Not turning Japanese…

I saw the latest sci-fi action movie Edge of Tomorrow recently, and overall I really enjoyed it. Good performances by the actors and a fun, exciting and engaging story as well.  I was intrigued enough to track down the source material; a novel by Japanese author  Hiroshi Sakurazaka titled All You Need Is Kill. The movie made a lot of changes to the source material, as one might expect, so I’ve decided to review and also compare the two to each other.

I’ll keep the first part of this as spoiler free as possible, and I’ll warn you before I go full “downtown to Spoiler-town.”

I went into the movie completely cold. I’d never heard of Sakurazaka’s novel, nor the Manga adaptation of it by Ryosuke Takeuchi and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. Nor had I seen more than one short trailer for the movie. All I knew was that Tom Cruise was going to war in a robot suit and Groundhog Day-esque hijinks were going to ensue.

Watching the movie for the first time, I was struck by some elements that felt quite Japanese to me, mostly the idea of the ‘Jacket’, or the aforementioned robot suit. One of the nicknames for Emily Blunt’s character, “The Angel of Verdun” felt very Japanese to me as well. I wasn’t surprised later when I found out about the source of the movie.

Some major differences between the novel and the movie are important to point out because they lead directly into the Two Big Problems I had with the movie. The most important of the two is very much a spoiler, so I’ll get to that later, but the other I think we can discuss openly.

So the Second Big Problem with the movie happens at the very beginning. No, actually it starts with the casting of Tom Cruise as the lead role of Cage/Keiji.  In the book and also Manga, which I’ve just started reading and so far seems like a very faithful adaptation of the novel, the two main characters are very young, as they often are in Japanese fiction. Keiji and Rita are about 18, with Keiji being basically a green recruit. He hasn’t seen a lot of action yet, but he has had training. Casting Tom Cruise throws that out the window from the top. You will not believe that he is a young man who is new to the Army. So the first problem starts with casting. How do you get Tom Cruise into a war as a Private? Because being inexperienced in battle is a major conceit of the entire narrative. So what the movie does is change Keiji to Cage, a glorified PR man for the U.S. Army’s war efforts. He holds the rank of officer but doesn’t know the first thing about battle. Which makes the first sequence of him being forced into active duty the day before an assault make absolutely no sense. The movie doesn’t even offer an explanation. But it gets the character to where he needs to be. It’s almost as if they cut out the line where Cage asks the grumpy British general, “Why are you doing this to me?” and he responds, “Because it’s in the script.”

To be fair, I had no problem with Tom Cruise’s performance in this film. But I can’t help but think that getting a younger star to play the role of Cage would have avoided that awkward setup. I understand why they cast Cruise in the role, he’s a draw at the box office, but I don’t have to like it. It’s a very Hollywood move.

Is there something on my face?

The character of Rita is probably the most faithful from novel to movie. Obviously slightly older with Emily Blunt in the role, but almost spot on in characterization. She’s no nonsense, she’s a decorated veteran of the war and the best solider the United Defense Force (UDF) has. She’s also a celebrity and recruiting tool. She’s distant, she trains, eats, and lives by herself on base. She fights alone. She’s a total badass. In the movie, she’s British. In the novel, though, she’s American.

This is another change that was probably necessitated after casting Tom Cruise as Cage. If he’s an American PR flack, and Rita is an American too, then of course they’d already know each other, which destroys another major plot point. Emily Blunt could surely play an American. But Tom Cruise, in this Hollywood production designed to make money, has to be American. So, Blunt is already British, so let’s make Rita British.

Also, the theater of operations was moved from Japan to France, because of World War 2. What? OK, follow me: What is an American audience going to respond to more favorably, something the reminds them of storming the beaches at Normandy, or storming a random island off the coast of Japan?

I thought the designs in this movie were quite excellent. The creature design is very cool and interesting, and the Mimics feel dangerous. The Jackets themselves felt like an Americanized take on a Japanese concept. They looked more like Generic First Person Shooter video game design than Voltron/Gundam/Evangelion, but cool nonetheless.

The action is well done, too. It goes a little ‘shaky-cam’ in some places, but it’s not overdone. There are some gory parts but the repetitiveness with slight variations each time actually help keep it light. At least, as light as hectic wartime can be.

Like I said, overall I really liked the movie, and I think you should see it if you like sci-fi and action and Emily Blunt being totally awesome.

But now, friends, it’s SPOILER TIME! If you haven’t seen the movie, stop now. I’ll also be spoiling the end of the novel, which you can find on Kindle, so if you want to read that, and you should, you should also stop now. If you want to keep reading, I’ve warned you!

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