Although I don’t think they should have changed the title from the much cooler All You Need is Kill, the one used on both the original novel and graphic novel, Edge of Tomorrow was a great surprise. Starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, the film manages to transcend its rather derivative premise of being a sci-fi Groundhog Day, and both actors deliver wonderful, out of character performances.

Indeed, Cruise and Blunt find their roles reversed in this; Blunt is the bad ass veteran fighter who’s a hero in the war against alien invaders, and Cruise is they guy she has to help use is new-found repeat powers to eliminate the extra-terrestrial threat. The idea of Blunt being an action star isn’t all that surprising, she was the original choice for Black Widow in The Avengers movies, but Cruise though really stretches here. We’re introduced to his character as a coward and someone completely ill-equipped for the heroics we typically associate with a Tom Cruise character in a Tom Cruise movie.

Although I didn’t get to it in the review, I also wanted to highlight the work of Bill Paxton in the film as Cruise’s hardened drill sargent. He’s certainly come a long way from his days as Pvt. Hudson in Aliens.

Check out my review of Edge of Tomorrow on Nerd Bastards.