Review of the DVD Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt

Review of the DVD Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt
Even though there were previous movies in which he had significant roles, Tom Cruise has been a super star since his “briefs” performance in Risky Business.  He has made a number of other notable films, Top Gun, Born on the Fourth of July, Rain Man, Jerry Maguire, and A Few Good Men.  This last one is one of my all-time, favorite courtroom dramas.  The last fifteen minutes withCruise’s interrogation of the Jack Nicholson character still rivets my attention andhosts the classic line, “You can’t handle the truth!” 
There is a more recent Cruise film that has the capacity to repeatedly rivet my attention as well.  It is a cross between two “Day” films, Groundhog Dayand Independence Day. As in Groundhog Day, the Cruise character keeps reliving the same day.  As in Independence Day, the world has united to fight off extinction by alien creatures.  The movie’s marketing title, “Live.  Die.  Repeat,” is what the Cruise character does throughout the film.  He lives.  He gets killed.  He lives again.  And so it goes until he destroys the main alien which results in the incapacitationof all the others and victory for the world!
Now it wouldn’t seem that such a predictable plotline would hold one’s interest repeatedly.  But it does, at least for me.  What I find so intriguingis the transition that occurs in the character that Cruise portrays, Major William Cage.  At the outset he is a “paper Marine”.  Not a fighting machine, but a public relations officer who markets the war, selling it to potential recruits and thepresumably proper handling of it to the world.
Much to his chagrin and with the help of a tasergun, Cage gets injected into actual combat.   Ineptly, he storms the beach with thousands of other soldiers in a second Normandy invasion. He is summarily killed by a one-in-a-million alien whose blood infuses itself over, around, and within Cage (Not a pretty picture, and the reason for the PG-13 rating that parents should keep in mind).  In horror Cage gasps his last breath, but then stunninglyawakens to do it all again.In time he learns that this pattern of “live, die, repeat” will continue for as longas his blood holds the DNA of the alien that killed him initially.
As the movie progressesyou see a gradual progression in Cage.  Very subtly at first, he goes from the “playing it safe from the sidelines” sort of individual, who is more than willing to allow any and all but him make theultimate sacrifice that war requires, to an “action hero” who is willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of humankind.
Yes, the plot is tried and true.  Yes,there is action riddled throughout.  It even has what seems to be a Cruise obligatory, his character cruising on a motorcycle.  Nevertheless, Edge of Tomorrow can be “watched”, “put away”, “watched again,” without getting old because of the character development portrayed effectively by the original Captain Underpants, Tom Cruise.
Reviewed by Richard Dick, Library Assistant, O’Kelly Memorial Library



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