EDGE OF TOMORROW - (9)

Sometimes I battle Pokemon with my friend Damon.   Damon has played Pokemon since he was a kid and now plays in tournaments for actual money.  Since I started playing Pokemon last October, our battles are very uneven.   Damon beats my teams in about the same amount of time a chess Grand Master would checkmate a 4th grader.

Because we are so mis-matched, it is easier for me to see what my preferred style of battle is.   My favorite Pokemon is this one:

Blaziken is fast, mean, and can take a punch.  I don't have all 719 Pokemon memorized, I haven't conquered the strategy of switches, and I don't understand the difference between a Sweeper and a Special Sweeper.  However, I do know that a tough, hard-hitting Pokemon can sometimes obliterate a team by sheer stubborn sacrificial force.

I liked EDGE OF TOMORROW because it is about humanity facing an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

These things, which kind of look like Pokemon in a mostly terrifying way.

The thread which I think runs through the whole film is this:  it's better to face the enemy, to stand and fight, than it is to sneak or turn away.  The aliens are far superior to humans in this movie.   They are the chess Grand Master in the game of war.  However, they aren't the only enemy.  Tom Cruise (who's part could have been played just as well with literally any other male actor in the world) confronts a military general (who is super sneaky), and even his own desire to sneak/avoid/run.

EDGE OF TOMORROW is surprisingly good.  It is well written, beautifuly shot, tightly edited, well acted, and the effects are seamless.   I didn't like the ending much.  But I loved seeing Emily Blunt chop tentacle monsters with a sword made from a propeller blade, and watching her never ever back down.