--- title: Edge of Tomorrow Movie Review: Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt Star description: Doug Liman’s sharp new sci-fi fantasy places the eternally youthful star in a repeating loop to save the earth from aliens canonical: https://time.com/2822587/edge-of-tomorrow-movie-review/ author: Richard Corliss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-04T17:28:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:38:14.431Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: REVIEW: Edge of Tomorrow: Being Tom Cruise, Forever og:description: Doug Liman’s sharp new sci-fi fantasy places the eternally youthful star in a repeating loop to save Earth from the aliens og:url: https://time.com/2822587/edge-of-tomorrow-movie-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0c98d14e5625c9b/698696283bc99925ca1a3ead/844558_full.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 844558_full og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: REVIEW: Edge of Tomorrow: Being Tom Cruise, Forever twitter:description: Doug Liman’s sharp new sci-fi fantasy places the eternally youthful star in a repeating loop to save Earth from the aliens twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0c98d14e5625c9b/698696283bc99925ca1a3ead/844558_full.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # REVIEW: _Edge of Tomorrow_: Being Tom Cruise, Forever > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Edge of Tomorrow Trailer [Watch (HLS stream): Edge of Tomorrow Trailer](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/LOrWmVXP.m3u8) (2:30)  _Published 2014-06-04. Tom Cruise battles aliens again and again in the Groundhog Day meets World War III film Edge of Tomorrow._ by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Jun 4, 2014 5:28 PM UTC  Warner Bros. by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Jun 4, 2014 5:28 PM UTC The movie begins with world news services — the BBC, Sky News — reporting the invasion and near conquest of Europe by extraterrestrial entities. Even CNN interrupts its 24/7 coverage of that Malaysian plane, giving Wolf Blitzer a chance to report an actual breaking story. And at the end (no spoiler alert necessary), we learn that “Russian and Chinese troops are moving across Western Europe without resistance.” That’s supposed to be the _good_ news. So we’re in the movies’ favorite nightmare fantasyland, Armageddon — or, through most of _Edge of Tomorrow_, a replay of the D-Day invasion, but with Allied forces deploying from London to fight not the Nazis but the Mimics. Described as “a spectacularly evolved, world-conquering organism” and looking like jellyfish or octopuses with limbs resembling Rastafarian locks, these alien beings take on the properties of the creatures they have encountered and assimilated. With tremendous speed and agility, they pop out of nowhere and _zap_, you’re dead — you and virtually all the other soldiers you hit the beach with. The Mimics can achieve this because they’ve been through this battle many times before and “an enemy that knows the future can’t lose.” **(READ:** [**When Tom Cruise went nuts on** **_Oprah_**](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1066919,00.html)**)** The only way to survive, and perhaps save the mission, is to catch a dose of the Mimics’ strength. You die on the battlefield, and then are instantly reborn back at the Heathrow training base, where you sharpen your warrior skills while memorizing every detail of the Mimics’ movements. Landing for the second or hundredth time on the beach, at the exact same future time, you relive your fatal nightmare, but with crucial tweaks: now you can anticipate the enemy’s feints and score some kills. Guiding you is a luscious, superefficient soldier, Rita Vrataski — the Angel of Verdun, or the Full Metal Bitch — though each time you meet her, she doesn’t know who you are. Tom Cruise is the _Groundhog Day_ grunt, and Emily Blunt the Angel Bitch, in _Edge of Tomorrow_, a furiously time-looping joy ride and the smartest action film of the early summer season. The movie’s only static element is its title, which oddly suggests a mashup of TV soap operas. Director Doug Liman and screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth could have borrowed a name from any number of James Bond films — _You Only Live Twice_, _Live and Let Die_, _Tomorrow Never Dies_, _Die Another Day_ — to describe its hero’s curse and gift. Or they could have kept the title of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s 2004 source novel: _All You Need Is Kill_. (It sounds exactly as cool in the original Japanese: _O_ _ru Yu N_ _i_ _do Izu Kiru._) In Steven Spielberg’s 2005 _War of the Worlds_ remake, Cruise was an ordinary dad trying to outrun an alien takeover. In last year’s _Oblivion_, he was a career soldier battling his own clone. As Major William Cage in _Edge of Tomorrow_, he is, at first, the anti-Tom. A former ad agency spin doctor, Cage joined the service to create promos that would entice civilians into deadly combat. He’s the Don Draper of World War III. “I do this to avoid doing that,” he tells the hardass General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson). “Can’t stand the sight of blood. Not so much as a paper cut.” Unlike the gung-ho Maverick in _Top Gun_, which launched Cruise to stardom 28 years ago, Cage is spoiling _not_ to fight. **(READ:** [**Tom Cruise fights Tom Cruise in** **_Oblivion_**](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/04/19/tom-cruise-in-oblivion-drones-and-clones-on-planet-earth/)**)** Brigham stockades the reluctant warrior and attaches him to a squad of soldiers due to be dropped on the beach tomorrow. And now he’s a private with a coward’s rep, to be bullied by his master sergeant (Bill Paxton) and his gruff new mates. (Cruise looks great at 51 — he could be a fit 40\. Still, wouldn’t his fellow soldiers wonder why a guy approaching middle age has the army’s lowest rank? Answer: No, _because it’s a movie!_) With precious little training in weapons operation and maneuvering his bulky robot uniform, Cage lands on the beach and sees his squad promptly wiped out. In one weirdly funny image, a cargo plane drops to the earth, smashing one soldier. This is the _Saving Private Ryan_ beach invasion, played a second time as tragic farce. Yet on Spielberg’s Omaha Beach, there was no fabulous babe, no female Audie Murphy for an out-of-place, out-of-time soldier to bond with. Rita used to be “in the loop” with the Mimics, but not now: “I had it and I lost it.” But when she realizes that Cage has somehow got on the enemy’s wavelength — a fact she must face anew each time she sees him, since he’s come back from the future — she trains him at Heathrow and fights bravely with him. As the periods of their endlessly repeated first meeting lengthen, they escape the beach for a deserted farmhouse; then the Thames River, infested with swimming Mimics; and finally Paris in search of the Omega Mimic that directs all the others. **(READ:** [**Richard Schickel on** **_Saving Private Ryan_**](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,988798,00.html)**)** For most of the film’s two hours, Liman keeps the plot plates spinning with the suave dexterity he showed in _Swingers_, _Go_, _The Bourne Identity_ and _Mr. & Mrs. Smith_. (Liman had a down phase with _Jumper_ and _Fair Game_, but all his pictures have addressed the lies that are taken as truth and the mystery of even a hero’s personality.) Photographed by Dion Beebe in the desaturated khaki colors of _Saving Private Ryan_ and _World War Z_, the movie figures its viewers are bright enough to grab the premise and parlays that belief into audience exhilaration. Each succeeding visit to Heathrow or the beach is shorter, sometimes only by a second; the rhythm accelerates vertiginously, the tension tautens. Only toward the climax, when the live-die-repeat cycle is abandoned, does _Edge of Tomorrow_ go logy. But it’s two-thirds of a sensational ride — one you can ride over and over without buying additional tickets. Revealing the timidity of the _X-Men: Days of Future Past_ premise — one man going back in time to connect with a younger version of an old friend — _Edge of Tomorrow_ is also a metaphor for moviemaking: the film is all about rehearsal, about living and learning (or dying and learning) and gradually turning mistakes into triumphs. Cage has not only read the “script” of the Mimics’ war but has infused it into his central nervous system. In that sense, it’s a demonstration of the 10,000-hours-of-practice theory popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in _Outliers_. Keep doing something forever and maybe you’ll get it right. **(READ:** [**Lev Grossman on Malcolm Gladwell’s** **_Outliers_**](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1858880,00.html)**)** In a complicated scenario with just four prominent roles (Cruise, Blunt, Paxton and Gleeson), the two leading players must radiate star quality and sex appeal. Solemn and toned to the max, Blunt proves a strong partner for an actor who can still earn the sobriquet Tom Terrific. More often than most Hollywood hunks, Cruise steps outside his comfort zone to embrace weird characters — in _Magnolia_, _Lions for Lambs_, _Tropic Thunder_ and _Rock of Ages._ But it’s also cool to see him bend the familiar action-fantasy format and, as he does here, stick the landing. An aging star can’t push envelopes forever. According to the Internet Movie Database, Cruise is becoming his own Cage, planning to star in the sequels _Mission: Impossible 5_, _Top Gun 2_ and _Jack Reacher: Never Go Back_. 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