Now is the time to give Edge of Tomorrow a chance

Movies and movie-goers can be strange things. Sometimes a movie comes out of nowhere and becomes a hit, or is a huge, badly reviewed studio film and inexplicably earns boatloads of money. Then you have a movie like Edge of Tomorrow, with a 90% favorable critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 91% audience rating, that goes on to become one of the year’s notorious flops with a $178 million budget and just over $100 million at the box office. What happened?

Some point to the age of star Tom Cruise (52) drawing an older skewing audience, the film itself skewing predominantly male (despite the fact that Emily Blunt was just as important to the plot), younger audiences flocked to other PG-13 films (mainly The Fault In Our Stars and Maleficent). It probably didn’t help that Cruise was in another big, sci-fi blockbuster just a year earlier (that would be Oblivion).

Whatever the reason, audiences missed out on a pretty nifty sci-fi action film that successfully crossed Aliens with Groundhog Day and gave us action, thrills and even a fair amount of humor, and kept you guessing till the end as to how the situation would be resolved. So if you decided to spend your money on something else this summer, now is the time to see what you missed with Edge of Tomorrow now on home video … that is, if you can find it since Warner Home Video seems intent on disguising the film as Live. Die. Repeat. with the film’s title barely visible on the packaging.

That quibble aside, the Blu-ray presentation is what you would come to expect from Warner. The image is sharp, no blown out whites, deep blacks with no artifacts, with every grain of sand, every detail of the Exo-suits fully on display. The 7.1 HD Master Audio is also robust and will give your sound system a real workout. The 3D version is equally good, however I don’t think it’s quite as effective as the IMAX version was. It’s still acceptable for home viewing, but it would have been nice to have used the IMAX-framed version of the film for the 3D presentation.

The extras on the Blu-ray include:

Operation Downfall

• Operation Downfall: Adrenaline Cut (2:34) — Re-edited version of one of the drop scenes.
• Storming the Beach (8:59) — Director Doug Liman, Tom Cruise and others discuss the challenges of filming the beach battle sequence which involved a combination of practical and digital effects.

Weapons of the Future (8:25) — The cast and crew discuss working with the Exo-suits and the preparation it took to be able to wear them for hours at a time.
Creatures Not of This World (5:38) — Creating the unique look of the film’s aliens.
On the Edge with Doug Liman (42:37) — Production documentary focusing on Liman and his involvement in the production of the film including behind the scenes looks at everything from set construction to the tone of the movie (science fact vs science fiction).
Deleted Scenes (7:38) — A series of short, not important to the plot scenes, some notable for the unfinished FX shots.

Overall, Edge of Tomorrow is a film that is not only watchable but re-watchable, and if you opted to skip it on the big screen, treat yourself to a viewing at home.

Edge of Tomorrow Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD combo pack was provided by Warner Home Video for purpose of review.