Written by Andé Morgan.
Edge of Tomorrow stars Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise as near-future warriors battling alien invaders. It was directed by Doug Liman.
There is something perverse about attacking a film for its lack of originality when the central conceit is that the main character repeats the same day over and over again. So, in an effort to preserve my purity, now for something completely different. You remember Groundhog Day (1993), yes? It had plenty of Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, but it was lacking… sci-fi. Specifically, it needed some quantum pseudoscience and a horde of generic squido-mechanical pod people.
Anyway, Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Released this weekend (June 6), it stars Tom Cruise as military PR weasel Major William Cage. We meet him after a trite news reel intro composed of an anthology of worldwide unrest footage (most, it seems, from the last century for some reason). He has been summoned by a large man who commands the world’s unified armed forces. Instead of spinning war from afar, Cage will be imbedded with the troops during the imminent (second) landing at Normandy. This time, humanity is attempting to take back continental Europe from an alien aggressor, so far only vaguely referenced as the “Mimics.” Cage is a coward, and clumsily threatens blackmail in an attempt to avoid combat. It doesn’t work. Instead, Cage is arrested and sent to a forward base to meet his fate as a deserter conscript. Behold, the premise.
Please don’t let my snarky tone fool you – I love science fiction, particularly near-future stories with a dystopic veneer. So does everyone else, which is why this film genre has been so strongly represented lately, e.g., RoboCop (2014), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and X-men: Days of Future Past (2014), to name a few. And that’s the problem – it’s difficult to watch Edge without comparing it to its contemporaries.
Like the films mentioned above, Edge features frenetic action sequences and trailer-worthy tech pieces. Most notable are the exo-suits (“jackets”) employed by the Earthican forces. Exoskeletons are having something of a moment recently; see RoboCop (2014), The Amazing Spiderman 2 (2014), the Iron Man franchise, and others. So, who wore it better? My sense of aesthetics favors Murphy in RoboCop. Perhaps this is not a fair comparison, as RoboCop was much more concerned with the ethics and practical reality of cyborgism. Still, the exosuits in Edge, which are really the film’s party piece, were just so mundane compared to those envisioned in RoboCop. Instead of a fresh vision of technological advancement, they seemed like a regression from the Caterpillar P-5000 Powered Work Loader in Aliens (1986). In fact, they seem like tech that might really only be a few years away, much to the detriment of their wow factor.
The Mimics too, are unremarkable. Spastic glowing balls of slashing alien death have been done better by the Matrix films, and, even, by Battleship (2012). It’s explained that the mimics have a hierarchal structure composed of a legion of small fiery footsoliders, rare blue “alphas,” and a central “server” being (I was reminded of the brain bugs in Starship Troopers). During the first iteration of the beach landing Cage is, of course, killed. On his way out, he kills an alpha and the alien’s blood mingles with Cage’s. The brain mimic has the power to TURN BACK TIME, and does so whenever an alpha is killed. However, while the head mimic can list time travel, telepathy, organo-metallic bioengineering, and interstellar travel as hard skills, it is unable to discern that Cage is actually a human. Time is reversed, and Cage awakens to face battle once again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Yeah, I am down on this movie. I can forgive a lack of originality if the other elements of a story shine, but we don’t even find out why the aliens are called mimics! What do they mimic? Aliens from other movies? What the hell, man?
The supporting cast doesn’t fare much better. Cage’s fellow soldiers are a rag tag crew in the vein of every war movie ever. There is a mean southern (y’all can tell by the accent, y’all) drill sergeant, a fat guy, a “crazy” guy, a black guy, a foreign guy, and a woman. It can be refreshing to see women depicted in combat roles, but Edge, like so many other films before, falls into tropes in its depiction. The female solider is shown as less clean, less sensible, and gratuitously gruff, as if she has to curse and posture constantly to defend her presence in the unit.
Blunt’s character, Rita Vrataski, is something different. She is a battle-hardened soldier that Cage has set up as a figurehead for the military to rally around. She wears practical armor (except for a helmet – no one has time for hat hair on the battlefield), and dispatches her foes with a badass Final Fantasy sword. To his credit, Liman avoided eroticizing her combat moves and generally stayed away from FFD clichés, save for a few superfluous yoga poses. A superior warrior, she teaches Cage in anti-chrome-cephalopod techniques in a training montage filled with hilarious homicide sight gags.
It is great to see a feature with a woman warrior who is not also a sex object, but there are a few problems. The other soldiers in the film refer to Rita as the “Full Metal Bitch,” a term she clearly does not care for. And while she initially trains Cage, he soon takes over a protector role, and attempts to use time travel trickery to seduce her. This scene is kinda creepy, and it does not help that Blunt and Cruise lack chemistry.
Rita does make it to the climax without getting well and truly fridged, and joins Cage in making a heroic sacrifice. Unfortunately, the script fails both the spirit and the letter of the Bechdel test. I did not note any female characters talking to each other, and the several women in the film were always either talking to Cage or talking about Cage.
Edge of Tomorrow is not a repugnant film – its treatment of women is uneven, but trending towards positive. But neither is it a great film (despite what the interwebs may tell you). For example, the dialogue was hokey in a way befitting it’s genre. Midway through the film a wild-haired-scientist tells us that the aliens’ “only vulnerability is…humanity.”
Post climax, a feel-good ending closes with a slapsticky shot of Cruise laughing to camera right. As the credits start to roll, the viewer is left with a quickly fading memory of an unremarkable vision of the future. The film does borrow heavily from the other movies mentioned above, as well as from previous Cruise vehicles like Minority Report (2002) and Oblivion (2013). In fact, Rachel Redfern was on point in her review of Oblivion: “Tom Cruise’s latest movie…is exactly that, a movie about Tom Cruise.”
I agree. Likewise, it’s best not to evaluate Edge as an original film, a science fiction film, or a feminist film – it’s a Tom Cruise film.
Note: For more information on things like “why are they called mimics,” and “what the hell is this movie supposed to be about,” here’s the source material: All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.
Andé Morgan lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they write about culture, race, politics, and LGBTQ issues. Follow them @andemorgan.
You complain about a lack of originality. Here’s the problem with that. It’s not about originality. Most movies aren’t original. At all. It’s about the execution of the already used ideas. You don’t complain about a film like The Social Network because of its similarity to Citizen Kane. It’s about how the concepts or ideas are presented to you.
As for the world it presents, it’s mostly a callback to older films but comparing it to the most recent scifi films would actually work in its favor. It gives it a different feel to it which is basically what blockbusters need these days. They all feel the same. Edge of Tomorrow is, funny enough, the most original blockbuster to come out this year, despite its perceived unoriginality.
As for the supporting characters, see, this is something I don’t mind. Because really, this movie is about its two lead characters and uses its time wisely focusing on them. If this film spread everything around, Cage and Rita would be decidedly unmemorable. I’ll take a film that has two great fleshed out characters instead of a film with eight mediocre ones. Blockbusters tend to forget about its characters. Not once did it forget about Cage and Rita.
Oh and your comment about Cage trying to “seduce” Rita with time travel is so blatantly ridiculous, I forced a chuckle when reading it. Cage didn’t try to “seduce” Rita. Cage is a coward and he’d do anything to not be the center of humanity’s hope. It’s not even implied that he has any sexual motivation. So no, it’s not creepy. That’s just you being an absolute downer. Also, Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt DO have chemistry. But people will see what they want to see or don’t see what they don’t want to see. So bringing it up is irrelevant.
The bechdel test is not the end all be all. Rita is a well written character in a genre that historically ignores women. Other than Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, and Carolyn Fry(the best written female character in any scifi film, period), there aren’t exactly any that can stand side by side with Rita.
So I’m just going to say that your review is terrible. See, if you actually brought up interesting points, I could have just been like “well everyone has their own opinion”. But most of everything you’ve said is just amateurish. I’d say the only valid thing you’ve brought up is that the film doesn’t give the aliens any motivation. But you barely spend a few sentences on that one.
And ending your review quoting someone saying what everyone says about every Tom Cruise film, despite the fact that most of the time it isn’t true, doesn’t make you smart. It also isn’t applicable to this film. Still, I guess I’ll be optimistic and hopeful that the next time you review a film, you won’t be nearly as annoying as you are here. Good luck.
These concepts are so overdone. There’s a lot of great sci-fi stories that haven’t been used that’ll make great movies, I mean there is a treasure-trove of good sci-fi stories, all they need to do is do some reading. I want Hollywood to stop making bad sci-fi movies. I want better scripts handed to Tom Cruise. I want Will Smith to stop getting his paws all over sci-fi—stop ruining sci-fi Will Smith! I actually saw some of the good old sci-fi films again and they were just so much better than the last few that have come out.
Totally disagree, Vrataski is the epitome of a strong female character and never being seduced by the lead male in spite of his clumsy attempts to do so…
Vrataski is the spiritual leader of an international army of humans and completely rejects sexuality in the movie and is by far the strongest character in the movie…..
what does a woman character need to do to satisfy this site?
that’s the irony…. this site attacks literally every movie that has a female in it…. but no definition of what you are looking for…. it’s absurd… you are supposedly feminist… but no woman can withstand you criteria….. none… no woman measures up to Bitchflicks standards… whatever they are….
there are lots of admirable woman characters in film… just none of them are or will ever be good enough for this site.
As I mention above, I generally approve of the film’s depiction of Blunt’s character. That positive note doesn’t change the fact that an(other) interesting source story was given short shrift to make a Cruise film.
I’ve read the source… in what way was Vrataski compromised in order to manufacture a “Cruise film”?
It was like bad sex-only he was satisfied.
There is a difference between passing the Bechdel test and having a strong female character. Why can’t it just be that a woman talks about more than a man? The term “full metal bitch” is an approximate translation which is even better than the Japanese word-for-word translation. It’s a play on “full metal jacket” and refers to her being like a weapon. The character of the scientist was originally a female and changed to a male. So, the book passes, but this change makes it so it does not. The whole point of this was that it resets like a video game. What is learned each time helps them to go farther. Vrataski is more important than you think, particularly when she says, “He’s me at the Battle of Verdun.” She is superior because he has to learn from her. Would the pre-quel be more interesting? Maybe.
Oh wow want to see that prequel.
damn nice the movie was, just for this one plot hole : http://digestivepyrotechnics.blogspot.com/2014/10/edge-of-tomorrow-plot-hole-explained.html
“The other soldiers in the film refer to Rita as the “Full Metal Bitch,” a term she clearly does not care for.”
It’s relating to full metal jacket. Does war propaganda actually care a lot about equality, really? Also, the name of this site is bitchflicks, just sayin’.
“…unable to discern that Cage is actually a human.”
It’s irrelevant what he knows about Cage, the movie’s logical sequence would be the same regardless.
“Still, the exosuits in Edge, which are really the film’s party piece, were just so mundane compared to those envisioned in RoboCop.”
Maybe because it was mass-produced standardized military equipment, I’ve never seen a “flashy” object that falls into this category and I’m pretty sure that neither did you, “flashyness” isn’t a desirable trait in battle as it gets you killed faster.
“…save for a few superfluous yoga poses…”
The poses weren’t even sexualized and she wasn’t scantly dressed during those poses, the aim was to demonstrate enormous strenght and control, in short, to build the character of the badass warrior.
“…he soon takes over a protector role…”
Because he’s her protector, she appointed him as such because he’s the only one who has the capability of remembering what went wrong before, DOH.
“…he soon takes over a protector role, and attempts to use time travel trickery to seduce her. This scene is kinda creepy…”
He deeply cared for her and was stalling to figure out a way that wouldn’t get her killed, also, what’s wrong with seduction? It’s not like he can stop the “time travel trickery” without killing the leader of the mimics or nearly bleeding to death, losing the powers and thus the war for the freedom of humanity.
“Unfortunately, the script fails both the spirit and the letter of the Bechdel test.”
It’s a war film and wars are fought mainly by men, that’s why there are so many there, get over it, also, even with the sheer difference in numbers of men vs women, very few moments of the film were conversations, and from those, very few weren’t about Cage, so, the Bechdel test but with man would have probably passed, but the number of conversations between men that weren’t about men wouldn’t be so hot either. Besides, does that really matter for anything? Let’s say you’re a movie producer, you only have 1:30-3h to tell a great story that could easily span for days, if a scene where two women talk isn’t a part of that story or isn’t at all necessary in it, would you include it just to say “I’ve passed the Bechdel test”? If you would then you have absolutely no concept of priorities.
“Edge of Tomorrow is not a repugnant film – its treatment of women is uneven, but trending towards positive.”
Uneven does not mean negative. First of all, heroes are treated differently from the rest, every time, so, because it has 2 of them, one male and one female, then the treatment of both sexes was uneven, the female charactedr being treated much better than the male character which was the main protagonist, I haven’t seen people waking up Rita by kicking her and calling her maggot about 20 times like it happened to Cage, so, the treatment was positive, not tranding there, and the treatment of men was negative, VERY, grow a brain, it doesn’t even appear we’ve seen the same movie, grab a notepad and write the intances of neutral, positive and negative treatment for both sexes, the movie is both percentually and absolutely skewed to favor better tratment for women as you shall conclude from this objecive testing criteria. The girl form J-squad was treated as pretty much the same element from J-squad under every scenario even displaying a more “alpha” posture than some members even though I didn’t liked how it was portrayed, too over-the-top and cliché behaviour.