Fun, creative, entertaining, thrilling, with few distractions from a great story.

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2014)

Director Doug Liman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity) takes us through the minefield of a genre of time-travel and beautifully delivers a captivating, sci-fi action-thriller. In the near future, Earth is at the apex of a bloody war with an invading alien hive mind.
Major Cage, played by Tom Cruise, is a strictly behind-the-desk military officer with a phobia for combat. This is a remarkably great place to start off the movie since familiar fans are used to Cruise playing highly skilled lead action characters; it's wildly entertaining and a nice change of pace to see Cruise start out in a more approachable personality. Cage is stripped of his rank and forced into combat. In a turn of fate, he inherits the alien power to control time; every time he dies, the day resets (like Groundhog Day) and only Cage has full recollection of the events.
He meets super-soldier and polar opposite Sergeant Rita Vrataski, played by Emily Blunt, who helps him understand his power and trains him into a combat-hardened soldier. They work together, repeatedly dying over and over to end the war.
The romance between Cage and Vrataski is woven into the plot seamlessly; it doesn't take away from the bigger picture (like Shia LeBouf's character in the Transformers series), instead it elevates the stakes and enthralls the audience.
Music is spot on and the special effects provide plenty of eye-candy without taking away from a great story; as expected from a high budget sci-fi thriller. **Possible SPOILER** The climax grips the audience once Cage loses the power to relive the day and has one last chance to defeat the enemy. The ending note is sweet and satisfying but may leave highly technical moviegoers feeling inadequate as is the inevitable case with all time-travel movies.