THE EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014), based on the far-more-marketable book/title ALL YOU NEED IS KILL, grabbed me from the beginning but as it accelerated, I lost interest. This is not inexplicable: Like INCEPTION and too many of todays high-concept sf/fantasy films, its all a video game structure—platforms, not narrative, per se, stacked to arrive at an arbitrary target Im supposed to invest myself in. The interminable climax/reset ceases to work for me once my head lapses into oh shit this is a video game mode (my pal Joseph Citro just found it all exhausting and boring). Sadly, the further into the film I got, the less I cared, despite the high-pitched kinetics and hard, ingenious work by all. Ive no doubt this is generational, and Im just not of the target generation. I refute thee, Beezlevideogamebub! That acknowledged right up front, the core concept is terrific, but where everyone else seems happy to just say GROUNDHOG DAY meets STARSHIP TROOPERS, as if they were at the pitch meeting that sold this movie, thats pretty superficial. See, the Jake Gyllenhaal role in Duncan Jones/Ben Ripleys SOURCE CODE (2011) did the same trick but with higher dramatic stakes, emotionally, for this viewer; SOURCE CODE, Ill watch again, happily; EDGE OF TOMORROW Ill never again revisit (hell, I enjoyed the 2010 invasion movie SKYLINE more than this; better ending, too!). The alien invaders here were cool, but also familiar, mashing up the tentacled whatsits of John Wyndhams The Kraken Awakes/Up From the Deep (which also inspired those in the marvelous Irish monster movie GRABBERS, 2013) with the MATRIX thingies and the aliens whizzing around in Chris Gorak/Jon Spaihts/Leslie Bohems THE DARKEST HOUR (2011). But mimics? Alphas? Omegas? Its all very video game and, by the time the film spells out the target (Omega), very arbitrary to me—I disengaged at the very point part of me was thinking wow, this is cooking! Im hard-wired weird, I guess. Maybe I got Alpha blood spilled all over me at birth and just dont give a shit what happens to all mankind. Maybe thats it. The enhanced body-suit-armor weaponry is pretty much the Berserker from my own Aliens: Tribes novella (circa 1992, which I extrapolated from Ripleys exoskeletal power suit in Camerons ALIENS), which we all TOTALLY lifted from Robert Heinleins novel Starship Troopers (1959), but nobody will go with Heinleins Mobile Infantry jumping around like grasshoppers motif. That all said, kudos for Bill Paxtons role; too bad its sidelined so promptly. The first few times Emily Blunt did the deed (no spoiler from me) to Tom Cruise, I was highly amused: I could get to like this! Alas, even that novelty soon wore off, as cumulatively time-recurrence simply authorized Cruises usual cocky demeanor anew. Sigh. But whats with the shit title? Lets see, two of my mothers stories (i.e., TV soap operas circa the 1960s) were SEARCH FOR TOMORROW and THE EDGE OF NIGHT. Right; weld those together: EDGE OF TOMORROW. My mom might have liked the title, but shit, Hollywood. This is the best you could come up with?
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 12:57:01 +0000
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