Edge of tomorrow: Quite with an edge

Edge of tomorrow
Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson
Rated: 7/10
To see Tom Cruise die as Major William Cage so many times, so relentlessly and so at-the-drop-of-a-gun could have become jaded, not to mention disturbing and defeatist. But that’s not the case in Edge of Tomorrow. It is quite an edgy, explosive, don’t-you-breathe kind of a sci-fi thriller that Tom Cruise anchors.
Which, of course, is expected from Cruise and his Mission Impossible kind of projects except for the fact that here he is fighting aliens who are rather indulgently called Mimics, a tag that defies their deadlier than deadliest image.
But once they hit the screen, there is no time to look around so pulled you get into the ET-humanity war in which Cruise is an media military officer tricked by the general to go into combat — quite unprepared, quite raw and not quite soldier-like.
But dying over and over again and progressing into battlefield is the mantra of this thriller which is expectedly outlandish but not at all grim with imagination. Cruise and his antics, including his dalliance with the lady soldier Rita Vrataski caught in the same fate of recurring death, give the movie their groovy moments though these moments are of the quick-and-over variety.
Other than that, it is through and through a computerised wonder in which the humans have to win a war against the aliens who are out to take over London, New York, Paris and Berlin before marauding the human race and planet Earth in conquer-all mode.
Suffice it to say, this mesmerising soiree with all its speed, its stunning graphics and its larger than life aliens justifies the $178 million spent on production.
Yes, Cruise looks a wee bit old and jaded but that’s fine I guess when his wry humour and soft romantic lines continue to be youthful and playful. For the other times, there are the Mimics who keep you on the edge of today and, of course, tomorrow. 
Source: Sunday Pioneer, 08 June, 2014

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