Something to watch tonight: Friday 29 November

Edge of Tomorrow (Liman, 2014)

Publisher’s Note

Before we cel­eb­rate 10 years1 of one of the most beloved action sci-fi films of the mod­ern era, I’ve got a few house­keep­ing notes.

Firstly, the editor-in-chief wishes to point out that she is Editor-in-Chief, not copy edit­or and there­fore not respons­ible for stu­pid auto­cor­rect errors like turn­ing “Lin-Manuel” into “Lin-Manual” yes­ter­day. Indeed, she is not respons­ible for any typos or oth­er errors, but wishes I was bet­ter at spot­ting them than I am.

Secondly, it is already Friday in Aotearoa New Zealand and many retail­ers are offer­ing Black Friday deals. We would rather you spent your Black Friday dol­lars on inde­pend­ent media and qual­ity cul­tur­al dis­course than dis­pos­able plastic tat from over­seas, so we are offer­ing a spe­cial 50% dis­count on full year subs for the next three days. Click the but­ton below to take advantage.

Thirdly, if you are a sub­scriber in Christchurch (tonight), Wellington (Saturday), Devonport Auckland (next Wednesday) and CBD Auckland (next Friday), you should abso­lutely check out friend-of-the-newsletter Doug Dillaman’s new film Gut Instinct. These are not so much film screen­ings as film exper­i­ences, fea­tur­ing a little bit of audi­ence inter­activ­ity as well as typ­ic­ally thought­ful Q&A ses­sions with Doug (some­times with the film’s nar­rat­or, Sarah Watt).

Gut Instinct is the story of how all of the ills of the world are being caused by ali­en bac­teria col­on­ising our insides, encour­aging us to make short-term dopam­ine pro­mot­ing decisions because that is how they feed. It takes the form of a breezy onboard­ing doc­u­ment­ary, wel­com­ing the audi­ence to a post-apocalyptic detox­i­fic­a­tion facil­ity where a lucky few are to be freed from the tyranny of their micro­scop­ic overlords.

Constantly sur­pris­ing and often very funny, Gut Instinct is a genu­ine big screen, audi­ence pleas­ing, exper­i­ence and destined to be a cult clas­sic. Check out more at the web­site, where you’ll find details of how to book for the forth­com­ing road­show screenings.

You can also read this inter­view with Doug from Chris Philpott’s Substack, Ephemeral, which fea­tures the full story of how this deli­ciously indie endeav­our came to be.

Looking (or rather listen­ing) back on my ori­gin­al review of Edge of Tomorrow, I real­ise that I was a bit equi­voc­al. I had no idea then that the film would become one of my favour­ites, that I would own at least one copy – and now there is a 4K UHD ver­sion, prob­ably two cop­ies – or that it would become some­thing of a touch­stone in mod­ern action filmmaking.

It has yet to spawn a sequel, for a start. It hasn’t kicked off a fran­chise or a cine­mat­ic uni­verse. Edge of Tomorrow is blessedly a stan­dalone adven­ture and, fit­tingly for a film about re-experiencing the same events over and over again, it stands up to rewatching.

Cruise plays a cyn­ic­al PR guy attempt­ing to recruit sol­diers for a glob­al war against ali­en invaders. Sent unwill­ingly to the front line, he buys it on his first trip out of the chop­per but then wakes up to start the fate­ful day all over again.

At the time, I thought that I’d been quite insight­ful by identi­fy­ing the par­al­lels with gam­ing cul­ture – con­stantly learn­ing and prac­tising, then dying and res­pawn­ing, until you con­quer your goals. Turns out, though, those par­al­lels are plenty obvi­ous and even more so today.

Emily Blunt is a super sol­dier and pro­pa­ganda fig­ure­head for the war, whose job it is to coach Cruise into becom­ing an effect­ive alien-battler and, of course, a bet­ter ver­sion of him­self. This was her action movie debut and she abso­lutely nails it – a great performance.

Costume designs for Edge of Tomorrow are by Wellington-born Kate Hawley, who vis­ited with Kailey and I at the Rancho Notorious pod­cast back in 2014 to talk about work­ing with Mr. Cruise, as well as Guillermo Del Toro on films like Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak. Fast for­ward 33 minutes to hear that interview.

I reviewed Edge of Tomorrow for RNZ’s Nine to Noon and, listen­ing back, I recall that the box office nar­rat­ive at the time was that it was a shock­ing fail­ure for Cruise and that the young adult romance The Fault in Our Stars was abso­lutely killing it at the box office. I won­der how many people are watch­ing that one ten years on.

Where to watch Edge of Tomorrow

Aotearoa: Streaming on Netflix, Prime Video and TVNZ+ (free with ads)

Australia: Streaming on Netflix, Prime Video and Stan

Canada: Streaming on Starz

Ireland & UK: Streaming on SkyNow

India: Streaming on Netflix

USA: Digital rental