Viewed in
2014
Formats
Movie theater 3D.
Premise
Based on the novel, All You Need is Kill, Tom Cruise stars as a soldier who gets stuck in a time loop while fighting alien invaders.
Loved
Underrated comedic moments.
Liked
Tom Cruise, strong story, well-done action and 3D.
Disliked
A couple implausible movie physics moments.
Thoughts
At first, I thought it would be a bloated, lame mashup of Groundhog Day and The Matrix. Turns out it was a well-written sci-fi action flick.
For a summer blockbuster, the story was pretty strong. The plot was taught, no superfluous scenes, and easy-to-digest time-travel movie logic. None of the themes were ground-breaking, but the story-telling was just really well-done. It smartly gave a change of scenery halfway to push the pace and remove repetition. Even the minor characters were thoughtfully inserted, with a nice twist at the end.
There's been some dips in his career, but there's something timeless about watching Cruise doing his thang. His smile, chuckle, glare, grit is pretty much the same, but I instantly believed him as the reluctant soldier with greatness thrust upon him. The only thing missing was his patented sprinting (my friend said it happened but I must've missed it). He also got good rapport with Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, and Emily Blunt (who despite her obligatory hot body shot delivered intelligence and gravitas).
The most underrated aspect was the movie's surprising sense of humor. Throughout, the film makers threw funny curveballs, usually in the form of Cruise dying, enhancing the precision-guided action-packed journey with a jolt of levity.
While the CGI, special effects, and 3D were extremely well-executed, I wouldn't call them mind-blowing. In this case, this was a good thing, as it integrated with the story. You feel the epic scale chaos of the beach landing. The film's opening release date on the 70th anniversary of D-Day was clearly intentional. You could also see the attention to detail and meticulous planning required to blend 3D, CGI, and live-action to make battles between spiky, tentacled baddies and soldiers in exoskeletons feel immersive and organic.
Having said that, the 3D was a mild recommendation. Even though it was deftly made, it wasn't integral to the story-telling.
For the most part, the movie physics was grounded in realism, without being overly-gritty or dour. However, it inadvertently made some of the more outrageous action moments slightly implausible that a human body could take that punishment.
Another slightly implausible part was with how Cruise learned to survive. In Groundhog Day, you really felt the mundane drudgery of repeating the same day over and over again, slowly mastering your craft. While it was funny and cool to do a montage of training followed by dying, it actually could've used a few more iterations to really hammer in the amount of grunt work Cruise's character had to endure to become the superhero-ish.
While it didn't keep the badass name of the book, Edge of Tomorrow's generic title probably better fit this smartly-planned, expertly-executed summer flick. Cruise still had his A-game, the writing was taught, the action was visual exciting, and the sneaky comedy all contribute to a good time.
