The Glade 4.0

This one kinda came and went over the summer. Stymied by two terrible titles (first All You Need is Kill, then Edge of Tomorrow), a poor trailer, and general ennui from Tom Cruise's last big-budget sci-fi movie (Oblivion), everyone (myself included) just gave it a pass. It's out on early digital release (now sort-of retitled as Live Die Repeat), and based on good word-of-mouth on genre sites, I took the plunge. I was rewarded.

It's incredibly fun, with Tom Cruise (someone who's never bad, but who I normally find to be the human equivalent of a Nilla wafer) playing a preening coward whose arrogance gets him forcibly thrust into the front lines of an unwinnable battle with aliens dubbed "Mimics" (which are a pretty damn cool design and look great in motion; think a sort of deadly, heavy-metal spaghetti). The Mimics have been waging war on Earth for five years, and only recently have the humans had their first victory, in Verdun, France, led by Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt). When Major William Cage (Cruise) takes unwilling part in a Normandy-esque invasion that fails as soon as it begins, he kills one of the aliens (and himself), but not before its blood mixes with his, and the conceit of the film comes into play: the aliens are unbeatable because they have the ability to rewind time when one of the rare, larger aliens ("Alphas") is killed, and they (it's a hive-mind) retain knowledge of the attack. By accident, Cage has wound up with the ability, the only thing that can possibly win the war. The catch? In order to trigger the reset, Cage has to die, rewinding back to the same point after every demise.

What follows is Groundhog Day by way of Saving Private Ryan. Cage finds Rita and they begin formulating a plan to put an end to the war by taking out the ultimate alien. If Cage gets caught, or injured, or just plain pisses off the badass Rita, BOOM! Headshot and we're back at the start, with Cage continuing from that point like a video game, learning where the enemies will pop up and becoming better at killing or avoiding them in the process.

The whole thing refuses to take itself too seriously, and winds up being one of those "diamond in the rough" major-budget sci-fi films that rarely get made nowadays. Highly recommended.

I really liked this movie, I actually saw it twice.

The trailer did intrigue me when I saw it. I plan on watching it.

Still haven't seen Oblivion. Still haven't had the burning urge to.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

The trailer I saw (a few times), I could never tell who or what the enemy was. Now I finally know what I'm in for.

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The Dude abides.

The aliens kind of reminded me of organic sentinels from The Matrix.

This movie was so much fun.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Oblivion was really pretty, but sterile.

I'm looking forward to seeing this movie with 3 titles, bad press but great word of mouth.

Mus, because you get to see Tom Cruise die so many times?

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Lol, nah. I like Cruise. It was just a fun movie Decent story, no *glaring* holes, good action that's watchable instead of ZOMGCLOSEUPSHAKYCAMOFDOOM!BAYSPLOSION!!! Faintly plausible scifi, etc.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I got the impression that he actually died many orders of magnitude more times than you got to see. That was the only disappointment.

Well, even Tom Cruise getting whacked could get boring after a while.