Edge of Tomorrow

It’s gonna be a big summer for sci-fi.

If I were to build a super soldier, I’d totally make it look like Emily Blunt too.

This film is kinda like Groundhog Day, The Matrix and Starship Troopers all got together and made a baby.

The aliens come from across the galaxy and apparently ride on meteors that they hurl towards earth, much like Starship Troopers.  Tom Cruise repeats the same day over and over and over again much like Groundhog Day, and the aliens they are fighting look like the sentinels from The Matrix.

And it doesn’t suck.  Just nothing we’ve not already seen before.

Why was Brendan Gleeson such a jerk as to make marketing guy soldier Tom Cruise go into battle in the first place?

I mean, I get it.  This is a summer sci-fi blockbuster so there has to be a place for the montage, so we can see wimpy little office officer turn into bad ass super soldier…but by the time we get to the montage he’s already fought his way though hundreds of battles….so it’s like…okay.

The battle scenes were pretty cool, just real CG heavy and again, nothing new.  The 3D isn’t worth the extra money.  It rarely is.

There are some good moments between Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, but you should expect that from these two actors.  In fact, there are really good actors all the way around.

You must realize the military of the future is a much more liberal outfit than what we’ve got these days…although they seem to be somewhat bloodthirsty.  But I guess that’s okay when your enemy are bugs, or whatever.

Bill Paxton has the best line in a movie I’ve heard this year!  All my fellow Kentuckians will appreciate it most.

The time travel thing is like, okay now, how does that work?  Eh, nevermind, it’s in the script.  And that’s really how they handle it.  Just one or two lines of dialog.  Oh ya see what happened is your blood got mixed with the aliens blood and that’s causing you to reset the day each time you die….okay.  Sure.

Emily Blunt, who is an engineered super soldier and hero of some epic battle states that she had the same thing Tom Cruise has during that her big famous battle, Full Metal Bitch, they call her.  Which is awesome.  She gets stuck in the time cycle and is able to defeat the enemy in this one particular battle because she has to live the day over and over until she finally figures it out.

Then she figures out Tom Cruise is caught in the same time loop so they work together to defeat the enemy.  Day after day.

But it’s like, Emily Blunt, how did you figure out you no longer had the power to reset the day?  Since you reset the day by dying….if you no longer had the power and tried to reset the day…wouldn’t you be dead before you figured out you lost the power?

Whatever.  Don’t think too much and this is a nice little sci-fi action flick.  Nice dialog and good on screen chemistry between the main characters, all the characters really and I’ll give this a good three popcorn tubs out of five.

Nothing to write home to mom about, but a decent summer sci-fi flick.  Not as good as Tom’s last sci-fi film, Oblivion.  No where near Minority Report of Vanilla Sky or anything like that.  But better than say, After Earth from last summer.

I will say I’m looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy!  Gonna be a big summer for sci-fi and that makes my geeky little heart happy.

After Earth

A thousand years after humans have helped to ravage the earth into an uninhabitable mess, super hero Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his son who struggles to live up to his father’s oversized reputation, Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith), are stranded on that very same earth.

The years with no humans has been good to the planet.  It’s green and lush and full of life.  Flocks of birds, a herd of land mammals, baboons, snakes, slugs, plant life nearly beyond description.  And everything very deadly!  Seems it’s evolved to destroy human life.

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, it looks great.  The technology all looks very organic and modeled after things from nature.  The space ship llooks like a Stingray, ya know, the big fish things.  The insides of the ship could have been the insides of an animal.  There’s definitely some kind of environmental ideologies at play here.

It’s like maybe after we destroy this planet, we’ll learn to live in harmony with  it.

I thought Jaden might have been a little too young for this role but he played it well enough and it fits with his struggles to keep up with is dad’s reputation.  Just a bit of a stretch to believe he would even be considered for a position among these rough and tumble grown ass men.

Some folks dismiss this flick as a vanity project for Jaden.  And I suppose it could be.  Some folks take their kids to Disney World, Will Smith makes hundred million dollar sci-fi movies for his.

This is a decent flick, however.  I put it up there with Oblivion that came out a bit earlier this year.

I’ll split a medium popcorn and drink with ya on this one.  I may even bring in some goobers in my pocket.

 

oblivion

not Tom Cruise’s worst movie.

not near his best either.  it’s really a middle of the road sci-fi flick when ya get right down to it.

here’s where my faith in imdb waivers.  they rate this movie a mere .2 lower than The Place Beyond the Pines which is a far superior film in every regard, except maybe explosions and epic soundtrack.  rottentomatoes is more on target with a 62 from the viewer reviews.  i’ll go 67.5.

this isn’t a bad film, just pretty good.  i’m a sci-fi kinda dude so i dig flicks like this and will prob watch it if i’m flipping though and it’s on.  not gonna buy the dvd or anything though.

Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise.

Morgan Freeman does look cool in those glasses.

Andrea Riseborough is my current favorite red head in hollywood.  that’s my kinda lady.

Olga Kurylenko is also smokin’ hot.  she’s got a fairly limitted role but she certainly doens’t get in the way.

Melissa Leo is the obnoxious southern accented talking head that is their commander in the Tet which you’ll learn all about if you see this film, or if ya don’t, who cares?

if ya like Tom Cruise or sci-fi, check it out.  it doesn’t suck and there are some pretty cool visuals.