AKA Live Die Repeat. Or maybe Live. Die. Repeat.? Either way I think we all can agree that the best name comes from the manga: All You Need is Kill.
If you hadn’t heard, this movie is essentially Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers with the tone more in line with Troopers, in that it’s an action movie with some comedic moments. Our main character is Cage (played by one Mr. Tom Cruise) and he is dragged–kicking and screaming–into being a soldier in a world war against aliens. Our space invaders this time are called “mimics,” came to Earth via an asteroid, and look like… sort of like an akata from Pathfinder‘s Bestiary 2, but with way more tentacles and less identifiable features. Except the face, cause they have faces, and we know that because they like to scream every so often.
Anyway, Mr. Cruise gets thrown into combat and dies, only to wake up the previous day with full knowledge that he’s done all this before. See, the mimics have a bigger version of the grunt troops called “alphas,” and getting their blood all over you sort of makes you unstuck in time. Through several attempts at salvaging a losing fight, he runs into Full Metal Bitch, played by Mrs. Emily Blunt, who recognizes what he’s going through. She has an actual name, but I don’t care, that nickname is hilarious. Anyway she’s a legendary soldier in part because she also was unstuck in time, and with enough replays she was able to win a decisive battle before she lost the ability through getting a blood transfusion. She takes Cage under her wing and trains him to take down the leader of all the mimics: the “omega.” Also worth noting that “training him” often involves shooting him in the face when he gets injured, resetting him and avoiding a potential transfusion.
It’s a fun action flick, but there’s just one point that gnaws at me: after finding out the real location of the omega, Cage and FMB get into a car crash that injures Cage enough that he gets–you guessed it–a transfusion! My problem is that Full Metal Bitch has shown time and time again that to get the mission done, she will gladly shoot Cage in the head, despite how close they sometimes become. So why not do that as soon as he finds the crucial bit of information, thereby giving them more time and getting him out of the car chase they’re currently in? Because the movie needs to happen, I know, but it’s just… I feel like a better option had to exist.
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