Thinking of Tomorrow.

I watched Edge of Tomorrow with very few expectations and not really understanding what the film was all about. Honestly, I am very uncertain what I think of the film. I didn't like the first part, but liked the second half of the film. I really found the concept of the film fascinating, but would argue that their delivery of it wasn't quite too successful. Tom Cruise starts out as a spineless officer pressed into combat, of which he has no experience against an alien invasion . Their plan is a major offensive (think D-day like WWII, and it is essentially the same place they're attacking; the beeches of France) after which the military is hoping to seize the day for victory. So, the attack in France ends up being a slaughter for humanity and Tom Cruise's character ends up dying but not before he kills one of the aliens which imparts to him the ability to restart the day to a certain point. This he continues to do as he dies learning more and more. Through the course of this, he finds a woman, played by Emily Blunt, who is one of the toughest soldiers and has shared a similar experience with him. Together they fight, train, and die, and die, and die, and die, and die, and die, and die until they reach the end goal. Tom Cruise's character dies a lot, and they did a great job making the audience feel the visceral stress of what he was going through time and time again as he was the only one who never forgot anything of what he experienced. The film pretty much revolves around those two characters, and both of them do a great job. The secondary characters are good; Brendan Gleeson makes a nice appearance as does Bill Paxton. The visual effects were pretty good, and the action wasn't half bad I suppose, although rather dull after you've seen it the tenth time, or some variation of it. The aliens were interesting with a fascinating concept, although it was never revealed what their intentions are for invading Earth, and if more of them would be coming in the future. Doug Liman who directed the film is no stranger to action films (The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Jumper. He did a relatively good job at directing the film and what not, but I have to say what I think was the overall problem of the film was the story and the direction of the plot. The majority of the time of the film was spent on the plot mechanic, not exploring the characters or motivations of the villains. If the film was going to center on mainly just two characters it should have been written entirely differently and I think that's what ultimately led to it's rather tepid box office performance and critical reception. I also have to say that the ending was rather weak as well, but had the potential to be really good if they had played it differently. It definitely became an entertaining film once I got about 35-40 minutes into it, up until that point though I was very annoyed. In essence it was an okay film, and I love Emily Blunt, so I would watch it again just to see her performance; everything else I could live without. So bad news this weekend that was overshadowed; the radical terrorist group ISIS performed 3 terrorist attacks on three different continents and killed many people. Their ability to coordinate such a series of attacks is very disturbing, and I think what is more disturbing is that people don't seem to really care. The more time goes on, ISIS reminds me more and more of the Brotherhood of Nod (Google it), and even though it is fictional, to me the radical ideas won't go away, nor will the organization; it will only continue to grow and become stronger. I did experience some personal good news though; I turned in the last assignment for graduate school today. I am officially done with work on my Master's degree; a near lifetime goal has been realized finally.....next step years from now though is a Ph.D. but not for a long time; I am so over school.
Edge of Tomorrow trailer
Legend trailer (looks good for a British mafia film)
Phoenix trailer (looks amazing, but quite intense)