By taking a slightly different approach to the story of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s 2004 novel All You Need Is Kill, and pairing it with the gritty tenets of such World War II movies as Saving Private Ryan and some dark comedy, the sci-fi action flick Edge Of Tomorrow became one of this past summer’s better movies. But while it didn’t ignite the box office the way it lit up the imaginations of people who saw it, Warner Bros. Home Video have still done a good job presenting this engaging movie as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, a 3D Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and on DVD.
For everyone who missed it in theaters, Edge Of Tomorrow follows a PR guy for the Army (Tom Cruise), who gets screwed over by his commanding officer and ends up on the front lines in a war with alien invaders who always seem one step ahead. But when he kills an alien just as he himself is killed, he wakes up back just before the battle, a pattern that repeats every time he does. But it isn’t until he learns that he’s not the only one with this power that he realizes he can use it, and his standard issue power armor, to defeat the aliens.
So, yeah, as I said in my review of the movie, Edge Of Tomorrow is basically Groundhog Day…but with aliens…if Bill Murray used his repeating days to learn how to be a real soldier…while wearing Matt Damon’s power suit from Elysium.
The thing is about Edge Of Tomorrow is that while it has plenty of sci-fi action, it also has a fair bit of humor. Not jokes or one-liners jammed into their haphazardly, mind you, but funny situations that actually fit what’s going on in the moment. Some of which come from the fact that, at the beginning, Cruise’s character isn’t a seasoned soldier, while others come from the rolling eyeballs of Emily Blunt, who plays a heroic warrior he taps to train him. Which is why this is the most genuinely funny action film since 2012’s The Avengers.
Thankfully, both the comedy and the action in Edge Of Tomorrow translate well from the big screen to the small. Watching the movie again, it not only still moved along at a good clip, and made me chuckle, again, but I found myself again rooting for both Cruise’s and Blunt’s characters, even though I already knew their fates.
While Edge Of Tomorrow is decidedly worth seeing, and owning, there’s not much debate as to which version you should get, since the DVD is rather skimpy in the extras department.
All three editions of Edge Of Tomorrow — the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, the 3D Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and the DVD — all come with two featurettes: “Weapons Of The Future,” which spends about nine minutes talking to Cruise, Blunt, co-star Bill Paxton, director Doug Liman, and the producers and effects crew about the exo suit; and “Creatures Not Of This World,” a five-and-a-half minute look at the design of the aliens. But while there are times when they’re a bit slick, and seem like they were scripted by the studio’s marketing department, they’re still informative.
If you buy the regular or 3D Blu-ray/DVD combo pack of Edge Of Tomorrow, though, you get a lot more. For starters, there’s nearly eight minutes of deleted and extended scenes. Unfortunately, they’re all in one long video, not segmented out nor given any explanation as to why they were cut, though it is clear where they were cut from. But while none deserve to be in the movie, or are particular revelatory, some are rather interesting, especially the ones that have unfinished temp effects.
The Blu-ray/DVD combo packs of Edge Of Tomorrow also has a making-of featurette called “On The Edge With Doug Liman,” which spends forty-two minutes on the making of the film. And while it is centered on the director, and how he made the movie, it’s not as self-congratulatory as it sounds, thankfully. That said, because it overlaps with the other featurettes, and has some redundancy, all of them could’ve easily been combined into a single making-of featurette that would’ve served the same purpose in half the time.
But the most interesting extra on the Edge Of Tomorrow Blu-ray/DVD combo packs is “Operation Downfall: Adrenaline Cut,” which consists of an alternate version of the big battle from when Cruise knows what he’s doing, and “Storming The Beach,” a nine-minute-long making-of featurette on the making of this and the other battle scenes.
Oh, if you’re interested in the 3D part of the 3D Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, while Warner Bros. Home Video didn’t send me that edition, having seen the movie in 3D in theaters I can assure you that you’re not missing anything by getting the regular Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.
Unfortunately, all three versions of Edge Of Tomorrow are missing a few key essentials. For starters, there’s nothing with Sakurazaka, and not much on his original novel, save for some offhand remarks. Granted, All You Have To Do Is Kill is not as iconic a book as, say, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, but it still would’ve been nice to hear where he came up with the idea and what he thought of the movie.
I also really wish the Edge Of Tomorrow Blu-rays and DVD had included the original trailers, since I love watching a movie’s trails before I watch the movie itself. I would’ve especially loved it if they had included the Japanese trailer, given the movie’s Japanese roots.
In the end, Edge Of Tomorrow is an engaging and entertaining sci-fi action film. And while the Blu-ray/DVD combo packs are a little lacking, and the DVD edition much more so, they still do a good job of presenting this cool flick in a handy, take-home package.
SCORE: 8.5
