Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow is brilliant. Not really any other way to put it, this is one of the best Science Fiction films ever produced. It's sort of an ascension of all the pretty good recent Sci-Fi films (Oblivion, Looper, and District 9 being the most apparent) to their natural conclusion. This is the best film I have seen in theaters since Inception, which is obviously a fantastic movie. More than that I think it might actually be better, though mainly because Tom Cruise is a lot more compelling than Dicaprio (who I like as well), and a 2 person dynamic simply works better than a group of people.

So, how to describe this movie... It's more or less Groundhog Day + Starship Troopers + Resistance: Fall of Man, and it has quite a few elements from all 3. The beginning has vignettes not unlike those found in Starship Troopers; though not quite as campy; and the general space marine vs bugs vibe is present throughout (though the hoo-ah is limited to the first 45 minutes or so). The aliens originate in Germany this time instead of Russia (as they did in Resistance), and Britain is the last stand of Europe more or less.  The hero gains his power in a similar fashion to Nathan Hale as well. The film is very reminiscent of what happens in video games; you start your life, die, and respawn; learning the enemies positions to improve your ability to adapt to them over time. Tom Cruise starts out as this cowardly marketing major for the Army and gradually turns into the ultimate badass after thousands of untold deaths.

The film handles the dying part quite well, making it mostly a comical experience but still having a few heavy deaths along the way and Tom Cruise as "Cage" has one of the more pronounced and indeed "earned" character arcs in recent memory. As you might expect there is a romance element to the plot being that it's a male and female duo heading the cast, but it is extremely well done and there's no meaningless scenes to that effect along the way. Hell even the one-sided nature of the relationship is done quite well, as Cage grows more and more attached to Emily Blunt's (of Looper fame) Rita over the course of the film and she simply has a mild curiosity throughout (the standard sort of curiosity humans have when they meet an attractive member of the opposite sex). I won't spoil any of the really good stuff here but suffice to say there's some fantastic scenes.

I've seen both X-Men and Captain America already this year, both of them were quite good; they don't even come remotely close to being as jaw-droppingly amazing as this film. The supporting cast in the film is excellent to back the two outstanding leads; most apparent being the magnificent Bill Paxton and the great-in-everything Brendan Gleeson. Every movie that has Brendan Gleeson in it is good, even Dark Blue; but this might be at the top of the pile above even Gangs of New York (the anti-Dicaprio factor strikes again, sorry DDL) and In Bruges.  This is a smart, funny, well shot, well acted movie. The action is compelling and not overly CGified and relatively easy to follow. It's going to be difficult for even the mighty Nolan to outdo this with Interstellar; though McConaughey seems to be on a roll. It is pretty much a masterpiece; and no not a moviebob masterpiece. I'll be watching this one for years to come, and you guys should too.