Cruise and Blunt shine in this SF thriller with a time-loop twist -- but with some tips for screen writers about writing about the military

Rating: 8/10 (31 May 2014)

I really enjoyed this alien-invasion movie. Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt are both truly fantastic. The enemy is suitably terrifying. The story (each day relived over and over again) is quite interesting and well done, although of course not at all original. It's the kind of movie where you don't want to leave your seat because you might miss something.
I'd give the move about an 8.5, but I'm going to round it down for the reasons explained below. Also, the movie didn't actually move me (except a bit at the very end). Another problem was that the shooting of the fast-moving spider thingies was getting a little tedious. An obvious sop for the video-game generation.
I would definitely see this one if I were you! I saw it in 2-D, and it was fine. No need to pay extra.
OK, script writers, listen up!
There is a difference between recruit units and regular military units. Please stop writing dialogue and scenarios for regular military units that make them look like they are still in recruit training. For example, an NCO wouldn't and probably couldn't order regular soldiers (especially elite soldiers) to eat playing cards. They would think he had gone bonkers. Maybe in the Russian infantry...
Another example: an overweight guy might appear in recruit training, but not afterwards and certainly not in an elite unit. There are very few overweight people in the kind of unit depicted in this movie. How would an overweight guy have been able to manhandle the exoskeletal suit and the rigorous combat training shown in this movie?
I know ragtag soldiers are entertaining, but the real military (certainly in the US) doesn't tolerate it. Please stop making it look in movie after movie like military units are routinely filled with wisecracking, independent mavericks. Some odd behavior is tolerated in elite units, but this is based on a bedrock of professionalism. It's not ragtag.
NCOs do not routinely refer to privates as "maggots". These are people the NCOs lead and work with every day. Why would they demean them in this way? This cliché misrepresents the nature of an NCO's leadership over private soldiers. A word like this might be used at a certain stage in basic training, but even then the word would be used carefully and only in the right context. It works partly because the training NCO doesn't see the private again after the recruit training is finished.
In the military, it would be unusual, unprofessional, pointless and borderline abusive for an NCO to seriously address a complete stranger (even a lowly private convicted of desertion) as "maggot". Apart from that, surely as a professional writer you can see that "maggot" is hopelessly cliché.
On the eve of a major d-day, an NCO would not reprimand soldiers for mere gambling, especially elite soldiers. It wouldn't happen because tension and stress relief would be a major issue at that point. Nor would they do PT. The risk of injury would be too great. There would be equipment checks, forced rest, final briefings, special meetings, religious services, and so on.
In the military, a deserter is not simply dumped into another military unit, especially an elite unit about to go into a d-day situation. No, a deserter goes to prison or gets some other suitable punishment. There is a difference between prison and the military. (Hard to see the difference from your mansion in Hollywood, I know.)
If you were going to have an airborne assault like the one depicted in this movie, the DZ wouldn't be at the beach. No, that would make no sense.