Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow

Tom Cruise finally makes a rad movie again...and no one seems to care. Bummer.

Yes, I've chastised some of Tom's most recent films, like the uber repetitive Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and the sci-fi clusterfuck that was Oblivion, but that doesn't mean I'm rooting for the man to fail. In fact, there was a time when I was a huge Tom Cruise fan. His output between 1988 and 1999 is pretty much unfuckwithable. Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Interview with the Vampire, Jerry Maguire, Magnolia to name a few. That's the Tom Cruise I grew up watching. The cunning, fast talking everyman who charmed the shit out of audiences. I'd say he hit his stride in 2004's Collateral, playing the cold as ice hitman Vincent. This role combined all the best elements of Tom Cruise's cinematic repertoire, the Type A personality rambler and his impressive physical work from years as a Hollywood "action star." He should have gone out on top in 2004 and hung up his holster after that film. Instead, Cruise seemed determined to cement himself as a legit action icon with botched/bloated sci-fi attempts and action/thriller type flicks  (War of the Worlds, Knight and Day, two more Mission Impossible sequels, etc etc). You had a good run Tom, but you're 5'7 and 51 years old now buddy, nobody buys the rugged action hero schtick anymore.

That being said, Edge of Tomorrow is a rollicking, special effects driven extravaganza and one of the most entertaining "action" films I've seen in forever, easily Tom Cruise's best film in years. You know why he's so good here? Because he's not the aging try hard hero character we've seen him recycling through for the past decade. Instead, Cruise is back to his quirky, quasi-sleazy 90's self again. He plays a military public relations/media officer who gets thrown into the middle of a raging war zone and does what any normal person would do: he panics, he tries to talk his way out of it, and he dies. He dies a lot actually. Edge of Tomorrow turns the usual Tom Cruise sci-fi action premise on it's head, his amazingly gorgeous co-star Emily Blunt is battle hardened soldier while ol' Tom is the bumbling Wile E. Coyote figure who dies more than a dozen or so gruesomely hilarious deaths.

The film's plot is kind of irrelevant, this movie is all about watching Cruise yuck it up on screen again. He's clever and does his best onscreen ranting since "show me the money." There's some big war between humans and vague alien invaders (who look like Transformers rip offs)  that can somehow manipulate time. Cruise's character dies in combat at the start of the film but somehow gains access to the aliens cosmic reset button that allows him to be reincarnated everyday and learn from his previous battlefield mistakes. It's best not to think about it really, just turn off your brain and watch old school Tom Cruise light up the screen like it's 1996 all over again.

Movie Review: Oblivion

Do you like science fiction films? 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Total Recall, Demolition Man, Independence Day, The Matrix, Moon, Wall-E? Any of those? Good. If so, you'll probably dig Tom Cruises' new film Oblivion. It's basically the bastard child of every major sci-fi film from oh, about the last 50 years. The familiarity factor makes sitting through Oblivion kind of fun...until that sensation morphs into a frustrating case of deja-vu.

It should be said that Oblivion has some good things going for it. First, the film is blessed with some amazing cinematography. I can't stress enough how gorgeous this film looks. Next, whoever designed the robotic drones deserves a high five in my book. Sure, they look like R2-D2 and HAL from 2001 on steroids, but they're just creepy as fuck and really stand out as one of the coolest elements of the film. Finally, Tom Cruise has two uber hot female costars who looked beyond gorgeous filmed in 4K. Cruise does his typical action hero stuff quite well here, again...like always. This leads us to some of the film's many problems.

Tom Cruise is too old for this shit. Like I joked in my Mission Impossible 13 review, Tom Cruise is just too old to believably sell this stuff anymore. Yes he's still in great shape, he's handsome, he does his own stunts and saves orphans from burning buildings between takes, but that's the problem! He's Tom Cruise man! Over the course of his *gasp* four decade long career, he's done it all. I've lost count of how many times I've seen him shooting guns, getting blown up, driving fast cars/motorcycles/jets and now space ships. Christ, this is his second movie in a row where he's plays a guy named Jack. When the plot of your movie "borrows," so heavily from other films, the last thing you want is for the film's star to start plagiarizing himself as well.

"Now THIS is pod racing!"

Oblivion basically goes like this:

Oh look, Ethan Hunt from Top Gun is totally winning this pod racing scene. HAL/ Dr. Zaius turned David from Vanilla Sky, into Arnie from Total Recall. So Morpheus is Dr. Ian Malcom and Minority Report guy is Will Smith? But I thought he was Neo?

Well that was fun...and kind of nauseating. So Oblivion is a way cool action/pop corn flick with amazing visuals that pays serious, like major league, homage to great sci-fi films of yore. Tom Cruise is competent as Tom Cruise but I really wish he'd age gracefully and start taking some meaty dramatic roles again. His films have already grossed something like 7 billion dollars...what else does he have to prove? Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire, Magnolia, Collateral...remember those Tom? Come back to us. Please.