Trailer Breakdown: Edge of Tomorrow

I originally wrote this post on Moviepilot.

Summing this movie trailer up in one sentence is ridiculously doable. Unfortunately, I want you to actually read this before you click away and do something productive, so let’s get started on breaking down Edge of Tomorrow.

Our star is none other than Tom Cruise, Scientology’s favorite son (or sun?) and Emily Blunt. In other words, I’m halfway excited about the casting here.

Let’s check out the trailer first and discuss:

In case you hate watching trailers and/or pressing play buttons, here’s what you missed.

Bill Cage (Cruise) awakens in a mysterious room tied to a cot like he’s a Ritalin addict in Pre-k. The opening dialogue proceeds to warn us that if we don’t listen to him, bad things will happen to our lives. I’m guessing they ripped the audio from one of his Scientology videos on YouTube.

Planes show up everywhere. Hopefully, we’ll get a closeup of one.

Hmm…that looks familiar.

We’re quickly introduced to some original movie marines, who look like they’re about to spew their guts in anticipation for something (who knows what!) that is about to happen.

Bill Cage notes to get ready because “this has happened before.” Immediately, fire happens and takes everyone by surprise. EVEN Tom Cruise.

Cage jumps out of the plane into the fiery frying pan of a battle on the ground, only to find himself remembering that gravity does in fact exist. He dies.

YAY!

But then…

Nicholas Cage looks around to see that he has woken up in a military facility, handcuffed. I’d be confused too, so he asks a question that is totally perfect for this situation, and it’s followed up by an even more relevant answer.

General Ridiculous then proceeds to tell Nicholas that he is in with a batch of new recruits, which seems legit if you consider how often military recruits are handcuffed without uniforms on.

This time, Nicholas Cage actually makes it to the battlefield this time, which is a huge improvement. We’re introduced to a battlefield with smoke, explosions, aliens and cool armor. I wish something like this existed in pop culture already. It’d probably make a great video game.

No, not that one.

 

Rita shows up to Emily Bluntly save Cage’s life, sort of. She knows that they’re about to die and wake up, so she instructs Nicholas to come find her. Prepare for training montages.

There’s a reason she has that name. The verdict is that winning the war is their only hope for escaping this time loop. Gosh, what movie does thatremind me of?

Unfortunately, instead of a training montage, we’re treated to what looks like “Hero’s Duty” from Wreck-It-Ralph, which is the farthest thing from a complaint.

As we see a montage of action scenes and character moments between our heroes, the trailer beats us over the head with the theme of the movie by repeating “Live, Die, Repeat,” which would make an honestly awesome soap slogan for Axe Body Wash.

 

From what we see throughout the trailer, the movie will focus more on the survival of original movie marines who are trapped in a cycle of life and death. We see several shots of what look like escape attempts by Rita and Nicholas, but they’re either stopped or look unhappy about it.

If you really break the trailer down and listen to what’s being said, you can more or less predict the ending based on the framing of certain shots that have to do with sunsets and hand-holding. I don’t recommend this, obviously, if you actually want to be moderately surprised.

 

“Groundhog’s Day meets Halo” hits theaters June 6th.

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