The Best Tom Cruise Movie In a LOOOOONG Time

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2015)

I'm not really a big Tom Cruise fan. Haven't been since the first mission impossible. I think he's generally pretty mediocre. However this film is freaking great. Its the only film i know with the plot structure it has and its probably his greatest character growth yet, and it also fits the impossibly perfect sci-fi action that you see on blockbusters as of yet into a realistic scenario. This isn't the world where the action hero just conveniently missed that hurtling bit of debris from the nearby explosion because it was convenient to the plot. This is the world where he got hit in the face with that debris the last time around and woke up the morning before and knew to dodge that piece of debris the next time around. Its a really cool concept that they really pushed the limits of the sci fi action with and artistically it makes a great watch especially with those freaky aliens, the "mimics" which are definitely in my top 10 most creative and disturbing aliens, probably one of the most badass ones yet. Just the way that they fight and some of the choreography is so well envisioned, the FX department really did a good job on this one.
In terms of character development it also does nicely. Major Cage is not even a good guy in the beginning, he's a total douche who pretty much bought his way into the position, and he's a giant coward. He's pretty much thrown under the bus by the military folk cause they see him for what he is and its only by sheer luck he gets caught in a time loop, but over the course of a film his fellow soldiers go from having him pegged as a spineless deserter to just reciting misinformed predictable assumptions about a completely different man then the man they expected. I think it subtly makes a good point about peoples reactions to someone they've never met, they don't stop treating him like the person he was even when he becomes that person, whether or not he's a hero was never something they could read on his face and it wasn't something anyone was ever going to know about him so it was more about an internal sense of fulfillment than recognition. Also stopping the alien apocalypse.
Anyway, i give it a 10/10, i might've pushed more towards a 9.5 but i'm rounding up because of the fantastic concept and great execution.