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The Unexpected Pleasures of Edge of Tomorrow

Director Doug Liman imbues the  Groundhog-Day -meets- Starship- Troopers  Tom Cruise vehicle with wit and panache.

Tom Cruise lands on a French beach, D-Day-like, and is torn apart by a glowing, tentacled alien.

Tom Cruise lands on a French beach, D-Day-like, and has a hole punched through his chest while protecting another soldier from enemy fire.

Tom Cruise lands on a French beach, D-Day-like, and is squashed by a helicopter falling from the sky.

It’s not, in short, a good day to be Tom Cruise—or rather, Private William Cage, the character he plays in his new film Edge of Tomorrow . Nor does his day get any better: blown to smithereens, run over by a jeep, shot in the head—you name it, he suffers it. Forget last week’s critically reviled Seth MacFarlane comedy-western . It’s Cruise’s film that might all too plausibly have been titled A Million Ways to Die in the Future .

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If you’ve read anything at all about Edge of Tomorrow , it is likely that two of the words you’ve read have been “ Groundhog Day ,” and there’s good reason for this. Director Doug Liman’s sharp, infectiously entertaining sci-fi thriller offers a lethal spin on Harold Ramis’s 1993 high-concept comedy : Rather than overcome existential ennui, a la Bill Murray’s Phil Connors, Cage must embrace the certainty that before his very long day ends—if in fact it ever does—he is certain to die many, many more times, in many, many more ways.

To rewind a bit: Edge of Tomorrow (based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill ) is set in a near-future in which a methodical alien species dubbed “Mimics” has touched down in Germany and, over the course of five years, gradually overtaken most of Western Europe. The sole human victory over the invaders has been at Verdun—yes, that Verdun —where a heroic soldier in a robotic exoskeleton, Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), single-handedly killed more than 100 Mimics and in the process became an icon of the resistance.

Enter Cruise’s character, the callow William Cage. When first we meet him, he is an Army major, a principal TV spokesman for the war effort, and an exceptional coward. But after an ill-considered run-in with a superior officer, he finds himself demoted, sent to the frontlines, and, soon enough, accidentally imbued with the peculiar ability to reset his day the moment he dies. From there, the general contours of the plot are largely set: By a process of trial and (inevitably lethal) error, Cage must find a way to defeat the Mimics, learning more and making it slightly farther with each attempt. He’s aided in his efforts by Vrataski, the “Angel of Verdun,” who has her own insights into the nature of his powers.

The conceit may sound constricting, but Liman (like Ramis before him) gets exceptional mileage out of it. The director is in top form here, presenting his ever-revolving tale with visual style, narrative velocity, and a wonderful dose of dark humor. There are echoes of Cruise’s last sci-fi outing, the less-bad-than-it’s-remembered Oblivion , and still more of Duncan Jones’s excellent 2011 time-travel whodunit Source Code . But Liman ( Go , The Bourne Identity , Mr. & Mrs. Smith ) lends the proceedings a more playful edge, and directs the action sequences with true panache. The early battle scenes on the beach, in particular, are a riveting ballet of blood and sand and fire and metal. (And aliens.) And despite the inevitable inanities underlying its time-travel premise, the movie does a relatively good job of adhering to its own internal logic.

Blunt offers a clearer display of the big-screen charisma she hinted at way back in The Devil Wears Prada than she has at perhaps any time since. Moreover, the film is a nice exception to the customary damsel-in-distress narrative: this time out, it’s Blunt who plays the battle-hardened vet.

Cruise, too, is better than he’s been in a long while. As an actor, he’s always relied overmuch on sheer intensity: a fiercer stare, a sharper grin, a more zealous commitment to performing his own stunts. But under Liman’s direction, he takes it easier—at least on occasion—than he has in years. Having experimented with broad comedy ( Tropic Thunder , Rock of Ages ) following the couch-jumping-and-Scientology derailment of his superstardom, he offers flashes here of a quieter, more ironic wit. There are even a few moments of understated tenderness (two words rarely associated with Cruise) between him and Blunt.

In its final act, unfortunately, Liman’s movie veers a bit off course. To belabor the analogy: If the first three quarters of the film reinvent Groundhog Day , the final quarter recalls, ever so slightly, the saggy conclusion of Stripes . (The script went through many iterations, and the ending was reportedly always considered problematic.)

That said, Edge of Tomorrow remains one of the pleasant surprises of this summer season to date, boasting magnetic leads, a wickedly looping plot, and bravura direction. It might not be quite the cinematic experience you want to re-live over and over again, but it’s well worth at least one go-round.

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A Spoiler-Filled Review of “Edge of Tomorrow”

It’s rare that the art of movies and the business of their distribution coincide as closely as they do with “Edge of Tomorrow,” the director Doug Liman’s new science-fiction vehicle for Tom Cruise. It opens this Friday, June 6th, the seventieth anniversary of D Day—and that massive and decisive Normandy landing, tweaked to fit the movie’s futuristic premise, is also its main dramatic event. The metaphorical overlay of fantasy and history is the best thing “Edge of Tomorrow” has to offer—and, for much of its running time, that overlay is enough to lend the movie a shiver of curious power.

“Edge of Tomorrow,” as everyone already knows, is a sci-fi war film with a “Groundhog Day”-like premise: Cruise plays a soldier who, after being killed in combat, awakens the day before the battle and must relive, over and over, the moment of his death. Yet the movie hidden behind “Edge of Tomorrow” isn’t “Groundhog Day” but, rather, “Saving Private Ryan.” The terrifyingly gory opening sequence of Steven Spielberg’s film—the landing at Omaha Beach—poses a fundamental question about war: If the D Day combat had been reported in real time and in detail, if the uncensored newsreel footage that it generated played like Spielberg’s realistic scene—with its dismembered limbs, dangling viscera, incinerated bodies, cries of agony, scattered corpses, and waves of blood—would the American public have tolerated the pursuit of the war until the enemies’ surrender? And would sufficient numbers of American men have fought in it willingly?

That question is the premise of “Edge of Tomorrow”: the world is battling alien creatures who have killed hundreds of millions of people in Europe, and the allied army, known as the United Defense Force (U.D.F.), is planning a colossal and top-secret mobilization to cross the English Channel and gain a beachhead in France in order to reconquer the continent from the invading organisms. On the eve of the great mission, Major William Cage (Cruise), a U.D.F. information officer, is ordered to be embedded in a combat battalion in order to “sell the war” to the citizenry.

Because the setup is the source of much of the movie’s pleasure, more or less any discussion of the story is a spoiler. “Edge of Tomorrow” is a movie that offers primarily the glee of its telling—the well-crafted delight of a tall fantasy that’s as shallow as it is clever—and I’m going to indulge in the pleasure of this well-wrought yarn by simply telling it.

Cage, a former advertising executive who has no military training or background, wants no part of the fight, and he refuses the order from the general in command (Brendan Gleeson). He tries to flee, and is tased into submission—only to awaken in the staging area, demoted to private, and forced into a front-line combat unit under the hard-nosed command of Master Sergeant Farell (Bill Paxton). But the beach landing goes horribly awry. The troops are being massacred by the superfast, thrashing, whip-tentacled monsters, and Cage, confronting an especially big and mean creature, is himself quickly killed. Then, in a brashly effective and simple cut from one shot to another, Cage comes instantly back to life, restored to the way he was at the start of the day of battle, at the moment of his reawakening after being tased.

The crucial and delicious detail is that Cage’s curse, to die again endlessly (though, somehow, seemingly painlessly), affords him a limitless capacity to learn on the job—each return to battle is both another lesson in warfare and another chance to probe the enemy’s vulnerabilities. Soon, reawakening at the British base, Cage chooses a martial mentor: Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a commando fighter who was the heroine of the U.D.F.’s one prior military victory on the continent (she’s nicknamed the Angel of Verdun, extending a metaphor one generation back). Vrataski trains Cage and accompanies him into battle. They are both helped by a discredited physicist (Noah Taylor), whose speculative simulations reveal the enemy’s deft deceptions and hidden weakness.

The idea of the movie (based on the novel “ All You Need Is Kill ,” by Hiroshi Sakurazaka) is a corker, which is why it’s worth reëmphasizing the spoiler alert. At the same time as Cage’s reiterated lives allow him to master the monsters, we learn that the monsters’ central brain has allowed Cage to be regenerated on purpose. The monster brain is using Cage to learn how humans fight. Vrataski was also similarly chosen. As it turns out, she offered humanity a Pyrrhic victory at Verdun: the aliens allowed her troops to win there in order to observe and master her tactics. When Cage and Vrataski figure this out, they recognize that they have to get one step ahead of the aliens on the learning curve, and must anticipate their play one move in advance, in order to make their decisive advance toward Paris. (The story deals with the sci-fi problem of parallel worlds by making each new iteration ontologically supersede the previous one: last world, definitive world.)

“Edge of Tomorrow” conveys its ingenious, historically resonant premise but never develops it. The narrative is high-concept gimmickry realized with efficiency and energy but not much imagination. The engineering of the intricate story, and the deft dovetailing needed to iterate multiple lives in rapid succession, seem to have taxed Liman’s art, as does the effort to simulate chemistry between Cruise and Blunt. She’s an active and alert performer who, throughout, seems to want more—a character with a life story to sink her interpretive teeth into—whereas Cruise takes Cage’s one-note backstory, the cowardly out-of-work ad man, and expands it, and himself, to the breaking point. Cruise’s eternal sheen of callow youth is integrated into the very substance of the film. As Cage is converted by circumstances into a hardened and capable fighting machine (veering toward superhero territory), the story tracks his dramatic transformation, in under two hours, from a raw trainee into a military hero. “Edge of Tomorrow” turns out to be the movie that Cage was ordered to make: his greatest recruiting film.

What difference would it make to such a juicy tale if Liman had brought more imagination to its direction? If he had parsed the action with more detail and more nuance or had conceived and encapsulated the characters with more insight? The problem with a good story that’s nothing more than a good story is that it exhausts itself in the telling, as this one does, and never makes the leap from idea to experience. “Edge of Tomorrow” requires Cage’s heroism to be simultaneously physical and intellectual, a matter of calculation and anticipation as well as of courage and execution. What’s missing from the movie is the existential adventure that it implies—the confrontation with death, the overcoming of pain. Liman offers war leached of horror—death without pain, memory without trauma—and narrows Cage to a stick figure emptied of the fascinating and disturbing psychological implications of his adventure. The movie is also humorless—at least, devoid of intentional humor. Yet the demands of the international movie-distribution marketplace seem to be responsible for a howlingly funny clinching line of dialogue, capping the heroes’ success: “Russian and Chinese forces are marching across Europe without resistance.” It promises an utterly unintended sequel.

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"Edge of Tomorrow" is less of a time travel movie than an experience movie; that statement might not make sense now, but it probably will after you've seen it. Based on Hiroshi Sikurazaka's novel "All You Need is Kill", it's a true science fiction film, highly conceptual, set during the aftermath of an alien invasion. Maybe "extra-dimensional being invasion" is more accurate. The fierce, octopod-looking beasties known as Mimics are controlled hive-mind style by a creature that seems able to peer through time, or rupture it, or something. When the tale begins, we don't have exact answers about the enemy's powers (that's for our intrepid heroes to find out), but we have a solid hunch that it can see possible futures through the eyes of specific humans, then treat them as, essentially, video game characters, following their progress through the nasty "adventure" of the war, and making note of their tactical maneuvers, the better to ensure our collective extermination. 

Tom Cruise , who seems to be spending his fifties saving humanity, plays Major William Cage, an Army public relations officer. Cage is a surprising choice for the role of hero. He's never seen combat yet inexplicably finds himself thrown into the middle of a ferocious battle that will decide the outcome of the war. The film begins with Cage en route to European command headquarters in London, waking up in the belly of a transport chopper. The rest of the movie may not be his dream per se, but at various points it sure feels as though it is. The world is wracked by war. Millions have died. Whole cities have been reduced to ash heaps. The landscapes evoke color newsreel footage from World War II, and much of the combat seems lifted from that era as well. 

When Cage meets the general in charge of that part of the world's forces, he's told he's being sent right into this movie's version of D-Day and is to report for duty immediately. No amount of protest by Cage can halt this assignment, and soon after he joins his unit and learns the rudiments of wearing combat armor (this is one of those science fiction films in which soldiers wear clumping bionic suits festooned with machine guns and other weapons) he dies on the battlefield. Then he wakes up and starts all over. Then he dies again and starts over again. He always knows he's been here before, that he met this person, said that thing, did that thing, made a wrong choice and died. Nobody else does, though. They're oblivious to the way in which Cage, like "Slaughterhouse Five" hero Billy Pilgrim, has come unstuck in time. 

Cage's only allies are a scientist ( Noah Taylor ) who believes the creatures are beating humanity through their mastery of time, and Rita Vrataski ( Emily Blunt ), an Audie Murphy or Sgt. York type who's great for armed forces morale in addition to being an exceptionally gifted killer. Rita has experienced the same temporal dislocation that Cage is now experiencing, but at a certain point it stopped. She recognizes his maddening condition but can no longer share in it. She can, however, offer guidance (and a key bit of information that defines his predicament), and speed up the learning curve by shooting him in the head whenever it becomes obvious that they're going down a wrong road that'll lead to the same fatal outcome. 

Although the film's advertising would never dare suggest such a thing, for fear of driving off viewers who just want the bang bang-boom boom, Cage is a complex and demanding role for any actor. It is especially right for Cruise, in that Cage starts out as a Jerry Maguire-type who'll say or do anything to preserve his comfort, then learns through hard (lethal) experience how to be a good soldier and a good man. He changes as the story tells and retells and retells itself. By the end he's nearly unrecognizable from the man we met in the opening. 

Cruise is hugely appealing here, not just in the early scenes opposite Gleeson in which he's in Tony Curtis mode—he's always fantastic playing a smooth-talking manipulator who's sweating on the inside—but later, where he exhibits the sort of rock-solid super-competence and unforced decency that Randolph Scott brought to Budd Boetticher's westerns. He was always likable, sometimes perfect in the right role, but age has deepened him by bringing out his vulnerability. There's an existential terror in his eyes that's disturbing in a good way, and there are points in which "Edge of Tomorrow" seems to simultaneously be about what it's about while also being about the predicament of a real actor trying to stay relevant in a Hollywood universe that's addicted to computer generated monsters, robots and explosions. Cruise deserves some sort of acting award for the array of yelps and gasps he summons as he's killed by a Mimic or shot in the head by Blunt and then rebooted into another version of the story.

The rest of the cast has less to do because this is Tom Cruise's movie through-and-through, but they're all given moments of humor, terror or simple eccentricity. Taylor often gets cast as brilliant but haunted or ostracized geniuses, and he's effective in another of those roles here. Gleeson, as is so often the case, invests a rather stock character with such humanity that when the character's motivations and responses change, you get the sense that it's because the general is a good and smart man and not because he's just doing what the script needs him to do. Emily Blunt is unexpectedly convincing as a fearless and elegant super-soldier, and of course a magnificent camera subject as well. Director Doug Liman is so enamored with the introductory shot of her rising up off the floor of a combat training facility in a sort of downward facing dog yoga pose that he repeats it many times. The film's only egregious flaw is its attempt to superimpose a love story onto Cruse and Blunt's relationship, which seems more comfortable as a "Let's express our adoration for each other by killing the enemy" kind of thing. 

There's no end to the number of films and novels and other sources to which "Edge of Tomorrow" can be likened. " Groundhog Day " seems to be everyone's reflexive comparison point, but Liman's elaborately choreographed tracking shots and unglamorously visualized European hellscapes evoke " Children of Men ," the creatures themselves have a touch of the Sentinels from the "Matrix" films, and the monsters-vs.-infantry scenes will remind you of James Cameron's " Aliens " and its literary predecessor " Starship Troopers ." ( Bill Paxton , one of the stars of "Aliens," plays Cage's drill sergeant, a mustachioed Kentucky hard-ass with an amusingly sour sense of humor.)   It's also an exceptionally brutal film, so bone-and-skull-crushingly violent and fairy-tale frightening that its PG-13 rating is stupefying. Parents should avoid taking young children who'll be both confused by the fractured narrative and terrified of the Mimics, nightmare creatures that look like razor-tentacled squid and roll across the landscapes like tumbleweeds.

In all, though, "Edge of Tomorrow" is its own thing. One of its most fascinating qualities is its keen judgement of the audience's learning curve. The early sections of the film repeat scenes and dialogue until you get used to the idea of the story as a video game or movie script, but just when you start to think, "Yes, I get it, let's move on," the film has in fact moved on and is now leaving things out because they're not necessary. By the end of the movie the script—which is credited to Christopher McQuarrie and Jez and John Henry Butterworth—has gotten to the point where it's tactically withholding information and waiting for us to figure things out on our own. It repeats key images and lines near the end as well, but always for good reason. When you see the familiar material again you feel different about it, because its meaning has changed. The movie has an organic intelligence and a sense that it, too, exists outside of linear time. It seems to be creating itself as you watch it.  

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and brief suggestive material

113 minutes

Tom Cruise as Lt. Col. Bill Cage

Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski

Brendan Gleeson as General Brigham

Bill Paxton as Master Sergeant Farell

Jonas Armstrong as Skinner

Tony Way as Kimmel

Kick Gurry as Griff

Dragomir Mrsic as Kuntz

Charlotte Riley as Nance

Noah Taylor as Dr. Carter

• Hiroshi Sakurazaka
• Christopher McQuarrie
• Jez Butterworth
• John-Henry Butterworth
• Christophe Beck

Cinematography

• James Herbert

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Movie Review: 'Edge of Tomorrow,' Starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt

Should you see the film starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt?

June 6, 2014 -- Starring Tom Cruise , Emily Blunt

Rated PG-13

Four out of five stars

I’ve always said it: if only there could be an epic sci-fi version of Groundhog Day. OK, I never said that, but I’m glad there is one: it’s called "Edge of Tomorrow."

The movie takes place in the near future. And when I say the near future, I mean CNN’s Wolf Blitzer makes a brief appearance and doesn’t look a day over the age he’s looked for the last 20 years. Aliens have attacked Earth and are conquering it, country by country. We now have a world army, and its public relations spokesman is Officer William Cage, played by Tom Cruise. He’s assigned to the pending invasion of France, a massive attack the army’s commander thinks is going to be a big victory for the humans. He wants Cage there for the battle’s aftermath, to paint a rosy picture for the world. But Cage has no interest in risking his life and attempts to blackmail the commander into keeping him away from the battle.

It backfires. Cage is arrested, knocked out, and wakes up a private in the army, with orders to fight. He’s strapped into an exo-suit -- that’s powered, full-body armor -- and dropped into Normandy, to do battle with the aliens. The humans are slaughtered, as if the aliens knew they were coming. Cage doesn’t make it either but just before he dies, he kills an alien that looks a little different than the rest -- and then wakes up in the previous day, once again to do battle and die Over and over again.

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In the process, Cage notices Rita (Emily Blunt), a battlefield soldier known both as “The Angel of Verdun” and “Full Metal Bitch,” because she’s killed more aliens than anyone else. Each day, Cage tries and fails to save her life. He finally explains to her what’s been happening to him: “Come find me when you wake up,” Rita says, and dies again.

Turns out, Rita once possessed the same ability to live over that Cage does, but lost it. Now she’s going to train Cage, every day he dies and returns, to stop the aliens once and for all.

Director Doug Liman ("Swingers," "The Bourne Identity," "Fair Game") does great work with Cruise and Blunt. In particular, he draws out Cruise’s natural humor, lending a sense of fun to this character that we don’t get to see when Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in the "Mission: Impossible" movies, or indeed any other character Cruise has played in the various action and sci-fi movies he’s done over the past decade. But it’s Blunt who seems almost a revelation here, as she directs her considerable talents to tackling an unaccustomed action role.

Minor continuity issues and a few trite moments do little to diminish "Edge of Tomorrow," a generally super-smart sci-fi action thriller that’s mostly unpredictable, and a pleasure to watch.

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Edge of Tomorrow

Watch out for that alien tentacle—it’s a doozy.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

As you may have heard, the new Tom Cruise movie is basically an alien-invasion Groundhog Day , in which our hero must live the same day over and over again, trying to do it a little better each time. But whereas the Harold Ramis–Bill Murray classic is a comic meditation on getting over yourself and learning to appreciate life, Edge of Tomorrow is about something else: making action movies.

It begins with the sort of montage you’ve seen in a million other Hollywood blow-’em-ups, particularly post-9/11: a series of clips from faux-news broadcasts, which quickly convey that in this version of the near-future a mysterious alien race that looks like the demon spawn of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has invaded the Earth and rapidly annihilated much of it. Europe, in particular, is a bloody mess. In a few of these clips, we see a military spokesman named William Cage (Cruise), who looks like the slick propagandist that he is. You may recognize him from the many other films in which Tom Cruise has played a callow hustler of one kind or another, from The Color of Money to Rain Man to Jerry Maguire . The most obvious precedent is Lt. Daniel Kaffee, the Navy lawyer from A Few Good Men , who, like Cage, begins his movie hoping to avoid real work or risky entanglements.

Cage’s Colonel Jessup is Gen. Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), British leader of the United Defense Force, the international military effort to thwart the extraterrestrials. He orders Cage to the front with a camera crew, the better to sell his impending, D-Day–like invasion of alien-dominated France to a worldwide audience of potential recruits. When Cage refuses and then runs— Tom Cruise does like to run —Brigham has him handcuffed and shipped to the front with new orders: to join the squad of grunts who will storm the beach first and surely be slaughtered. He shortly is.

And then he wakes up: back at the base, in handcuffs, experiencing the previous day all over again, Phil Connors–like. How or why this is happening is not clear at first, but on one of his repeat trips to the invasion, Cage finds the Virgil who can guide him through this hell: Rita Vrataski, a legendary UDF soldier called the Angel of Verdun because of her miraculous feats of alien-killing in that old French city best known for a brutal WWI battle. Rita—the name, as Manohla Dargis points out , may be a nod to Andie MacDowell’s character in Groundhog Day —is played by Emily Blunt, whose surprising performance as an utterly convincing badass may be the best thing about this movie. Vrataski, too, had a period of chronic do-overs and, unlike Cage, she knows why: It has to do with those murderous extraterrestrials, called (for reasons that were never quite clear to me) Mimics. They can control time, and because Cage killed one of the “Alpha” Mimics, that time control was passed on to him. He now has the power to “reset the day.”

Perhaps the speculative biology and metaphysics of all this is clearer in All You Need Is Kill , the illustrated Japanese novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka that Edge of Tomorrow is based on. In the movie, though, it’s just graspable enough for you to focus on what really matters: watching Tom Cruise get killed over and over and over again. Vrataski takes Cage under her wing—or, rather, under her giant, weaponized cricket bat —and schools him in the art of near-future warfare. Then they attempt to memorize the events of the beach invasion so that they can duck and weave and kill their way to the lead alien beast, a kind of central brain that, as we learn in a looong scene of exposition, directly controls the littler creepy-crawlies causing all the carnage across the continent.

If that sounds like a video game, it should. Sakurazaka’s novel was inspired by playing one , and Edge of Tomorrow is essentially a cinematic version of Halo in which a single player gets unlimited lives so that he can learn to dodge all the enemies and win the game. That repetition would get tedious if not for the comic brio that Cruise and director Doug Liman bring to the butchery: Again and again, Cage tries and fails to dodge some weapon or vehicle or alien tendril and amusingly goes down.

This practice-makes-perfect routine looks a lot like an actor rehearsing his stunts—and as Cruise is fond of reminding us, he does his own stunts. This is surely not a coincidence: Liman and his screenwriters have built in enough nods to other movies— Groundhog Day , Alien , Saving Private Ryan , and so on—to make clear that the meta-ness is the point. This is a movie about Tom Cruise working very, very hard to please the world.

And please me he did, though I was already a fan. Not that the pleasure was particularly profound: Despite the movie’s allusions to World Wars I and II, Edge of Tomorrow is utterly shallow when it comes to war, giving us an inhuman enemy we are never asked to understand and a small cast of fellow soldiers who are mostly forgettable. Lately, it seems, we don’t expect anything more from a Tom Cruise movie : He’s taken on a string of big-budget, crowd-pleasing action flicks, after avoiding them for most of his career . Watching his physically expert but psychologically thin performance in this one, it’s hard not to feel as though he, too, is caught in a time loop of sorts, doing variations on the same thing over and over—and getting very good at it, but with much less than the fate of humanity at stake.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

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'Edge of Tomorrow' Works Because Tom Cruise Is Playing a Coward

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The Big Picture

• Tom Cruise's role as Major William Cage in Edge of Tomorrow showcases his comedic talent and his range beyond typical action hero roles.
• The film allows Cruise to have a genuine character arc, demonstrating self-sacrifice and bravery.
• Cruise and Emily Blunt's dynamic chemistry enhances the film's narrative and adds depth to their characters.

Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world for four decades, but he’s somehow having a new renaissance in his career over the past decade. While Cruise’s string of hits in the 1990s emphasized his ambition to work with auteur filmmakers and give versatile performances, it seems like Cruise’s current work is only in service of the audience. Cruise continues to push himself to deliver outrageously entertaining maximalist spectacle , and the success of the last few Mission: Impossible films and Top Gun: Maverick indicate that audiences will follow him no matter where he goes. Interestingly, one of the more underrated films from this era is the sci-fi action flick Edge of Tomorrow , in which Cruise took a completely different type of challenge — he had to play a coward.

Edge of Tomorrow

A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

What Is 'Edge of Tomorrow' About?

Directed by Doug Liman , Edge of Tomorrow takes place in 2015 when a group of alien invaders known as “Mimics” have taken control of Europe, forcing troopers to head to the frontlines in mech-suits to ward off their seemingly brilliant opponents. Major William Cage (Cruise) is simply a “public affairs” officer with no combat experience who aims to use his superior position to avoid duty, but he’s punished and sent directly to the frontlines. After attempting to desert, Cage finds himself squarely under the command of the no-nonsense veteran Sergeant Rita Vrataski ( Emily Blunt ). Although they’re initially at odds, Cage finds that he must seek Rita’s help if he’s to escape the time loop he’s been caught in, wherein he keeps dying and coming back to life only to repeat the same day over and over .

Edge of Tomorrow sets up a premise that borrows from both Groundhog Day and Independence Day , but Cruise’s performance is a lot closer to Bill Murray ’s Phil Connors than Will Smith ’s Steven Hiller. He’s a reluctant hero who doesn’t even want to be a hero, which couldn’t be more different from Ethan Hunt or Pete Mitchell. The use of the time loop trope allows Cruise to have a genuine character arc where he has to prove himself, learn new skills, and discover the value of self-sacrifice and bravery. It also allowed him to flex his comedic chops in a way that he hadn’t been able to since his work in the 1990s. Cruise’s dynamic performance as a lovable loser makes Edge of Tomorrow rank among the most entertaining original blockbusters in recent memory.

'Edge of Tomorrow' Shows Off Tom Cruise's Comedic Abilities

Despite being one of the biggest box office draws in history, it’s easy to forget that Tom Cruise is already an acclaimed performer . This is someone who has worked with Oliver Stone , Steven Spielberg , Stanley Kubrick , Michael Mann , and Paul Thomas Anderson , so he’s picked up a few things about playing a nuanced character. What’s brilliant about the writing of Cage is that the script doesn’t go over the top in making him unlikeable; he’s simply the product of an unfair system that risks the lives of those who can’t afford to luxuriate in a comfortable corporate position like he can. He may be blissfully mean-spirited, but he’s not necessarily a war-mongering militarist like his superior, General Brigham ( Brendan Gleeson ).

It’s also easily forgotten how funny Cruise can be. We see an awkward, goofy side of him in Edge of Tomorrow that’s been absent in his performances (except for a little detour in Tropic Thunder ) since Jerry Maguire . This is exemplified when he’s awkwardly introduced to his new team of companions in the barracks and desperately tries to escape from duty. Seeing Cage demolished and killed in different ways as he tries to find any means to avoid actually doing anything productive allows the film to have a morbid, dark sense of humor. While it’s quite similar to a sequence in Groundhog Day when Phil continues to attempt suicide, it’s even funnier here as a self-aware reference to Cruise’s history of performing dangerous stunts . Cruise even helps shed light on the supporting cast as Cage begins to mess with his fellow soldiers by predicting their activities each time he’s reincarnated.

However, Cage’s cowardly nature also gives the film a direction, and it makes him a more inspirational character. There’s a bit of The Twilight Zone magic within the story about an ordinary man called on to do extraordinary things, and Cruise gets to show how Cage slowly learns about his own abilities as he trains with Rita. Having an inexperienced character allows the film to provide exposition in a naturalistic way, as Cage is hilariously unprepared for all elements of combat . These scenes would all be infinitely less interesting if Cruise was playing an action hero like Ethan Hunt , who already knows how the gadgets work.

Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt Are a Dynamic Duo in 'Edge of Tomorrow'

There’s a good deal of the Alien legacy in Edge of Tomorrow, and Blunt certainly gives a performance worthy of Sigourney Weaver ’s Ellen Ripley . In a reversal of roles, Rita is the hard-edged, cynical veteran tasked with helping Cage. The film sets off a fun dichotomy where Rita obviously wants to figure out the aliens’ plan herself, but must train a goofball like Cage because he’s been infected and can retain his memories. There’s a plot-centric reason for them to stay together, and the chemistry between Cruise and Blunt steadily convinces the viewers that they’re learning to appreciate each other.

Having Cage initially be a cowardly deserter gives him a sensitivity that makes this relationship more interesting. Cage isn’t just learning about how to fight in a mech-suit and pick up clues about alien biology, but also how to improve himself and reflect on his life choices. He’s forced to open up to Rita and finds a newfound respect for the soldiers he wouldn’t have thought twice about before. There are some quiet moments of intimacy in which we see how much Cage has grown , particularly when Rita reveals how she was once caught in a traumatic moment, reliving the death of her lover.

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Is there a stunt he won't do?

Edge of Tomorrow was an anomaly for many reasons. Although it was loosely based on the graphic novel All You Need Is Kill , it felt like a completely original work of science fiction that didn’t intend to start a franchise or launch a universe. Those looking for a generic sci-fi action movie may have been surprised to find a surprisingly earnest, hilarious, and emotional story about the planet’s most unexpected hero. Through Cage's unexpected journey in Edge of Tomorrow , Tom Cruise manages to convince us that he’s still a hero — he just has to learn how to be.

Edge of Tomorrow is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

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Edge Of Tomorrow's Most Confusing Moments Explained

Though considered a box office disappointment upon its release in 2014, "Edge of Tomorrow" (a.k.a. "Live Die Repeat") remains one of the decade's most underrated sci-fi movies. Directed by Doug Liman and starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, "Edge of Tomorrow" is a futuristic action-adventure twist on "Groundhog Day," following a reluctant soldier who lives out the climactic battle against alien invaders over, and over, and over again.

The past ten years have seen an explosion of new movies and TV shows about characters trapped in time loops, from "Happy Death Day" to "Russian Doll," but "Edge of Tomorrow" is particularly fun for the way the development of Tom Cruise's Major William Cage parallels the way players develop skills and experience in a video game. Many viewers can relate to the character's experience of grinding through a seemingly impossible task again and again, using the advantage of unlimited tries to build confidence in your skills and a better understanding of the challenge ahead. "Edge of Tomorrow" pairs this familiar feeling with a funny and engaging story of a character who, through a bizarre twist of fate, must keep playing this impossible stage forever.

It's possible to get overwhelmed by the mechanics and minutiae of the movie's science fiction plot — here's hoping we can clear up all of your concerns without repeating ourselves.

Is the movie called Edge of Tomorrow or Live Die Repeat?

The film — whatever you call it — is based on a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka entitled "All You Need Is Kill." According to an interview with Variety , Warner Bros. President of Marketing Sue Kroll found that audiences were put off by movies with the word "Kill" in the title, leading to the project's rebranding. Director Doug Liman, on the other hand, later told Den of Geek that the film was renamed to accommodate the film's tone, which is significantly lighter than that of the source material. He suggested that the film be renamed "Live Die Repeat" instead. Someone at Warner Bros. wasn't fond of this title, and bequeathed the project the more generic-sounding title "Edge of Tomorrow," against Liman's objections. "Live. Die. Repeat." was used as a tagline for the movie instead. Liman feels that this contributed to the film underperforming at the box office despite critical acclaim.

Someone must have listened, because when the movie was released on home video months later, "Live. Die. Repeat." was suddenly the larger print on the box , and digital marketplaces listed the full title as "Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow." Depending on when you purchased a physical copy of the movie, it may feature the two titles in a different order. Doug Liman told Den of Geek that the sequel's working title is "Live Die Repeat Repeat," and that its release would canonize "Live Die Repeat" as the title of the first film.

Has the UDF really turned the tide of the war?

In the film's opening montage, we learn that a meteor has crashed to Earth, bringing with it an invasive extraterrestrial species that humans call "Mimics." They've been spreading across Europe for years, easily overcoming all conventional military defenses. To combat this alien menace, the world's governments join together to form the United Defense Force, or UDF, and begin manufacturing suits of powered armor for their infantry.

When the UDF has their first victory at the Battle of Verdun, the belief is that the new mech suits have proven their worth. After all, Sgt. Rita Vrataski was able to use one to perform incredible and daring feats despite limited experience, proving that (as Major Cage will repeat to the media dozens of times) anyone with minimal training can operate one efficiently. In actuality, Rita's apparently instant mastery of the armor and the battlefield were the result of her ability to repeat any day in which she dies, giving her unlimited replays of any deadly scenario. Since the UDF is unaware of this (and refused to believe it in any of Rita's previous lives), they move forward confidently with an aggressive invasion of France, Operation: Downfall.

However, Rita and her ally Dr. Carter suspect there's still another layer to the Battle of Verdun. They believe that the Mimics eventually allowed the UDF to win at Verdun in order to lend them a false sense of confidence, prompting an all-out assault that would allow the Mimics to annihilate the UDF in a single stroke. It's also possible that the Mimics accepted the result of the Battle of Verdun that ended with Rita losing her ability to reset, deciding that this was victory enough.

Why are the aliens called Mimics?

Throughout the story of "Edge of Tomorrow," the shape-shifting alien menace that's conquering Earth is always referred to as the "Mimics." It's a cool-sounding name that helps to uniquify the film's villain, avoiding the constant reuse of the words "alien" or "enemy." However, although the Mimics do look and move in a strange, ever-changing way, it's never exactly clear who or it is they're "mimicking."

To find an answer to this question, you'd have to go back to the source material, the light novel "All You Need is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. There, it's explained that the aliens based their earthly shape on the first life form they encountered after crash-landing on our planet: a starfish.

This idea isn't really represented in the film, with the Mimics receiving a totally original design that doesn't map easily onto anything in our animal kingdom. Their forms are constantly changing, their metallic tentacles forming into legs or sharp spikes, or unraveling so that they can rest flat in the dirt beneath their prey. Since the Mimics' bodies are incredibly fast and perpetually reshaping themselves, the audience rarely gets a good, long, look at them. Ironically, this makes them one of the more interesting and memorable alien designs in recent memory, since we get an idea as to what they look like, but would struggle to describe them to another person. "Starfish" doesn't really cut it, and neither does any other comparison. "Mimic" will have to do.

How many times does Cage die?

When cowardly publicity officer Maj. Cage attempts to blackmail his way out of combat duty, he's demoted to Private and forced onto the front lines of the UDF's invasion of France. After seeing the rest of his squad slaughtered, Cage grabs a claymore mine and blows apart both himself and a particularly imposing Mimic, intermingling their blood as he dies. He awakens the previous day, having acquired the ability to essentially respawn from the same save point every time he's killed, retaining all his memories and skills from all of his previous attempts. Once he realizes that there's no way to convince his superiors of what's happened to him, Cage uses his foreknowledge of the events of the day to experiment with different ways to potentially win the battle.

Though we follow Cage all the way through his first two lives so that we can observe him coping with his new reality, the film quickly falls into a stride in which the audience only sees the most relevant or successful cycles in Cage's time loop. Nearly every time we see him from this point on, it's evident that his latest life is informed by dozens, if not hundreds of unseen repetitions of whatever he's currently attempting. This means that, even though we see him die a mere 26 times in the film, the real number is probably upwards of 1000.

How does Rita know that she can't reset time anymore?

When Cage rescues Sgt. Rita Vrataski on the battlefield, demonstrating a clear foreknowledge of the dangers around them, Rita realizes that he must be on a time loop and instructs him to "find [her] when [he] wakes up." In his next life, Cage finds Rita and learns that, months earlier, she also absorbed the blood of an Alpha Mimic, gaining the ability to start the day over upon her death. However, she lost that ability on her last loop, during which she managed to win the Battle of Verdun but also suffered serious, non-lethal blood loss. When she received a transfusion of new, normal blood, she lost the ability to reset the day.

Upon hearing this, we can't help but ask one logical question: How can Rita possibly know that she no longer resets time when she dies, unless she died and didn't come back? This, unfortunately, is something the viewer simply has to accept in order for the movie to work. To patch up this potential plot hole, we're forced to accept that Rita (and later, Cage), can simply  feel that their ability to reset time is gone. We see it happen to Cage, after he suffers his own similar injury and blood transfusion in the final loop of the film.

Is it beyond belief that Mimic Alphas would have such a sixth sense that allows them to know whether or not they're detached from the time stream? Not entirely. One can imagine that such an instinct might have evolved within Mimics in order to alert an Alpha that it's lost its metaphysical save state. Still, it's certainly convenient for our heroes — and for the audience.

How does the time reset work?

Dr. Carter does a pretty solid job explaining the mechanics of "Edge of Tomorrow's" time travel during his initial meeting with Cage. While most Mimics are of the animalistic soldier variety, there are two special kinds of Mimic that, together, give them their unique advantage over humanity. Their movements are governed by a massive Omega Mimic, a strange and stationary creature with the power to skip backwards in time by about one day. However, the Omega can only do this when its counterpart, the Alpha Mimic, is killed. This is basically a defensive reflex. While the Omega remains hidden, the Alpha goes into battle. If the Alpha is killed, that means a battle has not gone as well as possible and should be attempted again, with the benefit of this experience. In short: the Mimics are save-scumming the war for Earth.

When Cage is infused with the Alpha's blood on the battlefield (as Rita was before the Battle of Verdun), he acquires the Alpha's ability to trigger the Omega's time reset. The Omega is still the one altering time, but its reflex is kicked every time Cage dies, instead of when the Alpha dies. Cage gets the added benefit of countless replays and accumulated experience, giving him an advantage in battle. Like Rita before him, Cage only loses this power once enough of his blood has been replaced.

Can the Mimics still remember previous loops?

Because the Mimics' activities and motivations are kept a mystery from the audience, we never definitively learn what effect Cage's blood infusion has on the Mimics' own abilities. Whether or not the Alpha's death would still trigger a time reset while Cage has the power is never totally clear, since we don't see an Alpha killed between the first and final versions of Operation: Downfall. However, since the Mimics' behavior remains predictable in the time loop, we can safely assume that they are not retaining knowledge from each reset.

The only changing factor is Cage's psychic visions from the Omega, which grow stronger after each loop. This is how the Mimics eventually figure out that Cage has become the new reset trigger, setting a trap for him with a fake vision of the Omega's location. In this loop, the Mimic Alpha corners Cage and deliberately keeps him from killing himself, apparently trying to capture him alive as not to lose this progress. Cage manages to reset anyway, and the Mimics never seem to pay special attention to him again. This implies that they only know of his unique nature on loops in which he gives it away.

Why does Rita kiss Cage?

Before their final charge towards the Omega during their final loop, Rita and Cage share a brief moment during which Rita commends Cage on his bravery during their work together. Just before charging into battle, Rita kisses Cage on the lips, saying that she wishes she'd gotten to know him better.

It's not totally unreasonable to think that Rita might want a last kiss before dying, especially when the available, willing partner is a fellow soldier who looks like Tom Cruise. However, the moment rings a little false when you consider that, while Cage has known Rita for years through the repetition of the time loop, Rita has only known Cage for about a day and a half. True, there have been loops during which Cage and Rita have grown close over the course of a long road trip, but even then, Rita remains an emotionally guarded person who hesitates to let herself feel for Cage. Because each loop implies the repetition of some but not all of the routines that Cage and Rita follow on their usual paths, we actually don't see very much of Cage and this version of Rita, which is one of the reasons that the kiss raises some eyebrows.

In an essay for The Wire , film critic Esther Zuckerman described the last-second romantic twist to be a betrayal of the character for the sake of offering Cage a sort of reward for his personal growth over the course of the film. Indeed, the moment plays as if it's more about demonstrating that Cage is no longer the loathsome, unlovable weasel that we meet at the start of the film than it is about Rita learning to trust again.

Why does time reset further back at the end?

Once Cage has lost the ability to reset time, he and Rita lead a suicide mission to destroy the Omega, which is hidden under the Louvre museum in Paris. Their mission is successful, as Cage is able to drop a belt of live grenades into the Omega's mouth. Cage and the Alpha are caught in the blast as well, and it appears that Cage lives long enough to absorb some of their blood. Then, he wakes up at an earlier point in the timeline than he's accustomed to, before his disgraceful demotion to Private, and learns that the Mimics have lost their capacity to fight the war. Instead of a bloody trench battle, Operation: Downfall will now be met with minimal resistance from the extraterrestrial menace.

This seems awfully convenient for Cage, who has now saved not only the world but his own career and reputation. The film didn't give us a clear explanation as to why this has happened, but we can extrapolate one from the logic of the film. It may be that Cage absorbing the Omega's blood has a different effect than just absorbing the Alpha's, giving him more control over the time stream than he had as merely the trigger for the reset. He may have instinctively selected a moment in time to return to that would put him in the best possible position.

Co-screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie promised in a since-deleted Tweet that the sequel will concretely answer this question.

Why wasn't Edge of Tomorrow considered a hit?

Before the film was even released, the press was already prepared to write off "Edge of Tomorrow" as a flop."Nobody really knows what this film is," entertainment analyst Doug Creutz told Variety in May 2014, weeks before it hit theaters. Whether this is the fault of the generic-sounding title, or the marketing campaign's failure to convey the high concept or comedic tone of the film, or some combination of other factors is still up for debate. In any case, "Edge of Tomorrow" opened at #3 at the box office , losing the weekend to tear-jerking romance "The Fault in Our Stars" and the live-action Disney fantasy "Maleficent."

It's important to put the supposed failure of "Edge of Tomorrow" in perspective. The film grossed about $100 million at the US box office and another $270 million overseas, which is nothing to sneeze at until you consider its reported budget of $178 million. That budget was put to excellent use on screen, crafting practical mech suits for the cast and generating unique and stunning aliens via VFX, but studios make such investments under the expectation of at least doubling their budgets, not picking up table scraps from a teen-oriented drama that cost a rival studio only $12 million to make .

It's also worth noting that projecting "Edge of Tomorrow" to be a failure fit into a popular narrative that Tom Cruise's star was fading in the United States. His previous three films, "Oblivion," "Jack Reacher," and "Rock of Ages,"  were all considered to have underperformed domestically, so it's possible that the atmosphere around the film's release was already poisoned. 

Tom Cruise's Underrated Sci-Fi Movie That Holds 91% On RT Needs A Sequel 10 Years Later

• Tom Cruise's sci-fi movie "Edge of Tomorrow" deserves a sequel, with its time-loop concept and entertaining action.
• "Edge of Tomorrow 2" could explore Vrataski's backstory and offer an original storyline, potentially creating a new action franchise for Cruise.
• The future of "Edge of Tomorrow 2" remains uncertain, potentially due to scheduling issues and other projects for the cast and director.

Although it has been 10 years since this underrated Tom Cruise sci-fi movie first premiered and earned a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it still deserves a sequel. Despite being one of the highest grossing stars in Hollywood, Tom Cruise has seen his share of highs and lows in his acting career. While some of his films have been critically panned but received incredibly well at the box office, others have garnered incredible reviews but remained relatively less profitable.

Falling in the latter category, a Tom Cruise sci-fi movie premiered nearly a decade ago and earned rave reviews from viewers and critics. However, despite its critical success, the film was not as big of a hit at the box office as it was expected to be. Still, its follow-up has been in the talks for ages, making it hard not to wonder if it will ever see the light of the day.

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Edge Of Tomorrow Is Tom Cruise's Best Sci-Fi Movie

Minority report arguably comes close.

In a career spanning over four decades, Tom Cruise has starred in many sci-fi movies. While some of these films, like War of the Worlds and Oblivion , struggled to leave their mark, others, like Minority Report and Vanilla Sky , still have high rewatch value. Since Tom Cruise has delivered many sci-fi hits, it may be unfair to label one as his definitive best. However, the kind of loopy adventure, alien lore, and comical action Edge of Tomorrow brings to the table easily makes it a standout film for him in the genre.

Minority Report gives Edge of Tomorrow a run for its money.

Vanilla Sky is no less fascinating with its ideas and twists, but its inclination towards romance more than sci-fi and comparisons with the original Spanish movie it adapts rank it slightly below Edge of Tomorrow . War of the Worlds was helmed by the incredibly talented Steven Spielberg and featured a stellar cast including Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and Tim Robbins. Unfortunately, despite having the potential to become one of Cruise's best sci-fi films, it was hampered by its lack of fresh ideas and uneven pacing.

Minority Report gives Edge of Tomorrow a run for its money. In terms of influence and innovativeness, Minority Report even beats Edge of Tomorrow in more ways than one. However, Edge of Tomorrow is easily more entertaining because its sci-fi concepts are accessible yet interesting, and its war-centric action effectively keeps viewers at the edge of their seats. Since Tom Cruise is often perceived as a daredevil because of his daunting stuntwork and characterization in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Edge of Tomorrow also gives a glimpse of his action range by portraying him as a hilariously cowardly hero .

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Why Edge Of Tomorrow 2 Should Happen

The first film leaves enough room for a follow-up.

The first Edge of Tomorrow film has a conclusive ending where Tom Cruise's Major William Cage saves the day by destroying the Omega and reuniting with Vrataski. Vrataski seems oblivious to his identity because Cruise's character gets time-looped back to the base operation after completing his mission. However, the closing arc still seems conclusive enough to give audiences closure despite having some logical inconsistencies. While this makes it hard not to wonder what a sequel could be about, the first movie's alien lore and time-loop trope leave enough room for many new ideas.

Emily Blunt could also benefit from having another gripping post-apocalyptic movie franchise under her belt after her success with the A Quiet Place movies.

Doug Liman once revealed (via Collider ) that " Edge of Tomorrow 2 is a sequel that’s a prequel, " which could mean that the film could explore Vrataski's efforts to end the war as a looper before she met Cage . Using forward-jumping time loops as a narrative device, the sequel could connect Vrataski's backstory to the first film's events, adding new layers of time-traveling madness to the franchise's narrative. Since the first Edge of Tomorrow movie was based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's book, All You Need Is Kill , the second movie would adopt an original storyline, making it even more exciting and novel.

With the opportunity to explore many narrative avenues with its time-loop trope, Edge of Tomorrow 2 could be as successful as the first film (if not more). It could even mark the inception of a new action franchise for Tom Cruise after Mission: Impossible . Emily Blunt could also benefit from having another gripping post-apocalyptic movie franchise under her belt after her success with the A Quiet Place movies.

Will Edge Of Tomorrow 2 Ever Actually Happen?

Its future remains uncertain.

Although Edge of Tomorrow 2 's production was initially gaining some momentum and Doug Liman had also prepared its script, the film has sadly remained in development hell for years . Emily Blunt read its script and teased that it had great ideas, which promised Edge of Tomorrow 2 could be a worthy sequel that builds upon its predecessor's success. Doug Liman, too, recently gave some positive updates surrounding Edge of Tomorrow 2 by revealing how Warner Bros. is " constantly " asking him if he plans to revisit the franchise.

However, given how Liman is busy with several other upcoming projects and will also helm the sequel to Amazon's widely successful Road House remake, it seems uncertain when he will have time to revisit the Edge of Tomorrow franchise. Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt are also a part of several upcoming big-budget projects, which could lead to scheduling issues for the movie's filming. Hopefully, Edge of Tomorrow 2 's production will take off soon and eventually pave the way for a full-fledged sci-fi franchise.

Edge of Tomorrow

Director Doug Liman

Release Date June 6, 2014

Studio(s) Warner Bros. Pictures

Distributor(s) Warner Bros. Pictures

Writers John-Henry Butterworth, Jez Butterworth, Christopher McQuarrie

Cast Emily Blunt, Tom Cruise

Rating PG-13

Runtime 1h 53m

Genres Sci-Fi, Thriller, Action, Adventure

Sequel(s) Edge of Tomorrow 2

Budget 178 million

Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow follows Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), who finds himself drafted into humanity's ongoing war against a seemingly unstoppable race of hostile aliens called Mimics. Cage is killed in combat, but wakes in a time loop, reliving the same battle day after day. Gradually, he realizes that if he teams up with the decorated war hero Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), he can exploit the time loop to defeat the Mimic army and save the human race.