There are no other movie stars like Tom Cruise. And despite his litany of hits over a career spanning more than 40 years, there’s no better film to explain his stardom than 2014’s. Edge of tomorrow.
Director Doug Liman’s forward-looking action film about humanity’s war with robots boldly pits Cruise against the Cage type, a stiff bureaucrat in a suit, terrified, cruel, cowardly, and almost completely incompetent… at least, initially. But when he’s suddenly given the power to reset to a specific moment when he dies (and with a little training from Emily Blunt’s legendary war hero), he slowly begins to learn how to fight, how to lead, and how to can achieve victory. war. It is actually Groundhog Day with robots, guns and giant swords.
But besides the fact that it’s just an incredibly awesome action movie – which it is – Edge of tomorrow is also an incredible deconstruction of Cruise as an actor. Cruises MO on screen has stood for effortless charm and talent for years. He was a brilliant lawyer who won an impossible case as soon as he decided to try Some good menhe was an arctic shark who could beat the pros The color of moneyand he was the best pilot in a school full of the best pilots in the world Top pistol. But Edge of tomorrow was the first film to introduce us to a secret that Cruise would spend the entire decade exploring: appearing effortless takes an enormous amount of work.
Edge of tomorrow is like a movie made from behind-the-scenes footage. It’s the cinema of grueling, endless hard work and the incremental improvements that determination can bring you. Cage dies over and over again. His development as the savior of humanity, like anyone’s development in anything, is decidedly non-linear. Sometimes he makes real progress and gets a few meters further into the battlefield before the robots mow him down. Other times he tries something new and dies faster than ever before. But even in those failures, Cruise’s signature focus shines through – in his clenched grin or the way he tenses his jaw and narrows his eyes – and we see the improvement mounting. And slowly, by the end of the film, Cage looks as effortless in battle as Tom Cruise felt in the ’80s.
And that effort – the hard work and the grueling failure – is the real secret of Cruise’s success. Check one out images from behind the scenes of his Mission: Impossible films and it’s impossible not to see little bits and pieces of Cage in them. In fact, an important part of the promotional campaign for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning part one was the number of attempts it took for Cruise to pull off the stunt where he jumps off a cliff on a motorcycle and parachutes away.
Hard work is more than just a part of Cruise’s films these days; it’s ingrained in why he wants you to see them. He’s now much more than effortlessly cool, and we did just that Edge of tomorrow to thank you for that. Now in the second half of his career, Cruise is finally ready to let us know that he is not only the biggest star in Hollywood, but also the hardest working.
Edge of tomorrow is streaming on Apple TV Plus, or can be rented on Amazon, AppleAnd Vudu.