EDGE OF TOMORROW - REVIEWED

William Cage (Tom Cruise) has the gift of the gab and as a global PR-man he's been very useful to the military Powers-That-Be the war-effort against an invading alien force. Mankind has had some battlefield successes but they are getting fewer and far between and a decisive push into Europe is in order to drive back the burrowing, scissoring monsters that have been named 'Mimics' is imminent.  But when Cage is told he's going to the frontline for a morale broadcast, he ill-advisedly tries to blackmail Brendan Gleeson's general into nixxing the mission. The next thing Cage knows, he is wake-up in an army-base where he's been branded a deserter and thrust into a ragtag unit of soldiers about to drop into battle. His quick-patter can't save him now. The troops are about to go 'over the top' and things are bout to go downhill. 

Can Cage survive? No.  Within minutes of being dropped into battle, he's covered in alien blood and blown into microscopic pieces. However he wakes up back at the recruitment camp, hours before the massacre. At first he thinks he's going insane and certainly the claims he's making to the likes of Bill Paxton's commanding officer  seems crazy. But when he eventually encounters Rita (Emily Blunt) the heavily-armed poster-girl for the initiative, he's surprised to realise she DOES believe his story of the day rewinding.  She has her own secrets, but together can they work out a way to use the initially unpredictable rewinding effect survive the upcoming massacre and even find a way to end the alien threat forever?

Edge of Tomorrow  is very much a case of  Groundhog D-Day - taking the now famous format of a singular day's repetition to explore how informed choices and foreknowledge change our actions for the better or worse. Most famously applied in the Harold Ramis/Bill Murray feature (an entry on many people's 'favourite' lists) but also a staple of films such as Source Code and another Cruise outing Minority Report, it's a fascinating remit which usually works(or not) to the degree of pacing and performance choices. The idea that an ally/enemy that can rewind events slightly to avoid or undo its mistakes (making it almost invincible in the process) is a concept at the heart of this month's other major release X-Men: Days of Future Past - though here in Edge of Tomorrow it is expanded and centralised as an unintended, erratic side-effect to be exploited rather than a honed solution. At least to begin with.

Long-time cinema-goers will find numerous familiar plot elements within the well-paced two-hour running time. Away from Groundhog Day, the battlefield scenes are very remeniscent of Starship Troopers, Cage's squad of reprobates feels very much like the grunts from Aliens (with Bill Paxton himself in an extended cameo as an intimidating senior officer) and the swirling, many armoured- tentacled 'Mimic' aliens bear more than a passing resemblance to the scary probes from The Matrix trilogy.

The FX are solid, both shiny and tarnished in moderation and the alien Mimics prove to be genuinely scary. The man behind the likes of Mr & Mrs Smith, The Bourne Identity and Jumper, Doug Liman, keeps his direction zipping along, to the extent that you may notice all the familiar sci-fi territory being covered but not so much that it detracts from enjoying the adventure at hand. This is smarter stuff than many recent lip-service blockbusters and the resulting cinematography is smart and speedy without being shallow. It manages to slow things down from time to time to allow the main characters and audience to catch their breath Importantly, it's such moments away from the sometimes-too-kinectic battlefield, that helps us stay invested in Cage and Rita as both heroes (albeit reluctant in Cage's case) and victims of their predicament.

There are quibbles. The rules introduced for the framing of the central conceit don't seem entirely consistent throughout. At one point (shown in the trailer) Blunt's Rita tells Cruise's Cage that he MUST die every day to keep the process repeating, but  events suggest that if that's specifically true then some of his 'leaps' require an unfeasible amount of geographical jumps and action to fit within twenty-four hours. If not  specifically timed, then it opens up a bigger can of worms that affect the rest of the plot. This isn't necesarily a deal-breaker for your enjoyment at the time, but it's the kind of inconsistency or lack of clarity that might well keep you awake at night thereafter with 'But what if...'

 Edge of Tomorrow - with a rather bland title that replaced the All You Need is Kill moniker of the original Eastern source material - is a typically formatted, but well-honed summer tentpole release, one that ticks off all the ingredients and comes up with a tasty, albeit familiar, result that never outstays its welcome. Cruise may be in familiar territory but he remains an engaging mainstream leading man able to handle everything thrown at him and Emily Blunt proves more than capable of matching him blow-for-blow in all respects. 

Definitely a well-packaged outing and one of the big movies of the year worth seeing, but also one to send you back to the DVD collection to check out its influences...

Edge of Tomorrow, released by Warner Bros. , is out now.