Best Flop EVER!

Rating: 9/10 (12 June 2014)

It what seems to be the most spectacular big budget flop of the season, comes "Edge of Tomorrow", a sci-fi action extravaganza that is one of the best genre movies of the decade. With home sales losing out to teen bromance, overseas return seems to be doing very well, which brings all sorts of questions as to why the Cruise-led alien invasion flick got pummelled so hard in the United States. Word of mouth must be immensely positive, as this is obviously the must see movie for all true sci-fi lovers, and critic's feedback has been verging on unanimous praise, so obviously something else is awry.
Two films immediately come to mind when watching "Edge of Tomorrow", a correlation so obvious that probably every other review pinpoints the influences, namely comedy classic "Groundhog Day" and Verhoeven's vastly underrated "Starship Troopers". Stuck between these two concept movies evolves a surprisingly original and fresh story, which manages to successfully warp expectations.
All out war with an alien invasion brings together humanity, when an asteroid crash-lands into central Europe, carrying with it a scourge of otherworldly twirling dervishes called the mimics. As they quickly conquer most of Europe, the counterattack is initiated by a victory under Verdun, where the Full Metal B... Rita (Emily Blunt) singlehandedly kills over a hundred mimics with the newly designed exoskeletons.
Cage (Tom Cruise) is the head of PR for the army, a whimpering coward so terrified of the front-line he attempt to blackmail his superior to avoid participating in the fight. With an imminent Normandy type assault planned the following day, Cage finds himself stripped of rank and thrown into a unit heading for the front-lines. The mass landing ends in slaughter with Cage killed in action... only for himself to be inexplicably captured within a time loop.
Within a mix of exceptional features and poor contrivances, this summer has been one of the most successful. Following "Captain America 2" and "X-Men: Days of Future Past", the blockbuster season seemed to have peaked. And apparently so did the audience, leaving out "Edge of Tomorrow" from their 'to-watch' list. Nonetheless as far as movies goes Liman (a hit-and-miss director of "Jumper", "The Bourne Identity" and "Mr and Mrs Smith") blows his predecessors out of contention in terms of a stunning mix of style and substance. Whereas other features had their flaws and "Godzilla" was an outright disappointment, "Edge of Tomorrow" comes good from the get-go, the only jagged moment coming late on with a jarring out-of-tone ending. Successfully mixing drama, comedy, bleak atmosphere with moments of emotional tension functioning hand-by-hand with ice-breakers and comedic jumps, the scriptwriters truly nailed it. And who would have thought given how uninspired some of Christpher McQuarrie's and the Butterworth brother's previous endeavors were: ranging from "Jack Reacher" and "The Tourist" to "The Last Legion" (although it must be said McQuarrie also has "The Usual Suspects" credited to him).
Unlike many features of its kind, "Edge of Tomorrow" manage to avoid being solely testosterone driven, albeit the movie does feature a rag-tag squad of misfit soldiers in the Aliens mode, together with Bill Paxton. Albeit action-packed there is a lot of heart flowing, especially with the notion of death being such a frivolous thing and the concept of constantly reliving your beloved one die. Naturally a lot is taken tongue-in-cheek, even these intruguing issues are primarily utilised for their dramatic effect, not for their philosophical options. Issues are skin-deep, tooled and geared so that the video-game premise of immortality isn't the sole pull of the story. Thus the movie is nowhere near "Groundhog Day" in terms of underlying contextual commentaries. In essence this is a popcorn movie. Just one of the damn finest there is.