odd name considering they don’t physically or strategically mimic anything about us) and, in the space of just five years, were seemingly set to destroy all human life. That was, until, the Battle of Verdun, where Vrataski scored a major victory, one which galvanised humanity to push towards total victory. Unfortunately for many of their troops, the UDF still employ trench warfare, literally dropping their soldiers into enemy territory and leading to mass slaughter in most cases, keeping humanity on the razor’s edge of extinction.
This, as much as anything else, is why Cage would rather be anywhere else but on the front line. A former advertising guru, he adapted his skills to promoting the war effort, receiving a complimentary military rank, and has successfully hidden his abject cowardice and combat inexperience behind his silver tongue. However, when he’s called to meet with grizzled veteran General Brigham (Gleeson), Cage is aghast to learn he’s been ordered to join the next push into Europe as a war correspondent. Desperate to avoid the danger, death, and bloodshed, he begs, bargains, and eventually tries to blackmail his way out of the assignment, only to be arrested, stripped of his rank, and branded a deserter (“Rail-roaded”, as he calls it) and dumped into the judgemental and unsympathetic care of Master Sergeant Farell’s (Paxton) J-Squad. Despite desperately trying to explain his situation, Cage is met by nothing but sarcasm, mockery, and aggression from his newfound peers and, before long, is strapped into an exosuit and violently dropped into battle with little to no combat training. The beachfront assault is not a battle, it’s a massacre. Cage’s entire battalion is killed and he comes face-to-face with a large, voracious Mimic, barely able to defend himself. Out of desperation, he blows the “Alpha” to pieces with a Claymore mine and is drenched in its caustic blood. He then suddenly finds himself waking up 24-hours earlier, being given the same impassioned speech by Farell, suffering the same abuse from J-Squad, and dying in battle once again, only to begin the day anew each time.
Confused and disorientated, Cage initially believes he’s suffering some kind of déjà vu or nightmare, or that he’s losing his mind. This latter explanation is what the other characters default to whenever he tries to warn them of the mission’s impending failure. No matter now many times he repeats Farell’s words or rattles off his knowledge of J-Squad – Griff (Kick Gurry), Kuntz (Dragomir Mrsic), Nance (Charlotte Riley), Skinner (Jonas Armstrong), Ford (Franz Drameh), Takeda (Masayoshi Haneda), and Kimmel (Tony Way) – they simply think he’s losing his mind. Eventually, during his many repeats of the same day, Cage’s knowledge of each increases; though this happens offscreen, we learn a bit more about each of them from his exposition as he tries to earn their trust. Ford, for example, is using his dead best friend’s name and sending his payment to his family. Mostly, Cage simply earns their ire; they’re annoyed at being saddled by him, his incompetence, and personally insulted by him being a deserter and they even attack him when his subsequent absences see them being punished by Farrel. Played by the late, great Bill Paxton with a delicious, scenery-chewing charisma, Farrel appears to be a man completely consumed by the fire and glory of war. However, unlike Brigham, Farrel isn’t all talk and bluster and eagerly joins his men in battle, relishing the taste of combat. Cage’s eventual combat prowess is more to do with memory, tough training, and a constant cycle of failure than him being mentored by J-Squad. They essentially leave him to fend for himself at the beginning, and are therefore stunned when he suddenly exhibits near-superhuman deftness and ability on the battlefield. Later, when he convinces them to heed his warnings, they’re shocked to learn how insurmountable the Mimic’s power is but readily follow him into a final assault on the Louvre Pyramid, giving their lives to his cause and even sacrificing themselves to cover his infiltration. However, as persuasive as Cage’s parlour tricks and knowledge are, they’re primarily convinced by him having the seal of approval of the near-mythical Vrataski, who backs Cage’s claims and emboldens their fighting spirit.
Vrataski is a tough, no-nonsense soldier equally dubbed the “Full Metal Bitch”. Extremely adept with her exosuit, Vrataski also employs a massive, anime-styled sword (fashioned from a helicopter blade) and inspires awe in her fellow soldiers. However, Vrataski is also cold and stoic, rarely showing her emotions or letting them rule her actions, to the point where she’s largely impassive when her fellow soldiers die in battle. Behind this façade, she hides a deep pain at having watched so many of her loved ones die and failed to end the Mimic threat when she had the chance. When Cage unexpectedly saves her in battle thanks to his foresight, she orders him to find her when he wakes up and reveals that her victory at Verdun (and her entire reputation) is thanks to her also having previously acquired the Alpha’s time-manipulating blood. Working with Doctor Noah Carter (Taylor), Vrataski learned that the Alpha’s death triggers the gigantic “brain” of the Mimic hoard, the “Omega”, to reset the day, allowing the Mimics to counteract accordingly. The longer one has the power, the more the Mimics become aware of them and the closer the protagonists get to learning the Omega’s location. Vrataski therefore forces Cage to train again and again, executing him to restart the day whenever he’s incapacitated or killed, to turn him into her proxy. Vrataski is constantly exasperated by Cage’s inexperience, questions, and cowardice and delights in abusing him, barking orders and forcing him to step up and find a viable route off the beach to find the Omega. Similar to J-Squad, Cage eventually learns a bit about Vrataski and bonds with her, to the point where he becomes despondent at having watched her repeatedly die and their continued failures to make real headway.
A bunch of veterans and barflies speculate on the reason the Mimics have come to Earth, but Edge of Tomorrow largely leaves the explanation vague. They’re described as a “perfect”, planet-conquering hive mind, a near-exhaustible army even without accounting for their time-bending powers. The actual creatures are somewhat generic; they’re perfectly monstrous and disturbingly Lovecraftian, but we never really get a decent look at them and they often resemble a blurry mishmash of nanobots rather than living beings. They’re often hiding, either under the sand, ground, or elsewhere, and burst up to strike, skewering prey with their tentacles, firing energy bolts, or manhandling soldiers with their superior speed and strength. Even the regular grunts are extremely durable, often tanking multiple shots or moving too fast to be hit, and it was only through blind luck that Cage killed the Alpha in the first place. The Mimics are controlled by the Omega, with the Alpha overseeing the invasion and signalling for a reset upon its death, with all the aliens retaining the knowledge of each day, as Cage does. The longer he has the power, the more aware of his presence they become; the infected begin to see visions of the Omega, something the big brain uses to lure the soldiers into a trap. Indeed, Dr. Carter suggests that the Omega allowed the victory at Verdun as part of a grander plan to wipe out humanity, making them an almost invincible force. So powerful is the threat of extinction that the UDF’s only thought is to counterattack with everything they have. At one point, Cage and Vrataski infiltrate Brigham’s office, using Cage’s foresight to finally convince him to hand over Dr. Carter’s experimental transponder to learn the Omega’s true location, only for Bingham to immediately order even Vrataski’s arrest and forcing the two to reset to simply steal it. Cage’s power is constantly at risk since he must die to reset the day; it cannot be passed on but can be lost via a blood transfusion, which is what cost Vrataski the power. This eventually strips the ability from Cage, forcing him and Vrataski to recruit J-Squad for one last, desperate mission to destroy the Omega in Paris.
The Nitty-Gritty:
At first glance, Edge of Tomorrow is simply another generic, sci-fi war film with many of the tropes you’d expect from the genre. You’ve got the gruff, uncompromising General; the tough, but somewhat fair, Drill Sergeant; and a squad of ground-level troops simply trying to defend their world. J-Squad are sadly one-dimensional, despite Cage spitting facts and exposition about them, but are at least visually distinct. Griff is constantly walking around in a pink bath robe, for example, Kuntz “doesn’t talk much”, and Kimmel literally goes into battle balls out. Though as thirsty for combat as their Master Sergeant and far better trained than Cage, J-Squad is as doomed to failure as every UDF campaign and we witness their hubris, downfall, and deaths numerous times as Cage lives, dies, and repeats his time loop over and over. Though they give him nothing but abuse, they show respect for and surprise regarding his combat prowess in different time loops when this cowardly, pathetic deserter is suddenly blasting around at speed and picking off Mimics with uncanny precision thanks to Vrataski’s brutal training. Vrataski is a loner by nature, training by herself in a mechanical simulator and fighting solo on the battlefield regardless of how many troops follow her. She often dies alone in battle as well and constantly keeps Cage at arm’s length, hiding injuries and insisting on pushing onwards even when he begs her to stop because she won’t make it. Her stubbornness is her greatest strength and she impresses this fighting spirit upon Cage, eventually transforming him into a more hardened soldier over who-knows-how-many time loops.
As someone who dislikes Tom Cruise, I get a perverse pleasure out of seeing him die over and ever. He gets skewered, eaten, shot, and blown up multiple times throughout the film, suffering broken limbs, a shattered spine, and being crushed under vehicles. With each loop, he gets a little better, pushing further along the ill-fated beach assault and committing to memory the movements of the Mimics, exactly as a videogame player gets better through trial and error. We’re never given an exactly tally of how many times Cage relives the day, but he sometimes burns through days in quick succession, such as when he’s blindsided by threats or struggles with his combat training, much to his frustration. A series of montages show him failing time and again, but also his progression; once a lumbering liability who couldn’t disengage the safety on his weapons, he graduates to sprinting with an uncanny deftness and blasting Mimics with his shoulder cannons, saving those who despise him and pushing further into France. Much of Cage’s experiences aren’t shown to us, however. Edge of Tomorrow cleverly frames some of his and Vrataski’s excursions as his first experiences, only to reveal that he’s been at that same barn before and even learned to fly a helicopter. These sequences are all very gritty and realistic, with the beach assault resembling equally doomed real-life military campaigns and the UDF’s weaponry being surprisingly low-tech, save for the exosuits. These are surprisingly practical effects, with some CGI enhancements, and effectively make even a novice like Cage a super soldier, though we don’t see their full potential until Cage masters their functions. The Mimics, by comparison, are entirely CGI but they work well as an unknowable, monstrous “Other” for humanity to rally against, even if I find their design visually confusing. Cage eventually becomes burdened by knowledge; tortured by Vrataski’s repeated deaths and the virtual hopelessness of the situation, he deserts the campaign entirely at one point, only to be branded a coward. When he learns that the Omega is setting a trap for them to regain its power, Cage goes for the transponder to try and change the future, only to end up losing his powers and being given one last try to get the job done.
Having been wounded and saved by a blood transfusion, Cage escapes military custody with Vrataski and the two enlist the help of J-Squad in defying orders and flying a night-time assault on the Louvre, the true location of the Omega. Essentially a suicide mission for all involved, this murkily shot mess of a sequence sees all of J-Squad heroically perish to cover their insertion into the iconic pyramid, leaving Cage and Vrataski the last survivors (ironically, Cage survives events in this sequence that would’ve surely reset his day previously). Cornered by the Alpha and realising victory will cost their lives, Vrataski finally expresses her regret and not getting the time to know Cage better, giving him an awkward kiss before sacrificing herself in the “fiery crucible” of combat against the Alpha, unaware that she and Cage have basically lived a lifetime by this point. Left alone with only a gun and a belt full of grenades and his harsh training, Cage plunges into the water’s beneath the Louvre to blow the Omega to kingdom come, only to be mortally wounded by the Alpha. However, he manages to pull the pins with his last act, destroying the Omega and earning himself another drenching in alien blood. This time, Cage awakens a few days earlier to find a strange energy pulse from the Louvre has mortally disabled all Mimics, effectively ending the threat overnight. He’s amazed to find J-Squad all alive and well, the war finally over, and himself restored to his previous life. Naturally, his first thought is to visit Vrataski, grinning like a moron when she greets him with her usual barking wit.
The Summary:
Edge of Tomorrow is a surprisingly good time. Like I say, I’m not a fan of Tom Cruise but he’s actually pretty enjoyable here. Seeing him play a slimy, cowardly, untrained soldier who gets repeatedly killed brought a lot of joy to me as a sycophant and I enjoyed watching him improve with every failure, getting more and more combat proficient and transforming into a soldier on par with Vrataski. This is masterfully conveyed not just through the physical representation of his abilities and proficiency with the exosuit (he demands additional rounds, forgoes his helmet, and show a veteran familiarity with its functions) but also in him assuming the same “thousand-yard stare” as Vrataski, becoming numb to the bloodshed and death over time. Yet, he retains a humanity that wasn’t immediately apparent thanks to his selfish nature. He genuinely wants to find a way to save everyone in his battalion and is frustrated to lose even a single one of them. Emily Blunt was stunning as Vrataski, embodying the stern, brutal efficiency of a battle-hardened soldier. I loved that she constantly pushed Cage, forcing him to think like her, and how she cooled over time to show a vulnerability beneath her façade. The Mimics were generic, but serviceable; they’re weird, bio-mechanical octopus things who want only conquest and human blood and that’s all you really need. The twist is their weird ability to control time, which is kind of swept under the rung and has a few logistical holes in it, but it makes them a unique and insurmountable foe. Character actors like Bill Paxton and Brendan Gleeson steal every scene there in and lend Edge of Tomorrow some legitimacy, and I liked the bleak, brutal nature of the combat (even if it was largely bloodless). In the end, I think Edge of Tomorrow is an under-rated alien invasion flick; there’s a lot to like here, especially with the time loop gimmick, and I always enjoy giving it a watch, even if it can be a bit generic visually.
My Rating:
Great Stuff
Did you enjoy Edge of Tomorrow? If you’ve read All You Need Is Kill, how do you think the film works as an adaptation? What did you think to Tom Cruise’s performance? Did you also enjoy seeing him fail and die time and again and get a little better with each reset? What did you think to Emily Blunt and the depiction of the Mimics? Do you think the film needs a sequel? Is there a day in your life you’d like to relive over and over? Whatever your thoughts, drop them in the comments and go check out my other sci-fi content.
Dr. K's Waiting Room 