EDGE OF TOMORROW (12A) ****
CINEWORLD, PLAZA, ODEON
In 2005, extra-terrestrials tangled with Tom Cruise in War Of The Worlds and came off second best.
The otherworldly invaders haven’t learned their lesson because they are back as a hive-like race called the Mimics in Edge Of Tomorrow and, once again, the fate of mankind rests in the sweaty palms of a certain Hollywood superstar.
Only this time, Cruise is a military PR man, who has never seen a day of combat and will resort to anything, even blackmail, to avoid conflict.
The transformation of this image-obsessed weasel into a battle-ready soldier is one of the many pleasures of Doug Liman’s entertaining, futuristic opus.
Based on the novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, Edge Of Tomorrow shrouds its smart central conceit with adrenaline-pumping action sequences including a pivotal battle on blood-soaked beaches.
The carnage transplants to a European capital for an equally explosive finale with echoes of the concluding chapter of The Matrix as human survivors stage a suicidal last stand with depleted weaponry against a whirling armada of alien killing machines.
Exposure to an alien’s luminous blue blood miraculously allows Cage to reset time and relive a day, dying again and again as he attempts to identify a weakness in the Mimics.
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