Watch. Enjoy. Probably don't repeat.

Rating: 8/10 (12 September 2015)

Edge of Tomorrow is the kind of movie that could very truthfully boast that it offers something for everyone. Die-hard fan of the Cruiser? Here he is in best swaggering/serious face-sporting, alien-blasting form. Can't stand him? Enjoy the cathartic satisfaction of watching him be blown away repeatedly, in various gruesome or hilarious ways. What's not to love?
Though its high concept elevator pitch would have it reduced to 'Groundhog Day as sci-fi action thriller', director Doug Liman's adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's graphic novel All You Need Is Kill doesn't suffer the comparison. Thematically, there are similar takeaways about living in the moment and maximizing potential, but winding them into a slick action thriller motivates some genuinely thrilling and clever action sequences, squaring down with inventively ghastly hive-mind alien adversaries, to boot. After a cleverly laborious start with Cruise impressively playing against type as a cocky-cum-cowardly administrative weasel in a bureaucratic showdown with the masterfully grim Brendan Gleeson, the film kicks into gear with a nailbiting drop zone shootout/bloodbath. And repeat. While the film's repetition will invariably grate on some less patient audiences, Liman keeps the pacing taut - this is a war movie, after all - with enough slight variations and escalation to keep things interesting, as Cruise is trained by the fantastically hard-as-nails (and often surprisingly funny) Emily Blunt into becoming the ultimate war machine.
The best bit? The mech armour battlesuits and gloriously goofy Bill Paxton aren't the only takeaways from Aliens. Screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie also recycles James Cameron's fusion of high tension and macho humour, which keeps the film's tongue snugly tucked in its cheek even as the explosions, gunfire, and increasingly indignant death/resurrections (Cruise gets the best 'Oh COME ON!' moment outside of Arrested Development as he prepares for a "reset") erupt. Although this sense of fun wobbles somewhat in its Stakes are Never Higher climax, with any luck, audiences will feel too overstimulated to scorn being invested in the ride.
Edge of Tomorrow, lynchpin of the recent Cruiseaissance, is a sturdy, fun, and inventive action flick, surprisingly likely to play well to a spectrum of audience sensibilities. It might lean a touch too heavily on genre conventions and precedents to earn the kind of Sisyphean viewing regiment its catchphrase demands, but giving it a pass entirely? Game over, man. Game over.
-8/10