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Tom Cruise is a reluctant sci-fi solder in the exciting 'Edge of Tomorrow'

(WARNER BROS.)

It's "Groundhog Day" meets "Aliens."

That is, I'm sure, the way "Edge of Tomorrow" was pitched to investors and for once, it's not a bad way to think of the movie.

Like "Aliens," it has a bunch of grunts facing a lot of slithery monsters. And like "Groundhog Day," our hero has been caught in a time loop where has to relive the same day over and over.

Hoping, desperately, that one day he gets that one day right.

Tom Cruise is the hero (from Cranbury, N.J. no less) and he does the usual heroic Tom Cruise things — running hard, riding a motorcycle and acting cocky. (He also fires off a few of his patented grins.)

But he seems to realize he has a better script than he did in "Jack Reacher" or "Oblivion" and, as a result, he relaxes a bit; for once, he's not using his charisma like a club, to beat us into submission.

Nor is he quite his usual dominant force. The smart story has him landing on the frontlines of this intergalactic war as an out-of-his-element PR guy; the real alpha warrior is Emily Blunt, a Joan-of-Arc symbol of battlefield courage and human resistance.

In 'Edge of Tomorrow,' Emily Blunt plays a soldier who becomes a symbol

Cruise's only advantage? Unlike her, he knows what's going to happen, and so how to avoid the worst of it. And that, even if he does get killed, he'll wake up at the start of the same day, with another chance to do it all over again.

As a fantasy, "Groundhog Day" never really tried to explain why Bill Murray was caught in that cycle; unfortunately, "Edge of Tomorrow" is sci-fi and feels it sort of has to, and the explanation — it's related to alien biology — never really convinces.

If you can go with it, though, the movie pretty much never stops going, from its D-Day style attempt to retake Europe, to more "War of the Worlds" sequences that see Cruise and Blunt taking shelter in an abandoned farm, or wandering a desolate city.

"Edge of Tomorrow" is a welcome return not only for Cruise, but for a few other talents. Like director Doug Liman, who started with indies like "Swingers" and "Go," moved on to the clever, first "The Bourne Identity" — and then, after the over-the-top "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," seemed to go off-track.

He's back in good form here, though. The aliens are tentacled horrors, the soldier's exo-skeleton suits are impressive, and although there are plenty of effects shots, there are enough real locations and believably beat-up machinery to keep it from feeling like a videogame.

Enough real actors, too, including not only its stars — who have an honest if wary connection - but solid support staff like Bill Paxton, not coincidentally a veteran of "Aliens" who shows up here as a blood-and-guts Master Sergeant.

And although assigning credit to anyone on a screenplay is a gamble, I'd like to think Paxton's funny speeches come courtesy of Christopher McQuarrie, the Princeton-born author of "The Usual Suspects" who seems to be coming out of a long dry spell ("Jack Reacher," "The Tourist," "Valkyrie").

The movie makes missteps, even if you take that big leap of faith in accepting the premise. Blunt's heroine remains a bit of a cipher and the action sequences are uniformly edited for speed and surprise; a longer, slower, quieter one, in which a character had to elude a stalking predator would have been a welcome change of pace.

But it's still a big, bright, loud and occasionally smart entertainment, and well worth seeing once — although not, perhaps, every day for the rest of your life.

Ratings note: The film contains violence and strong language.

'Edge of Tomorrow' (PG-13) Warner Bros. (113 min.)

Directed by Doug Liman. With Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt. Opens the night of June 5 in New Jersey.

★ ★ ★ ½

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