Tom Cruise has still ‘got it’ as the smirking action hero, in an intelligent sci-fi thriller which is this year’s Inception (2010) or Looper (2012). Like the earlier films, it’s fun, well-acted with an intriguing intellectual premise which requires some concentration to follow; but also like them they aren’t ultimately deep or meaningful. In other words, an excellent summer blockbuster.
In this case the premise is based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novella “All You Need Is Kill” (2004), and can be described as a mashup of Groundhog Day (1993) and Aliens (1986) – the former of which enables Cruise to burnish some comic relief chops among all the save-the-world seriousness. It’s probably also the best video game movie made so far (despite ironically not being based on a video game IP); the protagonist’s antics feel just like replaying a hard level of a 3D action game again and again until you finally beat it. Perhaps this film’s success, and its Japanese source material, might persuade studio execs to fund a live-action “The Legend of Zelda; Majora’s Mask”? …
** Spoiler alert ** After watching the film, it seemed the ending was a bit too ‘happy’ … sure enough, after some checking, the source material is a bit darker. I think execs made the right revenue-maximizing choice keeping the tone lighter and more accessible, but as a geek it would have been cool if they had made the originally written ending work, as for a double bonus it would have required a beefier role for Emily Blunt 🙂
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