Krishna
What a fabulous plot and what a beautiful execution! A very satisfying and expert presentation of a science fiction story.
Initially it does not seem like it would be a good story. The movie starts with a disaster story in the news of an alien invasion. The aliens are called Mimics, though you do not see them mimicking anything at all right till the end of the movie. Then there are tedious descriptions of France being the epicentre of battle and from England, the United Defence Forces from all countries is launching a final assault
Then the Mimics, when they come seem to ooze acid as blood and you go ‘Oh well, have we not seen this in the Alien Series?’
The movie drops some intriguing hints. The Mimics seem to be invincible and crushes human forces ruthlessly except for one lady called Rita (Emily Blunt), who seems to have a much bigger success than normal and is in Verdun, France. She is called the Angel of Verdun.
Then there is the unusual role for Tom Cruise. At least in the beginning. He comes as Major William Cage, who wants to just float around, not sullied by tedium of actual battle. He is a Major, for God’s sake!
When he meets General Brigham in London, his idea is that he will be in charge of PR and after the war, when the aliens have been vanquished, he would smoothly transition into a political career from his military one.
When Cage finds out that he is ordered into combat he tries to avoid it and threatens the General, getting himself arrested. He is bewildered, totally panicked, and is like a deer caught in headlights.
Cage is sent to combat under the command of Sergeant Farrell, who has been told, by General Brigham that Cage is a Private and a deserter, and also is fraudulently impersonating a General. He is taken into the battle in handcuffs. As they drop to the battle zone, the aircraft is hit and he almost missed the jump in panic.
He finds Mimics fully prepared against the so called surprise attack but is killed almost instantly, but not before blowing up on with a bomb and being covered in its blue acidic blood.
Now the movie gets fascinating. He wakes up in the same place as he woke up last time in handcuffs and sees that the whole scenario is played out. In the plane, he tries to scream to everyone that they are walking into a trap and that the plane will be hit, but everyone ignores him. He gets killed again in a different way and wakes up again in the previous place the previous day. He dies repeatedly, slowly learning what to avoid and surviving longer and longer. But there seems to be no way to win, and he keeps getting killed. Why does he survive again to relive the same thing?
The explanation seems to be interesting. The reason seems to do with the alien blood that drenched him. When he dies, the time shifts backwards and he starts again. In fact the Mimics have been also doing it for so long that they know all man’s plans once they experience it, shift back in time, and crush the strategy. This is why they have been invincible so far!
Rita once sees him being adept and realizes that he is in a time loop. She says ‘Find me and tell me about this when you wake up next time’ and they both get killed. When he wakes up again, he goes finds Rita and learns that she was in the same loop before. He also realizes that when her blood was transfused with new blood, she lost the ability to cycle.
She trains him to handle mimics over several lifetime cycles. It is really funny and fascinating at the same time. They realize that this will end only when they find the super Mimic who is hiding somewhere and is linked to all Mimics in mind.
The movie has more interesting pieces where the vision that Cage received of the Super Mimic turns out to be a trap. Cage keeps killing himself when in danger of being captured so that he can start again. Finally they get a device that can track the Super Mimic if stuck into a soldier Mimic (called Alpha). The Super Mimic is called Omega.
A lot of branches: in one “life” Cage decides the whole thing is pointless and walks out to spend time in a bar in London but learns that Mimics destroyed the forces and attacked London, killing him!
Before he can reach Omega, once he gets into an accident and before he can die, they infuse new blood into him. Now he does not have the power to go back and all Mimics are still alive!
To read this, it looks complicated but when seen in the story, it is brilliant. I agree that some of it is highly cinematic, but then that does not take away from the exciting venture that the movie carries you into and you do not see the passing of time at all.
Brilliant, and how a science fiction story should be told.
Let us give this one a 9/10
– – Krishna