Edge of Tomorrow 4K 2014 Ultra HD 2160p

In the not-too-distant future, hordes of aliens attack Earth. The confused troops of humans fight back as best they can, but the outcome of the battle as a whole is not in their favor. No army in the world can stand up to the aliens. Major Bill Cage, who happens to be on the front lines, dies along with one of the aliens and gets caught in a kind of time loop. After his death, he wakes up time after time and starts his last day over again, gaining experience and fighting skills, only to fall again by the evening to die a brave death. And each repetitive battle brings him closer to figuring out how to defeat the enemy. He's helped by an experienced warrior, Rita Vratarski, to get the training he needs to win.

Edge of Tomorrow 4K Review
U.S. Air Force press attaché Lieutenant William Cage is forced by circumstance to find himself as a private on the battlefield of a grand battle with an alien army already engulfing much of Europe and Russia. On the Normandy coast, Cage is killed by one of the so-called mimics, but the man awakens again the day before his death. And so it goes on and on.

At first glance, "Fringe of the Future" doesn't seem particularly original. Countless borrowings are visible to the naked eye: the tricks with time - "Groundhog Day", the inventive beating on a cold French beach - "Saving Private Ryan". "Alien," "Starfleet," "The Matrix" - the list could go on, especially since this automatically adds the very recent "Oblivion," where the same Cruise once again saved the alien-torn Earth. But the authors do not even try to hide these influences, and honestly they offer their hand and without unnecessary words join the ranks of the genre elite, thankfully they have nothing to disgrace the appropriate uniform.

While the world is still waiting for more or less decent video game adaptations, Fringe of the Future is the closest to this unattainable goal. Although the film has no progenitors in the console world, its internal logic is fully consistent with gaming culture, mostly thanks to the original novel by Hiroshi Sakurazawa, who, as we know, was a programmer by first profession.

If you translate the plot to the playing field, it turns out that when the hero wakes up on his first day of combat duty (and the penultimate day of his life as well), he simply starts with the last save. The huge alpha alien on the beach in Normandy then represents the level boss, and when he lowers Tom Cruise's health bar to zero, we are transported back to the last save and forced to relive the two days. With each attempt, the hero learns how to survive more and more efficiently in order to get farther and farther away and eventually get to the main boss. Being able to predict surrounding events also comes from video games: here it's better to dodge the explosion to the left, and now another mimic will jump out of there. Plus, do not forget about increasing the level of the character and the opening of additional content. So, perfectly mastering the somersault between the wheels of a racing truck, you can get access to the trainer in the face of Emily Blunt, who not only tells you how to pump up to new levels, but also helps to spend experience points in a special automated gym.

The retelling of it all may seem painfully mechanical like the exo-skeletons profusely presented here, but the team of playwrights consisting of Christopher McQuarrie and Jez and John-Henry Butterworth have taken care of a multifaceted, lively, and pretty no-nonsense script with a whole set of punch lines and often very funny and life-like phrases. What's worth nothing but a comment from one of the landing party about Cruise's appearance: "There's something wrong with your battle suit... Oh yeah, there's a dead man inside."

For Tom Cruise, this is by far the best and most versatile work in years. In the first act, we are introduced to a cabinet rat, a coward, almost a blackmailer. Cage is so ridiculous that he can't even take the safety off his hand guns, and, for the first time in the thick of things, he wanders the battlefield unreservedly while his comrades-in-arms die in droves in the mud. But here is battle after battle (or rather, attempt after attempt) and the rat turns into a real lion. Emily Blunt also makes a great propaganda poster heroine. She here represents not so much romantic interest as a mentor figure, a kind of antipode of the protagonist. Doug Lyman has always been experimental in terms of acting chemistry, and although the explosion he had with Brad and Angelina on "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" is unlikely ever to be repeated, the screen couple still turned out to be great. It seems that after the very mediocre "Teleport" and "Game of No Rules," Lyman has finally regained his former directorial form. By all accounts, this is his highest-profile film, and unless the Earth is attacked by aliens tomorrow, it will surely be remembered as one of the highlights of summer 2014.