Edge of Tomorrow Movie Review

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Rent Edge of Tomorrow on Amazon Video (paid link) / Buy the novel (paid link)
Written by: Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth (screenplay by), Hiroshi Sakurazaka (based on the novel "All You Need Is Kill" by)
Directed by: Doug Liman
Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

Verdict
This is such a fun movie. Great action combined with the acting and character dynamic make this engaging. Cruise doesn't often play a secondary character. He's an actor that is bigger than the role, but I like his turn in this once you realize he isn't playing the typical Tom Cruise character. This blends sci-fi and war movies with a time loop effectively. My only complaint, and the only thing stopping this from being truly great, is the conclusion. It's just a bit too much happy Hollywood. The conclusion needed real consequences, and this movie undoes all of that.
Watch It.

Review
I originally watched this soon after it came out and really enjoyed it. On the first watch my criticism was how this ends. I wanted something much darker. It turns out in the source material, All You Need is Kill, the ending is almost exactly what I had wanted from this movie.

Tom Cruise plays William Cage

Cage (Tom Cruise) is a marketing exec forced into the military due to an alien invasion. Cage is cowardly and underhanded. It's not the typical Tom Cruise role, as Cruise seems unable to play anything but the likable hero. It's a dynamic that works well for characters and actors when paired with grizzled vet Rita Vrataski played by the less known Emily Blunt.

Cage is forced to the front lines to market and sell an invasion where success is riding on new exo-suits. Cage is completely unprepared for combat. This isn't a hero bent on fighting, this is a guy that will do anything to avoid the line. 

Bill Paxton does a great job in a small part as Cage's platoon sergeant forcing him to fight.
Rita is the mysterious battle hardened war hero. On her first day in the exo-suit she slaughtered the aliens unlike anyone had ever done. 

This attack doesn't go as planned. We see the battle from Cage's perspective as he stumbles around. This is a great introduction to Cage's time loop, leading right into him waking up. The movie knows exactly what it's doing, executing it quite well. The pacing is well done, modulating between fast paced action and slowing down for the plot.

Rita knows about the time loop Cage is experiencing. She experienced the same power before she lost it. She hopes to win the war through Cage's ability, but first she has to train him. Cage has a lot of work on his way to becoming combat ready. Rita is callous, quick to kill Cage and start training over if he gets injured. While the movie doesn't address it, this power is a great way to determine exactly what your limits are and how far you can go past that. Cage, and Rita before him, got to become the ultimate soldier through trail and error up to death.

Cage started this movie as play dough, and now he's hardened steel. It's made him callous, but that's necessary to be a good soldier. The problem is that while Cage and Rita are trying to defeat the aliens by looping through time, that same loop is how the aliens are so efficient at winning battles. The alien is looking for them.

Emily Blunt plays Rita Vrataski

The final mission is what I don't like about this. Cage and Rita undertake a suicide mission to try to defeat the enemy. That isn't bad, though it's a bit too cheesy Hollywood. After that the movie undoes any stakes this had opting for a happy, boring ending. All consequences are removed. Even when I first saw that, I really wanted stakes to the ending. I wanted Cage to become the new Rita. This movie reveals very little about her, and what it could have done is have Cage take over her mantle. We may not know her story, but maybe it was similar to Cage's. She may have just been an over-matched soldier that used this power to train and conquer. In the end Cage could be a newly decorated soldier that has learned a bit more, but not enough to defeat the enemy. What we get makes victory too easy

This resets the entire movie with Cage completely okay and the enemy defeated. Even if I didn't like the suicide mission, it having true consequences and Cage dying but victorious would at least give this some power. Either way, someone needed to die as a consequence to give the conclusion the necessary emotion.

In All You Need is Kill Cage and Rita determine he has to kill her to stop the loop. That's a powerful conclusion. Also the source novel had a code so that Rita knew Cage was a looper that was quite eloquent.
I really enjoy this movie, but the cookie cutter ending really stunts it.