Edge Of Tomorrow

Doug Liman is supposedly a massive pain in the arse, which would go some way to explaining his hardly prolific output since his 1994 debut Getting In. The excellent Swingers and Go followed soon after, but he hasn't really made a memorable film since then (Bourne only really got going when Paul Greengrass arrived on the scene) with 2010's poor Fair Game suggesting Liman's early promise had been lost for good. Time for a surprise though as his new film Edge Of Tomorrow (though its somewhat confusingly been pushed as Live. Die. Repeat. on the marketing front) is big screen entertainment and Liman's best since that mid to late 90's heyday. Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need Is Kill, the film is based in the near future where aliens have had their standard fun following an invasion but, hurrah(!), the humans are staging a fight back. However, some are more reluctant than others to get their hands dirty and when Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), an army PR man with no combat experience, attempts to blackmail his way our of fighting for the cause he is forced into battle, soon becoming brown bread. So that's the "Live" and "Die" bits covered then. Soon comes the "Repeat" as Cage is resurrected and starts his mission over again before croaking it once more. We're in time loop territory here and on each of his life cycles, with the help of real soldier Vrataski (Emily Brunt), his knowledge of fighting the aliens improves with the aim of finally defeating the imposters. You can take your pick of film mash ups here (Independence Day v Groundhog Day et al), but Liman brings a freshness to the film and, for a subject matter that revolves around repeated killing, it's surprisingly funny. That freshness comes from the way the story is crafted. Initially the audience's knowledge is on a par with Cage's, but a sudden piece of sleight of hand in the middle (slowly revealed by Cruise and Blunt's excellent acting - both using body language to intimate unsaid things) reveals that we're now possibly hundreds or thousands of "repeats" into the future. From then on we have only snippets of conversation that hint at what's happened over the "repeats" with a nod to Cage's and Vrataski's back stories. It's surprising that the script has turned out so nicely balanced as there were problems with the screenplay before and during the shoot (Liman actually started filming before an ending was even penned in), but everything has turned out for the best. On the acting front Cruise is genuinely convincing as a coward thrown into a terrifying situation, plus the smart narrative solves the usual credibility stretching problem of the man on the street becoming a gun-toting hero within two hours of the running time. Blunt is great as the kick-ass soldier and what a joy to finally see a kosher strong female character in a film like this. You also get a fun cameo from Bill Paxton as a no-nonsense army Sergeant (somewhat amazingly the first film starring Paxton and Cruise together, so a new link for fans of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game). On the down side, the alien creatures are portrayed as such vicious speedy killers when any of them are killed its somewhat unbelievable and the film goes off the rails slightly right at the end (it's painfully apparent that some of the final "outdoor" scenes are being shot internally), but overall this is great fun, keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout and it has the greatest moment involving a hand grenade pin since Leon. Rating: 8/10.