"Edge of Tomorrow" Stuck in Yesterday

www.edgeoftomorrowmovie.com

In Edge of Tomorrow, a video game character's ability to reset or "respawn" is a very apparent metaphor (and intentional, according to this Hollywood Reporter interview with director Doug Liman). It occurred to me that the movie's central question could be "What if you had to keep playing a video game until you won?", which at first sounds intriguing. But on second thought, wouldn't it be more poignant and memorable a movie if it made me think about things like reincarnation, resurrection, or succeeding in life? The metaphor inside a metaphor is a bit convoluted. More interesting to me is the premise of a villain that can respawn and learn from its mistakes, sort of like the robots in The Incredibles or maybe the artificial intelligence of the xenomorph in the upcoming game Alien: Isolation.

It was Incredibles director Brad Bird who first piqued my interest in this movie when he tweeted the following:

Sure, he may be biased, being a sci-fi aficionado and having directed EoT star Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol. Then again, he is also the writer/director of some of my favorite movies, including those mentioned, The Iron Giant, and Ratatouille. That, and I was intrigued by his calling EoT "original." He made a similar pitch for Gravity, another movie that won me over and that inspired the amateur film study on this blog.

While EoT is not a sequel or a reboot, it is an adaptation of a Japanese book called All You Need Is Kill, and therefore not original in the sense of a "new idea." Bird suffered a lot of Twitter backlash on this point and so clarified two days later that he knew it was a book adaptation and simply meant "original" as "first film."

Now having seen it, I have to call "foul" on interpreting originality so loosely. As a fan of retellings, I have no complaints about recycling old ideas; however, I personally felt a little betrayed by his and critics' praise for the film as something unexpected and fresh. I did enjoy it, but I kept waiting for the originality I'd paid for, wishing I could reset my expectations. Like Tom Cruise's character in the movie, it's only on the edge of tomorrow because it's still stuck in yesterday.

To demonstrate, the following are plot points or other elements from the movie that draw from existing films (spoilers follow):

What I Learned From "Gravity"

Warner Bros. Pictures

This director hasn't disappointed me yet, and I doubt if he can. I guess that means I was sure to enjoy this (biased). Ex: I was giddy over the signature long takes and use of mirror reflection just for being there, sort of like finding the toy in the cereal box. The zero gravity stuff terrified me like I thought it would (thank goodness I didn't see it in 3D in the theater).

But what's really crazy is that it convinced me -- someone who gets anxiety on the freeway or in a plain old crowded hallway -- to untether, relax, and let come what may. The death and rebirth imagery was so so cool (like the fetus shot above). Really. How does a special effects action film make you want to fight to live but also accept your inevitable death? I don't know, but this one does.

So, what I learned from Gravity:

1. To await Alfonso Cuarón's next film with eagerness.
2. That I have much more control over the internal than the external, and conceding this is the key to living long and dying happy.
3. Faith in the hereafter and reunion with lost loved ones helps.
4. That it's never too late to start over -- like Sandra Bullock's character, to be reborn and learn to walk all over again.
5. That an original story with a female lead can be successful both financially and critically. I see a Venn diagram forming....

Updated 3/31/14