Edge of Tomorrow trailer – reaction

2013_part_3_Spidey2_edge release posterDirected by Doug Liman from a screenplay which lists Dante W Harper, Joby Harold (Awake), Steve Kloves (Harry Potter), Christopher McQuarrie (Jack the Giant Slayer), Tim Kring (Heroes), Jez Butterworth, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (both Star Trek Into Darkness), Edge of Tomorrow is adapted from the Japanese writer Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s “light novel” (young adult novella) All You Need Is Kill. The film stars Tom Cruise as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cage and Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski of Special Forces, fighting the invading alien menace of the Mimics, and the first trailer has just been released.

2013_part_3_Spidey2_edge 1Michael Flett – Visually I’m seeing any number of war films, Spitfires heading out over the white cliffs of Dover to defend our damp little island, and there is a lot of Starship Troopers in there, not only the style of Verhoeven and the boot camp and troop transports but also the power armour that goes back to Heinlein’s novel and appeared in the awesome Roughnecks animated show, and it also has the cute tentacley thing from The Matrix.

It doesn’t help that this is hot on the heels of the tiresome and obvious Oblivion, because it looks so much the same – Tom Cruise is the only man who can see that everything is deception in a bleak apocalyptic world. False memories, repeated lives, a girl who he knows yet has never met, struggling through wilderness… Yes, I have no doubt that there will be a storyline, possibly a good one, but when the rug-pull is already in the trailer, where does that leave you to go?

2013_part_3_Spidey2_edge 2Groundhog Day did this, The X Files did it in Monday, Star Trek The Next Generation did it in Cause and Effect, and there are already only a limited number of possibilities, so by giving us six months to think about them, the film loses impact and credibility already. It would have been better to just show us an exciting science fiction action trailer and surprise us when we get there. And seriously – eight credited writers? Will this be anything other than blancmange?

I liked Emily Blunt in The Wolfman, The Adjustment Bureau and Looper, while Doug Liman has a mixed history – it’s a long time since I saw Swingers, but despite being namechecked in the trailer Mr & Mrs Smith was terrible, a premise rather a film, though I didn’t think Jumper was as bad as many people made out.

2013_part_3_Spidey2_edge 3And I’ll admit, I have a problem with Tom Cruise. He’s become too much of a brand, like Arnold Schwarzenegger was in the eighties, where when you see one of his films, there are certain expectations of what will happen and what will not happen. He’s never going to surprise you in the way that an actor less tied to their public persona might, he’s never going to challenge an audience.

He’s become so much a managed public relations exercise that it’s hard to take him seriously as an actor at all; every time he appears in public he is performing. He’s a Stepford husband, a corporate mannequin going through the motions, every reaction programmed, an emulation of life rather than a person. Who needs the uncanny valley of computer generated simulacra when you have Tom Cruise?

2013_part_3_Spidey2_edge 4Brian Robinson – Well, this looks interesting. A science fiction movie based on material that mainstream audiences are not likely to be aware of – more of that please, Hollywood. And it seems more concerned with ideas of fate and second chances as opposed to just another alien invasion (Battle: Los Angeles, you will live in infamy forever).

The enemy is barely seen and we’re being shown more about the characters themselves and what their predicament is. It looks pretty gritty from this.

I’m more interested in what Tom Cruise is doing these days; he seems to be picking far more interesting projects than many of his contemporaries have done in the past. A kind of existential looking alien invasion movie.

Nice to see Bill Paxton in there among the mayhem as well. It has my attention. Just don’t let me down the same way Oblivion did, Mr Cruise.

2013_part_3_Spidey2_edge 6Adam Dworak – Well, as much as I like Tom Cruise I really don’t like the trailer for Edge of Tomorrow. And haven’t we already seen Tom Cruise in another science fiction movie called Oblivion this year which apparently had the same plot? There we had multi-Tom fighting aliens and saving the world, in Edge of Tomorrow we have one Tom stuck in a time loop fighting the aliens to save the world. Sounds far too familiar. Do I want to see this same film again? No.

The trailer shows nothing special, nothing intresting – no impressive special effects, no big action scenes and Tom Cruise looks ridiculous in the armour which is way too big for him. It looks like he borrowed it from his older brother.

Les Anderson – Every single element has been done before and better. But I’m mildly intrigued by it.

Edge of Tomorrow is scheduled for released in on June 6th 2014

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