Tom Cruise and Complex Sci-Fi

Rating: 9/10 (23 June 2014)

Tom Cruise seems to be the actor to turn to for interesting sci-fi. In *The Edge of Tomorrow* he stars in yet another complex film which, if not as engaging as *Minority Report*, is nevertheless thoughtful. The film is an allegory for the endless wars that the West seems to have been engaged in with a stream of bogeymen that begins in this film with Napoleon but we might say really begins with Homer. The enemy here are called "Mimics" because they mimic the enemies from the many wars that have been sold as the great war to end all wars. Their real identity doesn't matter, for they are just an excuse for the endless fighting, signified by the endless loop Cruise's character finds himself in until he can kill the leader, whom he first seeks in Germany (for obvious reasons) but finds under the Louvre, the museum built on the spoils of Napoleon's wars. After killing the monster, of course, the war machine still thrives, and the female companion, along with the cliché of a misfit platoon that assists them, continues to train for the next inevitable war. Now, like the old-timers in the pub, they have their own invasion of Normandy to wax nostalgic about as a model for the next generation of warriors. Even the title is a combination of two soap operas, implying that the story is just as long and just as uninteresting as these endless dramas. Of course, pop culture needs to be subversive about such attitudes to war, and naive members of the audience are free to respond to the clichés of the characters and plot with no thought of irony while they enjoy the action, just as some critics will find fault with these very clichés, as if they were not intentional. Well done! This is an especially appropriate movie in the anniversary year of the beginning of the senseless WWI.