Critical Recommendation: Edge of Tomorrow

William Cage is a public affairs officer in deep trouble. He has made the foolhardy mistake of trying to blackmail the high command of Britain and subsequently found himself demoted from Major to Private, forced to partake in a doomed invasion. Occupying mainland Europe is a deadly alien race known as mimics, an efficient invasion force that has killed millions after only a few short years. A single victory and a single female soldier with hundreds of confirmed mimic kills whose profane callsign I won't print here have been enough to galvanize humanity, and it doesn't take long at all to understand why Earth is so desperate for good news. As Cage and the rest of the invasion force hit the beach, the missiles fly, the dropships explode in midair, and the mimics bore through the sand towards the soldiers in a cloud of dust like an army of burrowing squids from hell. The force walks straight into a one-sided massacre, and Cage meets an unceremonious death, smothered in the acidic blood of a mimic. But strangely enough, this isn't the end. You see, it's only an unthinkable beginning. Cage wakes the previous morning with a start and a question burning more potently than the blood of the alien.

What's happening to me?

Perhaps this is a fault of my own personality, a side effect of watching too many movies, or some heinous combination of both, but I'm not as impressed by heart-string pulling in movies as I used to be. A movie a day keeps the doctor away, but it also makes them harder to connect with on a level deeper than my line of study allows - which is why craft is so important to me. Edge of Tomorrow, a loose adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need is Kill, is not a sentimental movie, and rarely does it try to be. But while it may not conjure many tears from your eyes, it is immaculately crafted from beginning to end, the type of crowd-pleaser nevertheless smarter than the casual theatergoer that gradually gained something of a cult following in the years after its release.

A dose of mockumentary filmmaking tactics brings an alarming immediacy and believability to Edge of Tomorrow, placing a grim fiction firmly within an even grimmer illusion of reality. Cage is in over his administrative head on the battlefield, and watching him adapt to his predicament is remarkable. The scenes of combat between humans and mimics are very intense, and the movie makes clear to us how helpless Cage and his comrades are, how easy it is to die before you even know what hit you. The centerpiece time loop of Edge of Tomorrow is a brilliantly portrayed idea, remaining interesting, innovative, mysterious, and occasionally amusing even as its magic trick is performed repeatedly.

The movie intelligently forgoes retelling portions of the story in favor of fast-paced montages once you start to catch on to its rules, and the story remains fluid as each discovery Cage and Rita - the soldier responsible for killing hundreds of mimics - make comes to light. Some clever storytelling tricks by screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie keep the scale entertainingly large, the scope refreshingly tight. Edge of Tomorrow can do the same thing repeatedly and work every time, and its impact somehow changes each time the day resets and its story is retold.

The pacing of Edge of Tomorrow is incredible, slowly unrolling the mystery of the time loop with the deftness of a detective procedural while simultaneously stoking a thrillingly quick pace. And with this sensation of a roller coaster comes the film's one weakness - its methodically breakneck pace overlooks the chemistry between Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, and though Edge of Tomorrow is remarkable on a craft level, it can feel a touch clinical. However, when the moving parts of a movie work as remarkably well as they do here, I can't say this side effect of success matters much to me in the slightest.

Though most of its strengths lie with its writing and plotting rather than its chemistry, I would be remiss not to award Edge of Tomorrow with the highest honor I can bestow. Its formula is both wildly original and expertly realized, concocting an extremely intelligent and thoughtful film cleverly disguised as a summer blockbuster that manages to capture the best of both worlds without losing itself and its vision. Perhaps the most impressive thing about it is that it's a big and loud action movie with some heavy star power courtesy of Cruise and Blunt that doesn't skimp on substance just because its cast contains high-profile celebrities. Don't let its effects-heaviness or its big names fool you: Edge of Tomorrow knows what it's doing every step of the way and does it exceptionally well - over and over and over again, getting better at doing it each time around, not unlike someone I know.

Edge of Tomorrow - 10/10

Psalm 90:12