I’m surprised it took about 20 years for Groundhog Day to become a formula pillaged by other genres. There were a few TV episodes to be found in shows like “The X Files” since Groundhog Day, and the short film 12:01 PM admittedly came before it, but you’d think the success of Groundhog Day would have inspired more imitators. Well, I guess it did take found footage almost 10 years between Blair Witch and Cloverfield. In any case, Edge of Tomorrow earns the right to be Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers with a clever story that uses the narrative device in new ways.
Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) was a media spokesperson for the military in a new battle against invading aliens called mimics. Cage spearheaded development of a combat suit that allowed new recruits to become supersoldiers with minimal training. When he refuses to appear on the front lines for a media opportunity, Cage is imprisoned as a deserter and forced into combat anyway. When he kills a mimic in battle and dies himself, he wakes up again repeating the same day every time he dies.
The first treat is that Cage figures out his situation pretty quickly. In Groundhog Day and a few other “Groundhog Day” stories it usually takes a few repeats for it to dawn on the hero that he can change things. Cage recognizes it on day two and goes about trying to fix things. He’s already learned every supporting character’s name by day three, which is better than I would do. The film establishes the rules for this phenomenon and sticks to them.
Screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and director Doug Liman have a clever way to montage us through the various attempts Cage makes at the day. They know we understand the rules, and even if this is our first Groundhog Day-esque movie, we don’t need to see everything re-established every time. So we get some really fun montages of Cage’s failures and do-overs. Edge of Tomorrow is so matter of fact about killing Cage over and over again that it earns our respect. There’s no B.S. here.
For repeating the same battle over and over again, the filmmakers continue to find new action within it every time. We observe character growth through repetition. Sometimes Cage explains things that he’s already seen, but we’re in the position of the supporting characters hearing about it for the first time because we haven’t seen Cage’s repeated attempts this time. The narrative is smart about when to take us back to the beginning and when to proceed further ahead within the story. McQuarrie creates a twisting narrative within the time loop. There are confines, but infinite possibilities.
A key component of the narrative is Rita (Emily Blunt), Cage’s poster child for the space marine suit. She has experienced the repeating day before, but lost her power. That’s enough for her to recognize how Cage can anticipate dangers, but he still has to work to earn her trust every morning. The film finds believable ways for him to earn her trust at different points in the day as well.
The main battle on the beach is obviously reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan with aliens. The only thing is, this is still a PG-13 movie so it’s a bloodless Saving Private Ryan homage. Oh, it’s plenty violent, but the aliens and the suits already connote memories of Starship Troopers so a bloodless Verhoeven sci-fi still seems a tad watered down. It’s no less effective in the world of Edge of Tomorrow but one wonders if the repeated deaths could have had even more bite with R-rated violence. A Saving Private Ryan homage also includes shakycam, but it’s reasonable under Doug Liman, as opposed to his other Bourne counterparts.
The mimics are unfortunately not much to look at. They’re the same gray pointy tentacle-y creatures we’ve been seeing since The Matrix. There was a missed opportunity to create a memorable creature to go along with this clever story, but the visual effects artists opted for the same thing they already know how to do.
I saw Edge of Tomorrow in IMAX 3D and the 3D was okay. You can see the depth in it but there’s no sticky outty 3D. Maybe one of the mimics whips a tail out in a split second, which would be an interesting philosophy, only breaking the plane for quick bursts. It was so quick though that I couldn’t even be sure. Also, the film is still in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio so it doesn’t use the full IMAX ratio. Still a massive screen though.
I still loved Edge of Tomorrow. I’ve got to keep it real when you repurpose aliens, sanitize the violence and shake the camera, but on a narrative level it’s a treat. The film explores plenty of alternate possibilities, but leaves us wondering about enough to feel engaged without everything being spelled out for us. I mean, my big question walking away was: What if the mission took two days?
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
