The release of Edge Of Tomorrow – which opened in the US this past weekend, following its bow in the UK a week earlier – has brought, not for the first time, a strange Hollywood trend to light. And it’s this: do we trust big stars to make decent movies anymore?

Many people, this writer included, took a lot of convincing to venture out and see Tom Cruise in a hugely expensive sci-fi spectacular (notwithstanding the fact that Cruise has fine form in science fiction). The film in question, Edge Of Tomorrow, is directed by Doug Liman of The Bourne Identity, and based on a graphic novel with a cool title. So surely this should have been a movie which audiences were enthusiastically anticipating? Yet It didn’t seem that way, both in certain geeky circles and – off the back of its US box office numbers – amongst the broader audience either.

There was something about the movie which some potential audience-members didn’t seem to engage with immediately. The trailer and publicity didn’t help, but it seemed that there was more to it than that. Yet soon, after the reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations began coming, it became apparent that Edge Of Tomorrow was a veritable treasure trove for moviegoers.

Indeed, Edge Of Tomorrow is a strong sci-fi/action flick with splashes of dark humour, which doesn’t take itself too seriously and, perhaps most importantly, hinges on two great central performances. Looking at the trailers, and the director’s previous form, it seems a bit odd that most of us didn’t predict this would be a contender for one of the most geek-friendly films of the year.