Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) has a problem: He sucks at combat. He sucks at pretty much everything, really, besides looking pretty and drumming up support for the United Defense Force's new "combat jacket" technology. Which is why it's so unfortunate when he finds himself serving in a unit on the front lines of a D-Day-style invasion sent to reclaim France from a horde of extraterrestrial "Mimics" who have humanity on its last ropes. Talk about a bad day.
Luckily for Cage, he gets to live it over and over again.
"Edge of Tomorrow" has a pretty basic premise. Every time Cage is killed in battle, he wakes up the morning before the invasion. He can remember everything that happened to him from the previous day and sets about finding allies in his attempt to change the course of the war. Luckily, a similar phenomenon happened to Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), humanity's poster child for the war effort, and Rita believes Cage's crazy story. Although Cage has to meet Rita anew at the start of each day, she trains him to become a warrior. Together, they search for a way to defeat the Mimics once and for all.
The time-travel conceit works really well, both on an action level and a character level. We watch as Cage becomes more adept at fighting, memorizing where his opponents will be, giving certain action moments a pleasing fluidity. Simultaneously, Cage becomes more and more dependent on Rita for moral and emotional support; every time he meets her, she remains the only one to really believe him, to help him, to train him. Cruise, with his over-the-top charisma, is matched well by Blunt's hard-shelled demeanor. The two work really well together.
Paradoxically, however, the film feels both a little too long and a little too short. Most of the action scenes, including the climactic battle, are generic; in fact, one feels lifted right out of "The Matrix Revolutions," which generally isn't a good sign. These moments tend to drag on. However, the quieter moments between Cage and Rita are strong. Very strong. At one point in the film, it becomes clear that no matter how far the two get together on a certain mission, Rita always makes a certain fatal decision. Cage, however, refuses to accept this; after all, if he happens to succeed, he'll have won the war in a world where Rita didn't make it. It's a fun obstacle in this type of story, one of which the film could have used a lot more.
I wanted more character and less action, which sounds like an insane critique of an action film, I admit. But the script comes so, so close to creating a really strong emotional core to the movie. If the action was better, I wouldn't be so upset about the narrative near-miss, but with "Edge of Tomorrow," this just wasn't the case.
As it stands, I'm still inclined to give "Edge of Tomorrow" a pretty good recommendation. It's still original science-fiction, a movie that tries pretty hard to create a story all its own. It isn't a total bore, it isn't pretentious. Like last year's "Oblivion," it shoots for the moon and doesn't entirely succeed. It takes too many narrative shortcuts and doesn't fully live up to its potential. But science-fiction is supposed to entertain you and make you think, and at the very least, I've spent more time thinking about "Edge of Tomorrow" than I spent watching it.