#48 — Edge of Tomorrow

This is another entry in my illustrated guide of the 49 1/2 most essential action movies. You can read the previous part here, where I talked about The Matrix Reloaded.

Here we stand, two souls intertwined on the battlefield, looking for some hope on the…edge of tomorrow. This is not a daytime soap, it’s a sci-fi action blockbuster from director Doug Liman. I guess you could say it’s a war movie, but I think it qualifies as action, especially given how it lifts from video game mechanics in interesting ways. “Video Game Movie” is something of a slur here in America, and it turns out the best way to make one is to not try. Simply use the tropes of that medium as tools for whatever reality-defying stories you want to tell.

In this game, Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) plays a PR guy for the military who does not live up to the title of “Major Cage”. He’s a coward with no combat experience, and gets thrown into a desperate future war against aliens. He accidentally gains infinite lives via alien blood, which causes the day to reset every time he dies. This is the worst kind of best luck to have, but it will enable him to find the key to winning a war that seems rigged against humanity. It will also kill him so many times that he will eventually unplug the console and toss his controller. I know that feeling.

It’s really fun watching Cruise be a total wimp. His usual hyper competent and focused persona is undermined in a way that temporarily makes me forget he plays Ethan Hunt, who I find mostly boring. I enjoy his exasperation. I laugh at his hamster squeal under that moving truck. I like his varied display of fear and numbing frustration during the repeated moments of his first battle.

That opening assault is probably the highlight, and the time loop gimmick allows for it to be recycled in creative ways. Combining elements of the Normandy Beach Invasion from Saving Private Ryan with whatever your nephew is playing on his Xbox, it’s an elegantly choreographed barrage of mishaps and confusion. Soldiers tethered to drop ships twirl in the air like piñatas, getting tangled and twisted. Rocket are flying everywhere, things are on fire, and nobody seems to be following any semblance of a plan. What are the buttons? How do I play?!

The first glimmer of hope comes in the form of Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who appears to be a Final Fantasy character made out of scrap helicopter parts. She gets to train Cruise, one respawn at a time, and do a sexy snake lookin’ yoga pushup that everyone agrees is good. It never really becomes the one-man-army hero show you think it’s going to develop into, instead allowing Cage to fail repeatedly until his spirit is temporarily broken. It’s going to be a team effort all the way.

I think the ending might be my favorite part of the movie. Every painful death and every failed strategy culminates in a simple smile that might be the most earned in a career of goofy, unshakable confidence. I want to know what happens immediately after that moment, and I’m glad I don’t. It’s the perfect little bow to wrap things on.