Impressions of Live. Die. Repeat : Edge of Tomorrow

The other night I watched Edge of Tomorrow on HBO on demand, starring Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise.  It took me a second to find it because now the movie is basically called Live. Die. Repeat : Edge of Tomorrow.  Apparently Warner Brothers had second thoughts about the original title, which is admittedly rather soft.  The source material is a Japanese light novel (think novella++) entitled All You Need is Kill.  So, in this jumble of names, I happen to like the one they finally settled on, Live. Die. Repeat.  It matches the tone of the movie.  

The overarching premise is familiar: aliens invade Earth and attempt to conquer us.  Why?  There are hints that they may be after resources, but the viewer is quickly assured that it doesn't matter why they are here, we really don't care, and we just gotta kill 'em.  Cool.  The main battle scene is well done, portrayed not so subtly as a futuristic D-Day invasion (the film WAS released on June 6, after all!).  The real hook of the movie, though, is the time loop that William Cage (Tom Cruise) is caught in.  You see, each time he dies in battle, he reawakens again the morning before with all his memories and experiences intact.  

After a number of failures/deaths, he meets up with famed soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt, who got pretty ripped for the role), and they start to work together to defeat the enemy, over and over and over again.  But, trust me, it's not boring.  Through their constant trial, error, blood, sweat, and deaths you get a sense of just how difficult the fight really is.  It's also entertaining to watch Cage interact with essentially the same set of circumstances as he becomes more and more battle hardened.  Adding to the intensity and intrigue is the fact that the movie somewhat keeps you guessing each day whether Cage and Vrataski have "made it this far before" and how much they actually know about each other.  

I do have more to say about the movie, which you can read about below if you want some spoilers, but overall, you should see it.  Then let me know what you thought. 

**WARNING: Minor spoilers below**

The alien "Mimics" are in some scenes seemingly invincible, taking round after round of machine-gun fire, while in others they are quite easily dispatched with two blasts of a shotgun or a blunt (pun!, pun!) item.  And, at times, the Mimic horde seems all but invincible, which makes you wonder why they weren't able to take over the whole earth in the first day.

Some of the early scenes, i.e. the recruitment video and the barracks scene, are cheesy and a bit reminiscent of Starship Troopers, which had me worried.

The romance aspect between Cage and Vrataski is low key, but ultimately satisfying given her rough persona.

**WARNING: Major Spoilers below**

Once Cage is given a blood transfusion and loses the ability to "restart" if he dies, the intensity level goes up a number of notches.  Somehow, because the consequences of death in the first two-thirds of the movie are so minimal, the suspense in the last third, when he can't just repeat and try again, is doubled.

In the end, when Cage dies and bathes in the blood of the Omega, the alien mastermind, he is able to loop back one final time; except this time he seems to have some kind of control over where he goes back to and what aspects of the pre-loop reality he wants to keep.  This is contrary to all his other experiences and is a bit of a plot-hole.  But, because they wanted a fairly happy ending, I guess things had to be tinkered with a bit there at the last.

Watch this movie!