Oh, yeah, the last five seconds or so was pretty dumb. But generally speaking it held up to the end.
Which is also the problem. He wouldn’t stay dead. 
In the original thread we had here when the movie came out, the reviews were generally surprised approvals. I liked it a lot, except for (as others have said) the last five minutes. And I’m not a Cruise fan at all.
My girlfriend will not watch any Tom Cruise movies. I am general apprehensive about them.
But over the weekend I watched Edge of Tomorrow and Jack Reacher.
I loved them. Especially Jack Reacher. Even knowing that Cruise was too tiny to play the part. It was great fun.
You are right about the plot point. I kept thinking ‘there’s no way the General would order a PR guy into combat with no combat training, even if he wanted to punish him’. It entertaining enough for me to forget about it.
That was my nit with the movie, too. The commanders wouldn’t want this unproven newbie in battle. He can’t operate the mechanical suit. He’s more likely to shoot the other soldiers than the bugs.
In addition, it’s highly likely that he would be recognized since he was on TV. It was unbelievable that no one in the unit recognized him. They should have had him doing something other than PR since it didn’t seem to matter to the plot.
This didn’t strike me odd. I presumed he was doing the spokesman thing on the “heavier” Sunday morning politics-and-major-events shows, the kind sponsored by non-consumer companies like ADM and Boeing (in contrast to the lighter talk shows focusing on entertainment and lifestyle issues) and lots of people don’t watch those. The unit he was assigned to seemed to consist of people who stereotypically would not be watching the Sunday wonk-fests. 
I really liked it too. I didn’t know what to expect, and I definitely didn’t expect to LOL. At this point, if it’s sci fi and Tom Cruise is in it, I’ll watch it.
I liked Oblivion too. His movies need catchier names.
Which is why they didn’t show him how to take off the safety.
The guy who was helping him into the suit even said it.
How would you compare it to Source Code. I was pleasantly surprised by that one, even though it was easy to figure out the real reason he was the subject and the ending was somewhat silly. Still, the action was good, the plot was entertaining, and the acting was also good.
He wasn’t supposed to be in “battle”. His original mission was basically to be an embedded reporter following the troops into what was supposed to be a relative cakewalk. The only reason he found himself as a “new recruit” in an infantry unit was because he bitched out and tried to blackmail the supreme general of Earth army.
But you’re right that it was kind of unbelievable that the Fox News PR face of the army and the “Angel of Verdun” plastered on every bus and billboard would be able to sneak in anywhere.
But otherwise it was a fun movie. Particularly where he kept getting killed over and over again (sometimes in idiotic ways). I did like that it wasn’t as bleak as Oblivion (which I also enjoyed a lot).
I think Tom Cruise is an unfortunate cult dupe, but I do like him as an actor, and I liked Oblivion, Jack Reacher and Edge of Tomorrow. Especially Edge. I wanted to see it anyway because I like the director Doug Limon (Go) and Emily Blunt. It was pretty low priority though, until I kept hearing not only how good it was, but how funny it was. They were right, it was good, and it was funny. It’s not a comedy but I had so many laugh out loud moments. I saw it alone first, then I took my husband. It absolutely held up the 2nd time and I noticed more details. I’d definitely see it again.
Yeah, even though he was a scared-ass little bitch, he wasn’t supposed to have to fight. The battle was supposed to be done and mopped up quickly, and then he could do his From The Battlefield propaganda report. Things didn’t work out as planned.
Right. He’d have gone in surrounded by a film crew in a relatively safe section of the “front.” Instead, he got himself branded a traitor and sent to the front with no training, essentially to be killed.
The “Angel of Verdun” was recognized and he had to account for that in subsequent resets. His squad didn’t recognize him but they didn’t seem like the types to watch news much. It’s plausible being an American PR guy, the average European soldier might not recognize him. He was responsible for selling the war and convincing “a million people to join the military” but he could have done that by plastering the Angel of Verdun’s picture all over the place. His face might not have been as well-known.
It must be weird for the Angel of Verdun at the end of the film to find out that she helped win the war by doing things that she’ll never actually do. She’ll believe the Major because she went through it at Verdun. but at the same time it must feel like there was an awesome party and she missed it.
The movie WAS pretty good.
Its main misfortune was to have a star that younger audiences no longer find all that exciting. Tom Cruise was fine, but very few people go to see a movie any more just because he’s in it. His biggest fans are now at the “let’s wait til it’s on Netflix” age.
Like many others, I was pleasantly surprised by Evil Nazi Groundhog Day.
Kind of short-sighted on the Major’s part. I might have spent a few more resets figuring out how to get in her (power armored) pants before ending the war and losing those powers for good.
I read somewhere that reviewer described Edge of Tomorrow as having almost like a “video game” format. You know, where you spawn in over and over again trying to get past that difficult level. In many ways, that actually made it a lot better than pretty much every other movie based off of an actual video game.
I’ve really come around on Tom Cruise, and in particular Tom Cruise + sci-fi. Oddly enough, Tropic Thunder was the start of my coming around…his willingness to do that Les Grossman bit, and to pull it off with 100% success, really surprised me.
As a Reacher fan there was no way I was going to watch this, but we were desperate for an action flic some weekend or another and we rented it…and liked it! One thing it suggested to me that as physically big as Jack Reacher is, it’s his attitude that’s entertaining. Cruise did well with that.
Are there many actors that are movie draws, vs the movie itself? I ask because you probably can’t find an actor who’s been successful across a higher percentage of films over the last 10-15 years than Tom Cruise (there’s a thread somewhere here on the topic). So if he’s not drawing people it means he’s good at film selection, which is fine…but my guess is that some people like me will now go check out any action film with him.
Zoinks! It’s even worse than you describe it:
Inspired by this Thread, I decided to check out this movie.
I went to the RedBox movie rental kiosk to rent the Blu-ray. I did not immediately see it with the list of new releases, so I chose the Alphabetical listing and went to “E”. The movie was not listed. I was going to give up assuming they didn’t have it (movies aren’t always immediately offered by RedBox right when they’re released on DVD). I paused a moment and went back to the new releases and scrolled through the list a bit. There it was! Listed under the title:
Live, Die, Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow
That’s the official title listing! I went back to the Alphabetical listing and checked under “L” and there it was!
They almost missed out on a rental because they changed the title of the damned movie!
Perhaps you read it on Grantland?
Haven’t seen it, but I’ll add it to my list.