CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Film Review: ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ is a Fleet-Footed Popcorn Movie
CHICAGO – “Edge Of Tomorrow” is a high concept, fast of foot popcorn movie that knows how to deliver the goods. While this futuristic sci-fi take on “Groundhog Day” doesn’t break any new ground, it does see that intriguing concept through to a fulfilling and crowd pleasing conclusion.
Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
The film opens with Tom Cruise as a military PR flack selling the country on a ground war in Europe. Humanity is facing off against a race of multi tentacled alien invaders called mimics – they look as though the throwing star from “Krull” went on steroids and sprouted a face. Cruise is all movie star smile and phony charm, the role as an unlikely ill-suited soldier suits his persona perfectly. He’s fine convincing millions of others to fight but a guy this good looking isn’t supposed to get his hands dirty, right? After a run in with a General, he’s punished by being sent to the front on a D-Day style mission on the beaches of France to take back the continent. He’s barely able to get the safety off his clunky slow moving weaponized suit before he’s blown up and then wakes up right back where he started.
Based on Hiroshi Sikurazaka’s novel “All You Need Is Kill,” Cruise’s character is seemingly stuck in a kind of alien time warp where he’s able to repeat the same day over and over again as long as he dies in the end. He gets the sense of deja vu all over again, and knows he’s been here before and done this and said that many many times, but no one else does. The film makes the most of the black comedy elements with Cruise suffering various gruesome fates (including a hilarious montage of Cruise repeatedly getting shot in the head) only to wake up back in the barracks getting yelled at by a drill sergeant (Bill Paxton) whose corn-pone country charm is a constant delight.
Tom Cruise is Battle Tested in ‘Edge of Tomorrow’
Photo credit: Warner Bros.