Taglines: Live. Die. Repeat.
Edge of Tomorrow (also marketed with the tagline Live. Die. Repeat.)[nb 1] is a 2014 American science fiction film directed by Doug Liman. It stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. The screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth is based on the 2004 Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.
The film takes place in a future where Earth is invaded by an alien race. Major William Cage (Cruise), a public relations officer inexperienced in combat, is forced by his superiors to join a landing operation against the aliens. Though Cage is killed in combat, he finds himself in a time loop that sends him back to the day preceding the battle every time he dies. Cage teams up with Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt) to improve his fighting skills through the repeated days, seeking a way to defeat the extraterrestrial invaders.
About the Story
A race of extraterrestrials called Mimics has taken over continental Europe. In England, General Brigham, head of humanity’s United Defense Force, orders Major William Cage, a public affairs officer with no combat experience, to cover the next day’s amphibious assault in France. Cage objects to the dangerous assignment and threatens to blackmail Brigham to avoid it. Brigham has Cage arrested; Cage is knocked out trying to escape. He wakes in handcuffs at a forward operating base at Heathrow Airport and discovers he has been demoted to private, charged with desertion, and assigned to a combat squad for the invasion under the command of Master Sergeant Farell.
The invasion is a disaster for the humans. Cage, despite his inexperience and incompetence, kills a large Mimic but dies covered with its acid-like blood. He wakes up at Heathrow the previous morning; no one believes his story that he knows the invasion will fail. Cage repeats the loop of dying on the beach and waking at Heathrow until he encounters Sergeant Rita Vrataski during the invasion. The famous and brusque soldier recognizes his ability to anticipate events, and tells him to locate her the next time he “wakes up”.
Vrataski introduces Cage to Dr. Carter, a former government scientist and expert in Mimic biology. Cage learns that the kind of Mimic he killed in his first loop, an “Alpha”, resets time when it is killed to give the Mimics an advantage in battle. Cage inherited this ability when he died doused in the Alpha’s blood. Vrataski had gained this ability in a recent battle and became an effective killer of Mimics, but lost it after receiving a blood transfusion. She tells Cage that they must hunt the Mimics’ hive mastermind, the “Omega”, and destroy it.
Over innumerable successive time loops, Vrataski trains Cage to make him a more formidable soldier. Frustrated by his continued failures Cage retreats to London during one loop, but learns that the Mimics will attack the city after defeating the humans in France. He and Vrataski spend many more loops learning how to survive the battle on the beach and get inland, based on his vision of the Omega hiding within a German dam.
After loops inevitably end in Vrataski’s death Cage decides to hunt the Omega alone, abandoning her and the rest of the invasion to doom on the beach. When he arrives at the dam, he discovers that the Omega is not there. Cage kills himself before an Alpha can bleed him out and prevent him from resetting the day. Back at Heathrow, he tells Vrataski and Carter that his vision was a trick.
Edge of Tomorrow
Directed by: Doug Liman
Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Kick Gurry, Tony Way, Dragomir Mrsic, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong
Screenplay by: Dante Harper, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci
Production Design by: Oliver Scholl
Cinematography by: Dion Beebe
Film Editing by: James Herbert
Costume Design by: Kate Hawley
Set Decoration by: Elli Griff
Music by: Christophe Beck
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and brief suggestive material.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: June 6, 2014
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