5/10
Edge Of Tomorrow Senselessly Violent Science Fiction Film
7 June 2014
Watching "Edge Of Tomorrow," you realize the contempt Hollywood media conglomerates have for their audience. The central character of this movie, Major Cage, spends most of his time getting killed. According to the idiotic premise of this movie, because he was dowsed with an alien creature's blood the first time he died in battle, Cage will now time loop back to an earlier time whenever he is killed. So, like a gamer playing a video shooter game, Cage goes back to the start of the game if the enemy finishes him off. On and on, Cage gets killed, getting more proficient at avoiding wipe out as the movie progresses.

The reason Cage is in battle is bizarre. He is an American major handling PR who tells a UDF general that he is an American officer and he will he not follow UDF orders to land with soldiers attacking the Micmics, the alien enemies. When Cage says he will make life hard on the general if he tries to send Cage into battle, naturally, the UDF general reduces Cage's rank to private, falsifies records to show Cage is an attempted deserter, kidnaps Cage and sends Cage into battle as cannon fodder.

Co-star Emily Blount plays a character called the "Angel of Verdun." That's it for her character development. J squad, the unit Cage joins just before the attack, is made up of the necessary social representatives: a woman, a black guy, a fat guy, some whites including one who looks Hispanic. The less said about Bill Paxton's Master Sergeant Farell, the better. All put on spiffy mechanical exo-skeletons before being sent to battle.

Comparing this movie to 1997's "Starship Troopers" shows how far Hollywood has sunk in its creative abilities. True, Edge's director Doug Liman doesn't hold a candle to Starship's director, Paul Verhoeven. More than that, though, is how "Starship Troopers" showed a team effort, no single character being Superman, and how Verhoeven and his writers threw in an anti-military subtext.

"Edge Of Tomorrow" is an ugly and unreal movie that glorifies fictional soldiers getting obliterated in battle, repeatedly. This movie has no heart and it makes no sense. I've read that Brad Pitt turned down an offer to star in Edge. After starring in "World War Z," a really ugly and stupid movie, I can understand why Pitt did not want to double down with another junk science fiction movie. Tom Cruise's previous movie "Oblivion" is Shakespeare compared to "Edge of Tomorrow." As you may have guessed, I am no fan of "Edge of Tomorrow."
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