A different take on Tom Cruise's omnipotence

Rating: 8/10 (9 June 2014)

We love Tom Cruise because he has always played that egotistical and omnipotent character we love. But up to this movie he had never had the power to reincarnate, with the exception of Oblivion where he was cloned in an industrial scale. Cruise's movies so far only gave him the privilege of having one life therefore he had very little room to screw up, so basically in those 2 hours of movie everything he did had to be perfect. Mission Impossible for example had no room for mistakes, and if he died it was over. The problem with this is that in order to be consistent with this omnipotence his character was built upon an aura of excessive over- confidence and cockiness. This is not bad up to the first Mission Impossible, after that it has all been movie after movie the same perfect character that beats everyone and figures everything out. The Edge of Tomorrow on the other hand makes room for mistakes, insecurities and human flaws. Before Cruise gains the power to reincarnate he was just a regular human being afraid to go to war and with terrible fight skills. However as the story unveils and thanks to his gained ability to screw up, die and start again the character starts to evolve into the hero we are used to. Reincarnation made room for mistakes and for the human element. The good thing about this story is that we had a chance to see a more human Tom Cruise, one that we had never seen before. Although it was just for the beginning of the movie, it was enough time to proof that TC can also play regular human beings.