The summer’s biggest surprise so far, Edge of Tomorrow is many anomalous things at once. It’s an original concept, albeit one that’s an book-to-film adaptation, but one that's not married to any preexisting franchise or brand; it’s an aspiring summer blockbuster full of pricey visual effects and big-name actors that’s been universally embraced by movie critics, currently registering a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes; and, most importantly here, it’s a huge movie driven by an actual, honest-to-goodness movie star, Tom Cruise. Perhaps only matched by Will Smith, Cruise is the last of a dying breed, an international screen icon who can successfully open movies at the box office simply on his name alone. Despite their worldwide ubiquity, headliners like George Clooney and Johnny Depp can’t do that—see The Monuments Men and The Lone Ranger.
For nearly all of its 113 minutes, Edge of Tomorrow is as good as these kinds of CGI-fest movies get. Directed by Doug Liman (thank him for The Bourne Identity, give him a pass for Jumper), its action sequences are vibrant exhibitions of Saving Private Ryan-like war games reimagined as Starship Troopers by way of metallic extraterrestrials. When the battles die down, it’s a clever Groundhog Day/Source Code riff, playfully killing off Cruise’s character, Major William Cage, bringing him back to life to relive the battle, and giving him a charismatic tough-woman foil in scene-stealer Emily Blunt’s Rita Vrataski.
You’ve got Tom Cruise, one of the biggest movie stars of all time, dying in numerous brutal, tongue-in-cheek ways—his face melts down to the skull, he gets run over by a truck, shot to death multiple times by Emily Blunt, blown up, eradicated by aliens. At first, it’s jarring. But by the fifth or sixth time, it’s crowd-pleasing, like a Wile E. Coyote toon come alive.
Ultimately, yes, Edge of Tomorrow is great fun, but now about those closing minutes of disappointment. There’s no getting around it: the film’s ending sucks.
It’s been out for a few days already, but, nevertheless, a warning: Here be spoilers. Unsurprisingly saving the world, Cruise’s character goes underwater to drop a grenade into the mouth of the alien baddies’ boss, the Omega, triumphantly making the leader explode, but one of the Mimics is able to fatally wound Cage in the process. His body floats down onto some large algae-like organism, which then latches onto Cage’s body and makes him wake up back in the past. But this time, unlike every other previous life reboot, he’s back at the story’s beginning. Specifically, he’s in a helicopter on his way to meeting with General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson). Once he arrives, Cage learns that, somehow, the Mimics’ resolve has weakened, and the war is finally over. There’s even one last cutesy moment between Cruise and Blunt, followed by that insufferable John Newman song “Love Me Again” playing over the end credits.
It’s a lame cop-out for what’s otherwise a bold and satisfying film. Rather than serve the story properly and let William Cage die as a hero, the powers that be ultimately let the character live, affording him the obvious “happy ending” befitting a movie star like Tom Cruise. Because, of course, audiences don’t want to see Tom Cruise die, even if his character has already perished a countless number of times during the preceding 110 minutes.
It’s indicative of why the recent string of superhero movies and studio action movies don’t have any real conflict or drama. In last year’s Star Trek Into Darkness, Captain Kirk, played dutifully by Chris Pine, sacrifices himself at the end of the second act. The first time you watch the sequel, it’s genuinely startling, the franchise’s anchor getting killed off in a manner that both services the overall narrative and is terrifically staged, eliciting a great deal of sympathy and emotion. For a moment, Star Trek Into Darkness displays real figurative stones, but its audacity is short-lived. Yes, Kirk returns to action briefly after dying. And with that, Star Trek Into Darkness loses whatever intrigue it had. It’s confirmed that no major characters will meet their demise, and if they do, it’ll just be a stupidly manipulative okie-doke.
Granted, Tom Cruise is 10 times the star Chris Pine is and ever will be, but that shouldn’t matter. Edge of Tomorrow’s whole premise revolves around viewers accepting that Tom Cruise will die, and then die again, and then several more times after that. And since the film, save for its ending, is so well-made, you gradually become numbed to the shock of seeing him die and settle into how a flat-lined Tom Cruise is intelligently used to the film’s advantage.
There’s no reason to keep him alive in the end. His character understands that in order to successfully complete his task, he’ll most likely need to die, so why shouldn’t the audience as well? Edge of Tomorrow’s final minutes abandon its ingenuity and intelligence in favor of the same old Hollywood bullshit. Never mind the plot holes it presents; for one, why would the Omega lose its power if Cage, in this restarted time frame, has never done any damage to it?
Worse yet, Edge of Tomorrow’s conclusion keeps greatness at bay. What could have been a new entry into the pantheon of science fiction cinema is now just a high-quality summer diversion that might pop up in some “Best of 2014” lists but will eventually slide into Netflix menu whateverness. Its potential history-book singularity has been minimized into an appreciated but fleeting uniqueness. Instead of William Cage dying, the movie’s chances of being something truly special have.
Matt Barone is a Complex senior staff writer who's still bitter about Tom Cruise's otherwise great War of the Worlds' terrible "happy" ending. He tweets here.
RELATED:A Totally Speculative Conversation About Who's Cooler: DiCaprio or Clooney?
RELATED:The Complex Staff Lists Their Most Anticipated Summer Movies
