Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Post-release)
Of all the films I thought I would like this year, I didn’t think EOT stood a chance as the one to be standing out from the pack. It looked like a composite of so many other sci fi movies ,very like “Oblivion” was, but I still reckoned it would be a competently entertaining way of watching Bill Paxman channelling his inner scene chewing Hudson again for a couple of hours.
I was so, so wrong.
This was a great entertaining film ,action packed, clever and dead funny in a way I never thought it could be. For instance I didn't think I’d ever laugh so much and hard at Tom Cruises range of dying screams!
Yes, it has echoes of all those illustrious ancestors you’ve seen before but its cut together in such away that the story rips along and branches unexpectedly and then goes in directions you’d never dream of when it first starts. It’s a real original style wise and it reminded me far more of that TV series “Flashforward” in the way the story arch can change as it charts Cruise personal evolution from a self serving little weasel into a battle wearied veteran. And I’ve got to say how they set the ending up had me absolutely on the edge of my seat. So this ended up perhaps the best TC film I’ve ever watched for a long while.
And as a super plus not only that but I did see far more of Emily Blunt as a sword wielding combat goddess than I could have possibly hoped for, but she’s hardly a love interest for Tom in this , more of a terrifyingly practical weapons instructress. And then some.
Really, this is one of Cruise’s best characters in an age ,and the way the film is built around him was so good you’ll be sorry when it ends. The transformative effect on his character , caused by his accumulative experiences of death is convincing, riveting and I’ve got to say at times quite moving. Yes it’s a little like a video game in its construction, but you love the way it makes itself like that without being anything LIKE the kind of crap video game to film conversions we are used to getting .
Bill Paxton’s drill sergeant is absolutely great in this, and you’ll laugh at a couple of his lines (“Drop and give me fifty!”) and the effects are very bold and strong , but if your girlfriends and wives don’t like spiders, they ain’t going to be too keen on the invading aliens, which are all a storm of fast moving tentacles.
I’d see it again in a second, but not in 3D this time, as there is so much going on in the early beach invasion scenes it was hard to track at times.
There could have been an argument for going for a harder rating with this but the excessive number of deaths would have been wearing, and the relatively goreless effects and cuts from helped keep it the rightside of being entertaining as far as I was concerned.
Great film!!! Far, far better than Godzilla, as enjoyable of X men and Captain America.