EDGE OF TOMORROW (4) vs. ROGUE ONE (5)

VS.

ACTING - "Edge of Tomorrow" is a Tom Cruise movie, but he is ably helped by the cast. Cruise is good in one of his best performances. The film is something of a buddy pick with Emily Blunt more than holding her own. Her Vrataski is not just a bad-ass soldier, she is the most bad-ass soldier - male or female. Blunt is awesome in the role. She trained three months for it and the result was one of the best female action heroes of the 21^st Century. She was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress and won the Critics' Choice Award. Bill Paxton plays a typical cinematic sergeant, but he is perfect as Farrell. The rest of the squad is generic, but well-played. GRADE = A

"Rogue One" is not an all-star epic. Most of the cast is not well-known. The main star is Felicity Jones as Jyn. She is your typical feisty sci-fi heroine. Jones is good, but not great. Diego Luna plays the roguish Casian. They have some chemistry. They were both nominated for Saturn Awards for acting. Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker bring some gravitas. The rest of the cast is fine, but it is really the characters that you remember, not the acting. GRADE = B

ENTERTAINMENT - EOT is a looper movie. This means the characters are reliving events over and over. So you get to see Tom Cruise get killed many times and in creative ways. The movie takes the small unit, mission behind the lines into sci-fi territory. It is entertaining to see how the screenwriter handles this. The clichés (ex. Cage is in need of redemption) would have been tiresome in a regular war movie. Although the film has some cracking action and suspense, this is leavened with some humor. The aliens are scary and worthy adversaries. The movie builds well to the conclusion, but then tacks on a happy ending that keeps it from being a great movie. It's still damn good, though. GRADE = B

After a long string of disappointing Star Wars movies, "Rogue One" was a very pleasant surprise. It jettisoned the elements aimed at tweens and went back to what made the first two movies great. As a prequel to the original, it taps in to the mythology and brings that story full-circle. There is a romance that is not fun-sucking. The villainy of the Empire is firmly established and the appearance of Darth Vader is a kick. The good guys are a heterogeneous crew that are easy to root for. The movie finishes with a great battle that mixes infantry combat with aerial combat and meanwhile a heroic trio is infiltrating enemy headquarters. But what sets it apart is the realistic ending that does not insult the audience. GRADE = A

COMBAT - The opening invasion scene is among the best in war movie history. It is very intense with the shocking appearance of the aliens and the shocking death of the main character early in the movie. The scene is repeated in smaller chunks as Cage tries different moves to survive. The movie finishes with the squad assault on the alien brain. GRADE = B

"Rogue One" has three combat set pieces. The first is an urban ambush that reintroduces us to just how ineffective Stormtroopers are. The second is the "Dambusters"-like assault on the research facility. Neither of these is special, but the attack on Scarif is a masterpiece. It combines WWII infantry combat of the commando variety with Korean War jet combat with Napoleonic War fighting ships combat. It's probably the best battle in sci-fi war movie history. GRADE = A

ENEMY - The mimics come in two forms. The vast majority are Drones which are shape-shifters who can hide underground. They can fire explosive projectiles and are very fast in their movements. They remind a bit of the bugs in "Starship Troopers" and they are equally hard to kill. Rarely an Alpha is encountered. They are bigger and badder than the Drones. If an Alpha is killed, time restarts and the enemy learns from its mistakes or adjusts to human strategy and tactics. There is some real creativity here. GRADE = B

In most sci-fi war movies the enemy is aliens whose "soldiers" are either vastly superior to Earthlings or their vehicles are. The Star Wars universe is more of an insurgency. So, while the enemy is not some scary creatures, the bad guys do have personalities. For instance, Darth Vader is #3 on AFI's Greatest Villains list. The main villain in this episode is Krennic and he is above average, but he ain't no Xenomorph queen. If you like your enemies with the ability to threaten you verbally, this movie stands out in the tournament. GRADE = B
ANALYSIS - This was a close match, but I think the better war movie won. "Edge of Tomorrow" is more of a sci-fi movie than a war movie and so is "Rogue One", but Rogue has more of a traditional battle in it and it takes up a large amount of the running time. It is one of the greatest prequels ever made.

ROGUE ONE = 34
EDGE OF TOMORROW = 33