Edge of Tomorrow exploits its premise for dramatic and comic effect, but its repetitious scenes of death/rebirth ruin the sense of danger and tension; at times it’s like watching someone else play a video game.

Despite reinvigorating the action film in The Bourne Identity, here Liman plays it safe with choppy editing and kinetic camerawork, making the action and violence almost unintelligible at times; especially against aliens left over from The Matrix.

However, the exposition-heavy dialogue occasionally sparks with wit and invention, Blunt makes an impressive action heroine, and Cruise reminds us just how charismatic a screen presence he can be.

Edge of Tomorrow won’t leave you on the edge of your seat but is still an enjoyable sci-fi romp that shows signs of ambition, even if it’s hamstrung by its own logic. Cruise is terrific, but for a film about falling into the jaws of death it’s disappointingly toothless.

RATING: 3/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Noah Taylor, Jonas Armstrong

DIRECTOR: Doug Liman

WRITER: Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth (based on the novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka)

SYNOPSIS: A military PR man during a war against alien invaders is unwillingly sent into the front line of combat. However, he discovers that whenever he dies he reawakens at the start of that day again, with all the new knowledge he has gained – including the potential to end the war.