Genre:
Sci Fi, Drama,
Release Date:
30th May 2014 (UK)
Rating: 12A
Running Time:
113 minutes
Director:
Doug Liman
Cast:
Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson
Get blown to smithereens during the first five minutes of a battle and simply start the day all over again. Restart your life, your progress and do a little better each time. Live. Die. Repeat. As premises go, it sounds like watching the most cack-handed buffoon struggle at his favourite video game. Add Tom Cruise to the mix though and you’ve got yourself a $170 million blockbuster there, pal.
Major William Cage (Cruise), a smarmy jumped-up military PR guy with an ill-deserved officer’s uniform, is stripped of his rank and thrown into the firing-line after a botched attempt at blackmailing his superior officer; a frowning, humourless (therefore old-school) general played by Brendan Gleeson. Almost immediately, the witless coward in his armoured combat suit is torn to pieces by the marauding armies of ‘Mimic’ aliens who have conquered the vast majority of continental Europe. All of a sudden Cage is alive once more, waking up on the morning of his deployment to the front lines, having apparently absorbed the ability to reset time from the aliens he has encountered.
Consequently, the inept solider is forced to relive the same day over and over, dropping into battle only to be torn limb from limb, or crushed, or set aflame within minutes of getting his bearings in what must rank as the most horrendously violent take on Groundhog Day ever. With time, Cage becomes more adept at fighting, extending his lifespan by precious seconds and minutes as he gets to grips with combat.
This all runs the risk of being crushingly repetitive and dull, but it’s not. Cruise’s beleaguered helplessness morphing into grim determination is pretty great; Emily Blunt as war heroine and ‘Full Metal Bitch’, Rita Vrataski provides a harsh, all-business counterpoint to Cage’s wild-eyed get-me-the-hell-out-of-here ravings.
Most interestingly, as the audience, we approach many of the crucial scenes as first-timers, with situations and conversations all new to us. After a few minutes we realise that Cage is often one step ahead of us; he’s lived this minute umpteen times before and there’s a dawning realisation that we’re never sure how many times the poor guy has reawakened and lived through each moment. In one instance Cage laments the apparent futility of his and Rita’s mission when he remarks that he is, and always has been, utterly helpless to save her life at this one particular moment in time.
The ferocity with which director, Doug Liman presents the combat scenes, I have to say, took me aback a little to begin with. The opening, predictably brutal, salvos of the Normandy-esque beach landings don’t nearly match the awful violence of Saving Private Ryan, but they are wilder than anything mainstream science fiction has given us for a long while.
The finale, when it comes, feels a little bit stock, a touch bog-standard in the wake of the temporal madness that’s come before. It’s not perfect, but it's difficult not to be intrigued by the time-warping action.
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