Edge of Tomorrow

The story line is reasonably complex and it strikes me as one of those movies that need to be watched more than once to catch nuances that may have been missed on the first viewing. The red speckled plentiful robotic nemeses are fighting machines called Mimics which are lead by more developed less numerous blue speckled machines called Alphas. It’s possible to tell that Like X-men the objective of the movie is not the machines rather it’s the conundrum of having the hero’s life reset each time he gets skilled. Unlike the X-men, however, the machines have discernible faces which give them an additional brushstroke of character. One cannot help but think they have seen similar machines. Where? In the Matrix, duh. Those iconic octopus like limbs and the sporadically poised movement of the alien machines in EOT was superb, except, for the whole time during the movie these alien machines did not feel original. They felt like a reworked model of the machines in the Matrix. This leads me to believe that they were created in a hurry, based on a borrowed idea as a result of insufficient time being spent by the concept artists to evolve something raw and new specially for EOT, which is a shame. Why? The story is original, therefore it deserved more effort being spent in developing the “lore” of the machines, greater uniqueness, where in the universe they are from or could be from, how they looked and moved, what they intended to do with the earth once they had conquered it, their features, how they thought, what was of value to them should have been worked on with greater depth. For instance why exactly are they on earth (not just some plausible random reason);  not enough depth and not enough was explained about them.  

The mechanical suites worn by the soldiers did not feel original either. Where did it feel like they had been seen before? Avatar, duh. Clearly not enough time was spent on the creative side of this movie. Innumerable methods could have been used during the concept art stage to make those motorized exo-skeletons look and feel original. When the human troops jumped off the ships they were lowered to the ground from a considerable height using cables. Cables? At those heights? The audience couldn’t help but feel that the moment they dropped from those ships it would become a complex tangle of wires with a few amputations and decapitations caused by entanglement. This aspect was not well thought out. Once again it seems borrowed, from where? Star Trek, duh, Into the Darkness. When the Klingons dropped from their ships, indeed, they were lowered using wires. However, it made sense as the drop ships came in very low to the ground. This same method cut and pasted in EOT didn’t work as the impression given is that the earth troopers were being dropped from the clouds. This was very clumsy and poorly developed. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. I think not, in a big budget sci-fi like this one. There are innumerable ways the director of art could have used to show how heavy suites like that could reach the ground from high up. For instance, they could have had limited flight capabilities provided by powerful retro rockets and a guidance system  which steadied troops in free fall, prevented collisions,  reduced their rate of decent as they fell from high up; then brought them gently to the ground with a quick burst of thrust.  These could also have been used to allow them to cover ground quickly by taking flight over short distances. One well executed aspect of the exo-skeleton, though,  were the heavy guns that deployed over the shoulder – that looked really cool. 

The time reset or repeat concept is not altogether unique, but the way it is applied is stellar, and the story itself is well written. It is an intriguing tale. Imagine you could reset time to do something over and over again until it was perfected. Not new, granted. But, now imagine that this was a tool of war or combat in the hands of your enemy? It would become a war you could never win. Scary genius. This concept can also be applied to a martial arts movie. Who would ever want to go up against a Nemesis with the ability to reset time at will like this; that is impossible to defeat? No one; now that’s powerful stuff. This concept has not been exhausted and can be used in other movie story lines in innumerable ways. The adaptation from a book to script to screenplay and the directing was excellent and deserves recognition. What let everyone else down is whoever was in charge of the art, concepts and the science underlying this fantasy.  Not enough creativity, too much blatant imitation, not enough imagination and not enough translation into reality. Could it be that the budget for creativity was too low or that their heart wasn’t in it? Who knows why this side of things failed, however, if there is a sequel and there should be; there is enough time and raw material to make up for all of this.

Had the exo-skeletons been equipped with limited flight capabilities it would have been loads of fun to see Cage’s team of misfits fight their way to the final confrontation with that giant circular hive brain. This would have been ridiculously more interesting and dynamic than resetting or repeating the landing over and over again. More of this reset drama could have been moved to the stage where the team has to get to the hive mind  using the damaged v-tol craft, except they would have used the limited flight capability of their exo-skeletons to cover the distance and fight their way through. Also Cage should have been more in control of where the reset timeline began. It should have been made so that he could to some extent control how far back he desired to go. This way he would opt not to relive stages he had already repeated successfully and mastered; instead he would reset only sections of his past which required a more perfect outcome. A mastered reset does not want to be relived; you don't want to have to relive it because its perfect. This perfection would have removed the need for him to lose the ability to reset through a blood transfusion in order to make the action more intense. The edge goes away if all it takes to correct a mistake is a reset, however, this is remedied by a perfect or mastered reset, the edge is transferred to avoidance, that is, don't make the mistake of resetting again since the perfection gained could be lost. He would then want to reset shorter and shorter intervals of his past until the final approach or battle faced by his team, which he would now dramatically reset over and over in a frantic attempt to once again reach perfection and save every member of his troop, getting better and better at it in a crescendo of action until he was able to ensure everyone was saved before he came face to face with the final Alpha.  Maybe the ending with the residue from the hive mind mixing with his blood will allow him greater control of the time reset in the sequel.

 What was the best thing about this movie? Hands down; Tom Cruise.  Like atlas holding up the earth, he made this movie work as he has done for so many movies in the past; a feat that often takes an individual of exceptional ability. We have watched Tom act objectively as far back as movies like Cocktail, Top Gun and so on. Every now and again there come about people who become so good at something they enter the “one percent” skill group. They do it so well it appears deceptively easy and people erroneously think anyone can pull off what they do. They become part of that sample that is one in a million. The “one percent” of a craft or profession are in a class of their own. Tom is that good an actor; I actually feel sorry for him. Why? Tom is one of those rare people who tend to become a victim of their own success. He is like the employee who other staff secretly want to see fail, who everyone tries to find some fault in, who everyone mistakenly believes they are better than, who struggles with a career, sees workmates less capable promoted over him or her, never gets recognition, gets reprimanded and sometimes fired, not as a result of shoddy work, but the exact opposite;  he or she knows and understands the job and craft better than the board, boss or manager  they report to. He knows how to deliver a story to the screen and hold it together remarkably well - uncannily, regardless of the genre, that I am of the opinion even his peers are not quite knowledgeable about how exceptional an actor he is. Instead they fit the M.O. by spending too much time secretly hoping for something in his life to fail, despising him or looking for reasons to do so; for instance Tom’s association with Scientology has nothing to do with his ability to act as it is with any other actor’s sane beliefs or religion yet why is he often judged , not on his acting ability, but on his choice of faith? This is somewhat unfair, immoral, immature and distasteful. This is a general problem prodigies face, even those that are not obvious to the naked eye.  To be noticed or given awards by their peers people like this often have to draw attention away from themselves and their exceptional ability either by having something they immerse themselves in outside their craft such as charity work, philanthropy and so on or they have to take on an acting role that belittles and denigrates them on the screen or a role that is of an unglamorous character. This is sad, really. In Tom’s profession it says more about the lack of inner honesty in the acting fraternity and its award structures than it says about him. He deserves an Oscar because he is an unsung prodigy and has been one for a long time now. His skill is the kind that it takes more than just a trained eye to observe. It’s a shame that sometimes we want to wait until an actor is aged, needs a walking stick to climb the stairs to the podium before we gain the urge to award them the prize and accolades that are their due, the reason being that their frailty is what it takes to belittle them sufficiently that our pity rather than their talent is what is required for them to be finally adorned and honored with the industry’s highest awards.

This is Emily Bunt’s first attempt at an action movie, and a good first attempt it was. She was believable in the role. Playing one of the lead roles for the first time in an action piece such as this one is not easy. She does it very well and the audience will definitely want to see more of her in similar movies. The part where she is in the combat simulator, Cage meets her for the first time and she lifts herself up off the ground in a yoga pose is very attractive, shows off that she worked out quite a bit without being cheesy and demonstrates good athletic form. A word of advice is that when playing a hardened action lead such as this the actor needs to add more depth by finding ways of nuancing the character’s personality with kindness, vulnerability, a longing of some kind that generates empathy from the audience. Every character who plays a role like this may have the audience buy into the fact that you are tough, but by adding this kind of depth you make the audience like you more.

Once gain very little racial diversity in the leading acting roles of these movies which makes them dull to an international audience. That really cute chick from Tomorrow People meets Cage when he disembarks, it’s a pity we didn’t see more of her in the movie. 

Peace.