Edge of Tomorrow review

(Image credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Enterta)

Edge of Tomorrow is Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers.

Just imagine if Bill Murray’s cynical weatherman in Groundhog Day had been fighting aliens instead of trying to woo Andie MacDowell and you’ll have an idea of the plight of Tom Cruise’s luckless hero in the terrific sci-fi action thriller Edge of Tomorrow.

A cowardly PR expert unwillingly thrust into the front line as an army grunt, Cruise’s Major Bill Cage finds himself reliving the same day of terrifying combat against a seemingly unstoppable extraterrestrial force. The deadly alien Mimics have overrun most of Europe, sometime in the near future, and when the United Defense Force launches a D-Day-like assault against the enemy the shirking, smirking Cage reckons he will be reporting the fight from a safe distance.

Instead, demoted to private by Brendan Gleeson’s bullheaded general, he ends up getting sent into battle. Inevitably, he doesn’t last very long. Yet after being killed he doesn’t stay dead but awakens to start the same day again… and again and again. It appears he is somehow caught in a time loop and as he repeats the same situations of training and fighting he gradually hones his skills, teaming up with Emily Blunt’s badass veteran warrior, Rita Vrataski, in a bid to defeat the tentacle-waving enemy.

Get over the shock of seeing the usually heroic Cruise initially playing a clumsy wimp and you will find Edge of Tomorrow a blast. The darkly comic early scenes are by far the best, but although the film becomes more conventional as it goes along, Cruise is a winner all the way, whether he is being a gung-ho hero or the butt of the joke.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014), runtime 109 mins, Director Doug Liman.

Released on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD and Limited Edition Steelbook by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Blu-ray and Steelbook contain the following special features:

Operation Downfall - Adrenaline Cut
Storming The Beach
Weapons Of The Future
Creatures Not Of This World
On The Edge With Doug Liman
Deleted Scenes

Edge of Tomorrow - Official Trailer 1 [HD] - YouTube

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.