Edge of Tomorrow (12A.)
Directed by Doug Liman.
Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Noah Taylor, Charlotte Riley and Brendan Gleeson. 113 mins.
A great title is a precious thing; they come up so rarely that if you get one you hold on to it tightly in your sweaty, grateful hands. This film used to be called All You Need Is Kill, a title so swaggeringly good I’d be in a line to see it just on that alone. And if someone in that line happened to mention that it starred Tom Cruise, I would of course be disappointed, but I’d still be in that line. At some point one of the Brothers Warner decided to throw that out (presumably some pedant objected to the replacement of the uncountable noun Love with a countable one that is generally used as a verb) and slapped on a title better suited to a Barbara Taylor Bradford or Barbara Cartland. And they kept Tom Cruise.
The title phaffing is particularly annoying as this is something a little bit special, a little bit unusual, and it doesn't need any obstacles placed between it and its potential audience. If the title had to be changed then surely the tagline on the poster – Live. Die. Repeat. – would’ve been a better choice as if both explains what the film is about and makes it sound exciting, rather than making you think of an insipid sunset. Cruise is the soldier doomed to live and die the same day over and again, after he and his squad are wiped out in the first wave of a D-Day landing designed to recapture Europe after an alien invasion. Along with super soldier Blunt they try and find a way to defeat them through trial, error and constant repetition.
It’s a great, paradoxical endeavor: an original summer blockbuster that is like nothing you’ve seen before, made up entirely of things you’ve seen before. It would be easier to list the big movies that haven’t provided some element to the mix, though in turns of production design Matrix Revolution is the biggest donor. The witty script (partly credited to Jerusalem playwright Jez Butterworth) regurgitates all these elements in an unexpected way. The movie is almost non-stop action but the action and spectacle is oddly peripheral. Its choppy rhythms and the constant hitting of the reset button denies audiences the normal narrative securities of these formulaic entertainment – the film could be a subversive comment on the way Hollywood and audience are stuck on the treadmill, repeating the same meaningless blockbuster rituals over and over again.
The only truly original element is that Cruise plays a coward. In the first scene he tries to worm his way out of taking part in the invasion. I didn’t see that coming, but yellow becomes him. For more than two decades his stardom has smarmed effortlessly along on the inexplicable adoration of the movie-going masses; a pipsqueak talent exuding a puffed up sense entitlement. Now that the unquestioning adoration has gone he has had to scrap and battle to maintain his career and the bruises have been the making of him, producing a string a performances that genuinely merit stardom.
Directed by Doug Liman.
Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Noah Taylor, Charlotte Riley and Brendan Gleeson. 113 mins.
A great title is a precious thing; they come up so rarely that if you get one you hold on to it tightly in your sweaty, grateful hands. This film used to be called All You Need Is Kill, a title so swaggeringly good I’d be in a line to see it just on that alone. And if someone in that line happened to mention that it starred Tom Cruise, I would of course be disappointed, but I’d still be in that line. At some point one of the Brothers Warner decided to throw that out (presumably some pedant objected to the replacement of the uncountable noun Love with a countable one that is generally used as a verb) and slapped on a title better suited to a Barbara Taylor Bradford or Barbara Cartland. And they kept Tom Cruise.
The title phaffing is particularly annoying as this is something a little bit special, a little bit unusual, and it doesn't need any obstacles placed between it and its potential audience. If the title had to be changed then surely the tagline on the poster – Live. Die. Repeat. – would’ve been a better choice as if both explains what the film is about and makes it sound exciting, rather than making you think of an insipid sunset. Cruise is the soldier doomed to live and die the same day over and again, after he and his squad are wiped out in the first wave of a D-Day landing designed to recapture Europe after an alien invasion. Along with super soldier Blunt they try and find a way to defeat them through trial, error and constant repetition.
It’s a great, paradoxical endeavor: an original summer blockbuster that is like nothing you’ve seen before, made up entirely of things you’ve seen before. It would be easier to list the big movies that haven’t provided some element to the mix, though in turns of production design Matrix Revolution is the biggest donor. The witty script (partly credited to Jerusalem playwright Jez Butterworth) regurgitates all these elements in an unexpected way. The movie is almost non-stop action but the action and spectacle is oddly peripheral. Its choppy rhythms and the constant hitting of the reset button denies audiences the normal narrative securities of these formulaic entertainment – the film could be a subversive comment on the way Hollywood and audience are stuck on the treadmill, repeating the same meaningless blockbuster rituals over and over again.
The only truly original element is that Cruise plays a coward. In the first scene he tries to worm his way out of taking part in the invasion. I didn’t see that coming, but yellow becomes him. For more than two decades his stardom has smarmed effortlessly along on the inexplicable adoration of the movie-going masses; a pipsqueak talent exuding a puffed up sense entitlement. Now that the unquestioning adoration has gone he has had to scrap and battle to maintain his career and the bruises have been the making of him, producing a string a performances that genuinely merit stardom.
