Glitzy and Substantial, But That Ending...

Rating: 6/10 (12 November 2014)

This dash of cinematic junk food boasts a crisp, chocolatey effects extravaganza for an outer shell and a wash of sticky, creamy sci-fi curiosity at its core. The concept is tricky but fascinating, a bit stretched but not so far that it completely shatters the illusion. It's basically Groundhog Day meets Independence Day, with Tom Cruise wearing a great big suit of mechanized armor as its showpiece. Go into battle, kill some aliens, meet a grisly demise, respawn at the checkpoint and try it all over again; that's basically the plot. It's best when Cruise is relegated to mere rapid-fire cannon fodder, trying like hell to make the most of his chances and failing miserably. The ride gets markedly less entertaining, and more humdrum, as it slides into sentimentality and finality. The ending is a real whiff, too, and undoubtedly colors my memory of the better bits that I'd enjoyed previously. It smacks of a last-minute rewrite, something that's utterly at-odds with the dashes of smart, dark material that had spiced things earlier in the ride. A film that wants to be flashy and ballsy, but instead finds itself tamed and neutered.