Major William Cage is a military public relations officer with zero combat experience who suddenly finds himself shoved onto the front lines of humanity's war against the Mimics, alien beings who've been slaughtering humans pretty much since they first appeared. He lasts only a few minutes into the battle before dying. Then, for some reason, he wakes up at the beginning of what turns out to be a repeating time loop. His only clue as to what's going on is Sergeant Rita Vrataski, known as "the Angel of Verdun" due to her unheard-of Mimic kill count at the Battle of Verdun.

It seems that one of the reasons why Vrataski was so successful in Verdun was because she'd also experienced time loops. With Vrataski's help, Cage learns what causes the time loops and how to use them to more effectively fight the Mimics. However, there's one thing that Cage has to do in order to save humanity that even Vrataski couldn't manage: find and kill the Omega Mimic.

I read the book a while back but never got around to reviewing it. Based on what I remembered of it, I wasn't sure how well Tom Cruise would do in the lead role. In the book, the main character was a young recruit much like the ones Major William Cage's "rah rah" war propaganda probably inspired to join the military.

Turning the main character into a guy who'd never expected to have to actually fight Mimics worked pretty well. Like the book's main character, Cage had no idea what he was doing and knew he was being thrown into battle as little more than cannon fodder.

For the most part, this movie was a surprisingly good adaptation of the book, although I spotted a few changes relatively early on that I suspected would lead to a completely different ending. I recalled the book ending either tragically or bittersweetly, and I figured Hollywood wouldn't be able to resist the urge to morph it into a happy ending. I was right.

The action scenes were excellent, and the movie did a good job of showing how Cage was gradually ground down by his repeated failures and having to watch Vrataski die over and over again. However, I wish the script hadn't been changed so that Vrataski was only a former, rather than current, looper. It would have spared viewer scenes in which a frustrated Cage tried to explain to Vrataski what she should do at each step of the newest loop, because Vrataski would have been able to manage on her own. I also think the original ending would have been more powerful (although, granted, more depressing) than the ending the movie went with.

All in all, a pretty decent movie up until the last 20 minutes or so, when it felt like every other blockbuster movie that somehow managed to pull a happy ending out of thin air.

Extras:

A couple featurettes, both of which I watched. "Weapons of the future" covered the battle suits and the training the actors had to do to wear them. I hadn't realized this, but the suits were both real and extremely heavy. "Creatures not of this world" covered the design of the Mimics.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

The action centers on a D-Day like invasion of the entire European and Asia land mass to save humanity from the Mimic aliens. The central point of view is Bill Cage, an American public relations officer with no combat experience. When British Rita Vrataski (the Full Metal Bitch) realizes what is happening to Cage, she gives him the information he needs to understand the Mimics and trains him personally. Together, they attempt to follow his visions to the Omega to defeat all the Mimics.

(Bill Cage is a merging of the reporter Ralph Murdoch and Keiji Kiriya from the novel.) ( )

This was pretty enjoyable. It avoided the trap of repeating the same time so the watcher becomes bored. Whether it made any logical sense (particularly the end) is another matter. But Tom Cruise is always watchable and the fight scenes weren't obnoxiously long. Not a bad action film. ( )

An alien invasion Groundhogs Day.

They didn't just steal the idea from Groundhogs Day, they studied it, they understood what makes it tick, and they nearly perfectly applied that template to an action movie. It goes without saying that Tom Cruise is no Bill Murray, though. And the ending is a let down. They eventually step out of the time loop (presumably with the understandable but misguided reason of providing a sense of peril), at which point the movie turns into generic, mindless action.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.9/4 ( )