Brave and Good Attempt at Something Different

Rating: 6/10 (15 June 2014)

Is this film doomed to go down as a critically OK movie that failed at the box office? What a shame, alongside such absolute rubbish as 'Iron Man3' and 'Avatar' - standing in the top 3 of earning movies!!!!! Yes, the film is an expensive blockbuster with Tom Cruise as star - seems box office poison alongside mumbling riffs of rubbish from Downey jnr and little blue smurfs in outer space! Yes, it is a video game on the big screen - hero gets killed but gets another life every time fighting an alien race with killer instincts, so that he can learn how to defeat them. The film bangs along after a slowish start to establish the character and the situations which he, and we, will return to with growing irony and knowingness. There is the spectacular landing in Normandy to rout the aliens that turns into a massacre, and gives Cruise his apparent immortality - no drones visible so this is not controversial in the States!!! Thereafter, with the help of a former soldier, who experienced similar re-settings of the day, the hero grows into a true warrior from a PR wimp. The script is sharp, if somewhat incidental - certainly does not spend too much time on explanation - and the direction cleverly understated with masses of CGI. And, yes, Tom pulls it off to carry the film in that all-American solid way that no longer seems to get the crowds cheering. Ah well, go and see on the big screen and enjoy the spectacle without all the hype and very predictable dross surrounding 'X Men' and other comic bores this summer.