Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Edge of Tomorrow
2014
****
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Kick Gurry, Dragomir Mrsic, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong, Franz Drameh, Masayoshi Haneda, Tony Way, Noah Taylor

As continental Europe is overrun by aliens known as Mimics, the cowardly PR officer Major Cage is put in the frontline against his will. He is killed on a French beach and thrown in a time loop which takes him back to the day before the battle every time he dies. Doug Liman's science fiction action movie is not terribly original, but it is wonderfully entertaining and darkly funny for the first two thirds. It's Groundhog Day all over again as Cage has multiple chances to develop as a soldier and find a weakness in the Mimic defence. Or Starship Troopers meets Source Code, if you want me to define it in scifi terms. Like the latter film, this one doesn't have the guts to take its death-filled premise to its inevitably grim conclusion. I would also question the collective intelligence of the humanity in this version of the future if it believes that the best way to fight overwhelmingly strong aliens is to wear an exoskeleton suit and engage in a hand-to-hand combat. Adapted from a 2004 Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.