From director Doug Liman and based of the Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, comes the 2014 science fiction action film Edge of Tomorrow. The movie is set in the near future in the midst of a war between humans and a superior alien race who has invaded earth. The film stars Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt with Bill Paxton & Brendan Gleeson in major supporting roles.
Earth has been invade by a race of technologically highly advanced aliens called the Mimics who have taken over much of continental Europe. The aliens are winning the war although the rest of the world’s military forces unite to battle them. Major William Cage, a former advertising man who enlisted to become the public relations officer of the United Defence Forces is stunned when he arrived in London only to be told by General Brigham that he will be sent to the front lines the next day in France. Cage has no combat experience and objects to the assignment but he is told that his US Army CO had transferred him to be under the General’s command and hence he has no choice. Cage tries to blackmail the General by threatening to use his public affairs skills to use and create a hostile atmosphere for him to which Brigham has him handcuffed and knocked out as Cage tries to escape. When he comes to Cage is in Heathrow airport, labelled a deserted & demoted in ranks and put on combat duty for the invasion under the command of Master Sergeant Farell.
Cage is rebuked and mocked by the Sergeant and the other soldiers and at the invasion things go badly as the human soldiers are getting massacarred in quick succession. Cage manages to kill a large Mimic with a blue glare but is coated with it’s acid like blood and dies…..only to awaken back at the Heathrow airport! It’s a day earlier and the events repeats itself and Cage tries to warn the others but no one believes him and he is killed again at the battle, only to be revived again at the same point in time back at Heathrow! This happens a couple of minutes until he saves the life of Sergeant Rita Vrataski – she knows what is happening to him and she tells him to find her when he waked up again. Cage is killed again and wakes up and finds Rita who takes him to meet Dr. Carter a former government scientist and expert in Mimic biology. Together they explain what is happening to Cage; the alien he killed in an “alpha” Mimic which resets time when it is killed to give the Mimics an advantage in battle. Since he ingested some of it’s blood, Cage has got the same ability, although he is doing it involuntarily. Rita had the same ability when she too killed an “alpha” and was covered in it’s blood but she got hurt and had to have an blood transfusion which stopped it.
Rita trains Cage to battle the Mimics as they plan to hunt & kill the Mimics’ hive mind, the Omega. Dr. Carter had discovered that the aliens behave like a common entity, killing the Omega will kill the aliens under it. However Cage keeps getting killed and has to go through the same situation again and again, which begins to jade the man. He and Vrataski spend several loops learning how to survive the battle on the beach and get inland based on his vision of the Omega hiding within a Bavarian Alps dam. After numerous loops end in Vrataski’s death, Cage decides to hunt the Omega alone, abandoning her and the rest of the invasion to doom on the beach. When he arrives at the dam, he discovers that the Omega is not there. He manages to kill himself before an Alpha can steal his blood and prevent him from resetting the day. Realizing that the visions was a trick, he and Rita approach General Brigham and confront him with what they have learned so far. Brigham has a prototype device that Carter designed which can hunt the Omega (the military didn’t believe him at the time and he was discredited) and the two of them take it from him after several time loops but they crash their getaway car and both are injured. Cage’s life is saved by a blood transfusion, but it removes his ability to reset the day.
Rita frees Cage from his hospital room and they head back to Heathrow where using prior information he has about his squad Cage is able to convince the soldiers to help him & Rita get to Paris where the Omega is hidden under the Luvre. The soldiers sacrifice themselves and Rota distracts a waiting Alpha while Cage advances on the Omega. The Alpha kills them both, but not before Cage primes and drops a grenade belt into the Omega’s core, destroying it and neutralizing the other Mimics. However the Omega’s blood covers Cage and he awakens….in the helicopter he was headed to London in. This time however the humans seem to be winning the war as Brigham says that there is less activity from the Mimics after a power surge went off in Paris the previous night. Cage is not confronted by the General and he goes to see the squad, who are alive and well and salute the major. He then goes to see Rita who does not recognize him and asks what he wants to which he just laughs.
Not bad. Quite well produced and shot. The special effects is great and the aliens are menacing. The explanations of the time loops take a major leap but still it’s a good movie. Lots of humour involved as well. 8 outta 10!