June 20th in Chicago: This is the 8th film I've seen so far and I was on the fence about it. My interest in seeing Tom Cruise films has waned over the last few years. Especially his action films. I didn't think much of Oblivion and Jack Reacher brought nothing new to the table. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was good but again nothing new except grander stunts. Cruise is an actor who care a lot about his craft and wants his films to be seen by everyone. That's why he gets a producer credit in and he does his own stunts. He wants his films to be successful and he doesn't phone it in (Mel Gibson's performance in The Patriot comes to mind).
I was on the fence about this film. Mostly because of Cruise and aliens invading Earth is getting a bit long in the tooth (let's be honest, any species that has the technology to travel millions of light years across galaxies would have no trouble wiping out human resistance. They probably wouldn't get their feet wet. We can discuss that at another time). However, Tomorrow offered the mecha battle suit.
Quite frankly, how does one not like mecha battle suits? Not possible is it. The concept is nothing new for sure. My first memory of the "battle suit" was in Aliens when Ripley had to battle the giant queen...
Though not technically a "battle suit" per se, Ripley does use it in hand to hand combat against the queen. I remember this scene when I saw this film back in 1986, the theater went crazy when she walked out in it. Anyway, battle suits are nothing new and they got really cool in Avatar and so on. The point being, battle suits are cool and I have a tough time not wanting to see them in action. There you go.
Cruise plays Major William Cage, a Marine p/r man trying to drive up recruitment for the United Defense Force. Earth is under attack by an alien force bent on the destruction of the human race. Cage is in London to meet with the Commander of the UDF General Brigham (Brandon Gleeson) an after the meeting, Brigham informs Cage that he will be imbedded with the soldiers in tomorrows Normandy invasion. This is not what Cage wants to hear (he's a p/r guy not a soldier) and he gets arrested for desertion and wakes up in the forward base and is assigned to a combat unit.
The troops are dropped in on Normandy and it is a disaster. The invasion was supposed to be a surprise but the "mimics" (the term used for the aliens) were waiting for them. Cruise as one might suspect is useless on the battlefield. With no training he doesn't even know how to switch the weapons safety off. His squad is cut down while still on the beach and Cruise manages to kill a mimic while fumbling about but dies in the process. Cage wakes up back at Heathrow on the tarmac as if it was all just a dream. During the reset of the invasion, he meets up with Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt, channeling her inner Linda Hamilton from T2). Vrataski was the "angel of Verdun" where she killed hundreds of mimics and the UDF won the battle. Which led to her other nickname, "Solid Metal Bitch," obviously because she's so bad ass.
During one of the meetings Cruise explains what's going on with him and she tells him to find her when he wakes up. Repeat (the tagline to the film is Live. Die. Repeat. in case you were wondering and haven't seen a trailer or a poster for the film). So as Cage keeps repeating the day, he becomes a more efficient killer of mimics but he realizes that the invasion is a waste and nothing will ever be done unless they get off it which they can't. During the repetition process, Cage finds out that he got this "power" because he killed an Alpha mimic. The same thing happened to Vrataski at Verdun. Mimics have 3 types: drone, alpha and omega. Vrataski & Cage are helped with the science aspect of the film by Dr. Carter (Noah Taylor, who played Wolodarsky in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) who is now a weapons technician after he drummed out of the defense research program for his crazy theories about the mimics (for which he was correct).
The mimics can control time. They day is reset because it brings them closer to eliminate the powers from the likes of Cage and Vrataski. It's all about the blood. When Cage killed the alpha (they're very rare about 1 alpha per 1 million drones) it's blood mixed with Cage's blood and thus the power. Vrataski lost her power when she received a blood transfusion. In order to reset, Cage has to die (again the film's tagline) and each time Cage dies, he gets a little better and is able to gather more intelligence).
So cage is caught in the loop and he goes through the varying emotional displays; he tries to save his pals, he gets better at killing mimics, he loses hope, deserts, watches London get destroyed (it's here where he realizes that the mimics are up to something sinister), refocuses, stops caring about his pals and falls for Vrataski.
With a cool sword like that. Who wouldn't?
Cage gets so emotionally attached to Vrataski that even decides not to meet up with her and opts to go it alone to where it's believed the Omega is hiding out (a dam in Bavaria. It came to Cruise during a science moment in the film complete with a science device). When Cage arrives to kill the Omega he finds that...
There's an alpha waiting for Cage but luckily he dies and gets to reset. It soon learned that the Omega is hiding out in the Louvre in Paris. The plan becomes to destroy it before the invasion ever happens. Enlisting the aid of Cage's squad of misfits from earlier in the loop the make last ditch effort. Because Cage had a blood transfusion while escaping from the authorities during the science moment with the science device. So Cage can't reset. This is it, no one is coming home.
One by one the minor characters are picked off until only Cage & Vrataksi are left. Vrataski lures an alpha away so Cage and attack the Omega. Suffice to say we win. The ending is a bit tricky but I don't have the where with it all to go into it in detail without doing a lot of research. So I'll let these guys handle it. The article contains more spoilers than I revealed so be advised.
He's come a long way since Swingers back in 1997 but director Doug Limon, does a very nice job with the pacing and the action. The film doesn't slow down, at best it changes speeds and revs it back up again. The film is based on a Japanese novel, All You Need Is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (which I have not read much less knew about). This was a fun film to watch in the theater; cool effects, cool stunts, explosions, mecha battle suits and aliens. The story, well that's something else.
You don't get too far into the film before you start thinking, "wow, this is kind of like Groundhog Day meets Saving Private Ryan with a bit of ID4 thrown in."I would also thrown in a little Source Code from 2011 as well because of the concept that the hero, stuck in a time loop, does a little better each time he goes through the day. I've said before that I don't like to mess with the science part of science fiction but I can only go so far before I feel the need to speak up. I'm all for a good time travel plot piece but a lot of the time it gets used to cover up discrepancies or other bad plot lines. The film also doesn't break any new ground here as well.
Since I never read the book I have no frame of reference for it. In terms of the film, it's a lot of different films thrown together in addition to the ones I mentioned prior. These days that's going to happen more often then not but it makes me feel like I'm so cool because I've seen all this films (though it's not like I can trace scenes back to the original obscure film where scenes were "borrowed" from). All action films follow the same premise and that's the way it's been from Star Wars through today. Not being completely original is not a deal breaker for me but I can be finicky from time to time. Didn't bother me too much here. What did bother me was that once we again an alien race that should have no trouble erasing humans from the universe gets defeated because of their "hive" mentality. Kill the brains and the the drones just wither up and die. The mimics were able to travel the vast distances of space but they don't have an elaborate chain of command or contingency plan? Apparently that's the trade off for being so technologically advanced. Plus the mimics can FUCKING CONTROL TIME! That power alone should be enough to squash us like bugs.
My other problem was the ending. Again not a deal breaker but enough of an issue to mention it. We get the typical Hollywood ending. Every now and then I wouldn't mind seeing a movie end when the job is done. Here, Cruise clearly dies in the process of killing the Omega (SPOILER ALERT!) but he magically gets brought back to life (the blood of the dead Omega plays a big part). In the final act of generosity, the Omega resets the time to just prior to Cage's arrival and subsequent shanghai-ing into combat. Yet he gets to keep his memories. The invasion will not be a slaughter and Cruise goes over to where Blunt is training and he's got that "I'm so gonna score with you" look on his face. I didn't like the way time was "reset" after X-Men: DOFP and I didn't like it here. However I must acknowledge that it was entirely possible that after the Omega was killed, the film did end there but the test screening audience wondered why Cruise had to die so they altered the ending (it's a solid theory and wouldn't be the first time that's happened).
All in all this is Cruise's best action film since the last MI film. It was a fun time. I hope this helps. Thank you for your time.
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