Tom Cruise Might Have the Best Movie of The Summer

Tom Cruise has been on quite the Sci-Fi binge lately, with his recent stint in Oblivion still fresh (or stale) in everyone’s mind, and his latest offering Edge of Tomorrow soon to release. Though, it hasn’t been a particularly successful dalliance with the techy genre. While I thought Oblivion was a welcome original tale in a superhero sequel filled world, it remains at the highest peaks of generic film achievement. Even for a Cruise movie, it was just too formulaic. Too recycled.

Edge of Tomorrow (releasing on June 6) looked to be in the same mold. Based on nothing but the trailers, I assumed Tomorrow was another somewhat ambitious sci-fi movie with high aspirations. A few interesting plot threads here, a couple of unachieved moments of lucidity there…

Boy, was I wrong. According to all of the newest reviews, Edge of Tomorrow is an action movie masterpiece. Flipping genre tropes in its head, turning Cruise into a damsel in distress and Emily Blunt’s character into his shining knight.

Here’s the best part of The Wraps review:

Like the wartime movies of the 1940s (not to mention Paul Verhoeven’s parody of same in “Starship Troopers”), “Edge of Tomorrow” is a movie where a callow, selfish d-bag learns to be a better person by going to war. We’ve seen Cruise on this jerk-to-gem path before, although this film seems almost cannily designed to draw in ticket buyers who are fed up with the actor. “Don’t like Tom Cruise?” the film seems to be offering, “Come watch him get killed over and over again!”

He’s actually delivering a nicely underplayed performance, as though he were aware that it’s the high-concept plot that’s the real star here. Blunt commits to the material as well; she might seem wildly miscast as a war hero, but given the strange circumstances by which Rita achieves her notoriety (as does Cage), it makes sense that they didn’t cast a Sigourney Weaver type.

Liman gives editor James Herbert (“Sherlock Holmes”) a lot to work with, giving us different angles on repeated scenes (except when making them identical is part of the joke); for a film about repetition, “Edge of Tomorrow” never feels tired or familiar.

Gah! I should’ve known this movie would kicketh asses. Liman is such an insanely gifted director, Cruise is a Panzer Tank whenever action scenes are involved, and Emily Blunt… well, she just might be the best leading lady an action movie can hope for.

I was really hoping for X-Men: Days of Future Past to break past the $1 Billion threshold, but I suppose there’s no stopping Tom Cruise when he decides to reclaim his throne as King of the Box Office.