Edge of Tomorrow review – 'Tom Cruise in a sci-fi Groundhog Day, without the jokes … or the thrills'

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/29/edge-of-tomorrow-film-review-tom-cruise

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Doug Liman's futurist action movie, featuring the zero-chemistry pairing of Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, is based on a 2004 novel by Japanese SF author Hiroshi Sakurazaka. But there is another more obvious debt from further back. Planet Earth is fighting an alien invasion and Cruise plays William Cage, a slick PR guy given honorary rank as major and permitted to strut about in uniform as he spins the army's campaign strategy to the media.

Irritated by this popinjay on his payroll, General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) sends Cage to the front, where he must fight alongside legendary badass warrior Rita (Emily Blunt), and then a weird thing happens. Cage drops into a cosmic time loop: he is condemned to fight the first day's battle over and over again, but he gets better and better at fighting, braver and braver,and more and more attractive to the imperious Rita. Just like Bill Murray mastering the piano in Groundhog Day.

Playing the same plot over again may conceivably be Liman's postmodern tribute to the late Harold Ramis's matchless comedy masterpiece, but when Bill Murray repeatedly lived out the same ridiculously banal day, it was (at least partly) a symbol of his emotional stagnancy.

As for Tom Cruise as Cage, well … he starts off bad and winds up good, but really this isn't a metaphor. He drops into a time loop. He fights. He is super-awesome. That's it. It's supposed to be exciting, not funny – although Groundhog Day was exciting and funny.

The comedy there derived from existential horror at being forced to re-examine ordinary reality in such detail. Edge of Tomorrow is quite different; it is basically deadly serious, and after some moderate knockaboutfun, settles into something pretty dull. Where's the edge?