This movie is pretty action-filled; it has aliens and big bionic suits and lots and lots of dying people (with a twist of course), but this movie is also pretty funny. There are a lot of jokes about how Tom Cruise is a dumb-dumb can't do anything media dude, but then in not a very long amount of time he becomes normal ass-kicking Tom Cruise. I've been really conflicted about Emily Blunts character because she is a strong female lead who everyone is intimidated by, but as the movie goes on you can tell there is fabricated sexual tension between Tom Cruise and blah blah blah more dumb things about her character as a woman.
The plot of this movie is that Tom Cruise, a media coordinator dude, is sent into battle without any experience and some of the aliens they are fighting against have the ability to time travel so to prevent enemies from finding the head honcho alien thing if that certain kind of alien dies the day resets SO Tom Cruise accidentally kills one of these aliens and the blood gets on him and so basically whenever he dies the day resets so he can learn how to do everything correctly and then Emily Blunt is thrown into the mix and the plot is too convoluted for a brief overview.
Tom Cruises character is my favorite character that Tom Cruise has played. He starts out the movie as this cowardly guy who doesn't know anything about war, so when he's thrown into the first wave of the battle it's fun to watch him flounder, especially because you know he isn't going to die. There's a montage of Tom Cruise trying to learn stuff and dying each time and then by the middle/endish of the movie he's normal typical Tom Cruise just kicking all kinds of ass.
Emily Blunts character on the other hand is more complicated for me. She's got this crazy reputation for being this amazing army fighter and people respect her and are intimidated by her. She's pretty much a loner and has a pretty thick skin and is pretty much unfazed by anything. However, her nickname in the movie is the "full metal bitch" and the men in the army are in awe of her in sort of a taunting way cause she's all about fighting and doesn't really talk to anyone. And of course she can't just be amazing or detached for no reason; she had also gotten a time traveling aliens blood on her and had the power to reset the day when she died until she gets a blood transfusion and loses the ability. So the same deal with Tom Cruise happened to Emily Blunt where she just kept dying until she gets badass, which isn't too terrible, I just wish she was amazing because she's amazing, and on the same note her experience plays an integral role to the plot so I guess this little bit of her story isn't too problematic. However the part that really gets to me is that she's so detached and frank because her male lover was killed in the battle that she kicked ass in and she couldn't save him so she doesn't want to get attached to someone again. I just don't like the idea of this characteristic of hers coming from the loss of a lover. It's just super typical and it isn't original and it was framed as this big revelation but it was so predictable. Also, of course, Tom Cruises badass-ness charms the shit out of Emily Blunt and they kiss in the end when there is literally no time to be kissing. It is in fact the most inappropriate time to kiss each other. So while I appreciate Emily Blunt being badass and being able to hold her own and being semi-independent, her character development was half-assed and typical of a female lead. As a sidebar, there are only two women in the whole movie, and the other woman besides Emily Blunt is basically an extra until the very end of the movie; this movie also doesn't pass the Bechdel Test.
The aliens in this movie were a really cool part of the plot because they are not your typical aliens, they're made up of these cords or vine-like things and they walk on all fours but they move super fast and their faces are like these fish faces with teeth. I don't know. Google it. But they're super cool and I really like alien movies where the alien isn't this small baby-man thing with a big head and eyes and creepy long fingers. Even the aliens in The Fourth Kind seem interesting to me because they disguise themselves as white owls which is even more creepy than a little baby-man in my opinion.
I watched a video that was something like 20 minutes long that pointed out all the plot flaws with The Edge of Tomorrow's time travel. He argued that if a movie punishes you for thinking about the plot, as he claims The Edge of Tomorrow does, then that makes the movie a worse movie. And I have to agree with him that the more you think about the issues with the time-travel the more everything stops making sense. Unlike that reviewer though, I haven't thought about the time-travel as in depth as he had, and while he made a bunch of good points, it doesn't stop me from enjoying the movie. I don't expect any movie that has time travel in it to make much sense within the details, and that probably makes me a bad movie-watcher but in regards to this movie, the character inadequacies of Emily Blunts character bothers me more than the flaws in time-travel consistencies. And if you just want to watch a fun action movie with hot Emily Blunt and hot Tom Cruise blowing up a bunch of stuff then watch it and don't pay attention to the iffy time-travel or the issues with Emily Blunts character development and you will love it.
Sidebar: The ending is a really cheap cop-out and I hate it so much it is the worst.
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