ACTION; 1hr 53min
STARRING: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt
Moving on: Cruise
Destiny is preordained, and unfortunately for US Army Major William Cage (Cruise), his fate is Groundhog Day in the abyss. Although he’s in the army, media-relations coward Cage is scarcely of it. Disgraced and co-opted to a near-future front line, his first, unenviable assignment — clumsily opening fire on a snaky swarm of aliens labelled Mimics for their tactical insight — looks to be his last: along with Special Forces soldier Rita Vrataski (Blunt), his polar opposite if ever there were one, Cage is promptly killed.
But the army isn’t through with him. Exposure to Alpha Mimic blood has Cage in a holding pattern that sees him repeating the fatal sequence over and over; meanwhile, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about, Cage must hone his battle smarts to blow the bejesus out of the Mimic hive brain. An apocalyptic puzzle you can never quite solve, the time-tripping screenplay is executed by director Doug Liman (Fair Game) with hell-bent propulsion. Cruise and Blunt work their toned tails off to ground the havoc in eagle-eyed resolve, their staying power never fizzling, even in the most bruising head-ons.
