Liman: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

In an older, more classical brand of action film, you often felt as if the stars were fighting for a particular future – for America, for masculinity, for conservatism and, of course, for themselves, showcasing their bodies with each new release to remind you that they were still had what it takes. Over the last decade or so, however, action films have felt more and more as if they’re fighting for the future as a concept, or category – a discrete entity that’s somehow separate from the indefinite, dispersed present in which they seem to unfold. Edge of Tomorrow presents one of the most elegant, beautiful responses to that quandary in a long time, partly because it also draws upon the World War I nostalgia that seems to be everywhere these days – or, perhaps more accurately, taps into the fears that WWI nostalgia assuages, fears of a world in which the threat of warfare seems to have escaped the regular strictures of space and time that operated a hundred years ago. Set in the near-future, the visceral, atmospheric opening transports us into the aftermath of an alien attack that has decimated most of Europe, turning Verdun into the next major front. Into that malaise comes Major William Cage, played by Tom Cruise, a former advertising CEO who travels to London with the expectation of a nominal or ceremonial role, but unexpectedly finds himself thrown into battle. Doug Liman cut his teeth on comedy, and a great deal of the film’s enjoyment comes from the unlikeliness of Cruise playing this character, who’s essentially a corporate coward, light years away from the Tom Cruise of Jack Reacher and Mission Impossible, the Tom Cruise who can stare chaos in the face. Confused, disoriented and frightened for the first third of the film, he tries to desert before he’s even transported to Verdun, as Liman offers up a wry vision of post-human warfare by way of a character who’s still clunkily, clumsily human, burying Cruise under enormous robotic gear while making no effort to conceal how short he really is. Of course, the moment Cage arrives in Verdun, he’s decimated, but in a brilliant twist, he’s sprayed with a rare alien secretion that gives him the power to live this day over and over again, which he does, refining his skills and becoming the Tom Cruise we know in the process. It’s only a matter of time before he comes across Seargent Vitriski (Emily Blunt) – the “Rose of Verdun” – who had the same power and lost it, but had it long enough to discover that the aliens they’re fighting are in fact a single organism, with the power to contain and change the future. In other words, the war is unwinnable in real time and space, making Cage the vanguard of the human assault, so long as he manages to find, locate and destroy the hub of the alien organism on the single day he has. What follows is a bit like watching Cruise try to complete a video game – there are distinct echoes of Oblivion - albeit a video game with the most brutal difficulty curve imaginable, as Cage navigates his way through the same scenario again and again – always anchored in Verdun – while trying to deal with dead ends and negotiate apparent non-win situations. Some critics have argued that this deconstructs the mindlessness and predictability of both action films and gaming, but that’s to ignore James Herbert and Laura Jenning’s exquisite editing, as well as Doug Liman’s comic sense of timing, both of which inject this very suspenseful scenario with as much wit and warmth as Groundhog Day, providing Cruise with one of his most memorable comic roles in years.