Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Edge of Tomorrow

Science fiction has the ability to transport the viewer into a not-so-distant future where technology provides the safeguards and improvements to our lives that can’t always save us from the dangers that face our society. It can also highlight our perseverance, determination and self-preservation skills as the difference between destruction and survival, which is the concept Edge of Tomorrow invokes.

Edge of Tomorrow follows the story of a military publicist (Tom Cruise) thrown into the midst of combat against a deadly alien invasion. Through a battlefield mishap, Major Cage (Cruise) is forced to relive the same beach-storming invasion day over-and-over until he uncovers the source of his new abilities and must find a way to use them to his advantage and bring down an alien threat that will destroy humanity.

Cruise has struggled in the sci-fi milieu for the last several years. You have to go all the way back to Minority Report to find a film that so effectively used his talents. While this isn’t his greatest performance, it’s a significant improvement over other recent efforts. Shifting from scheming shyster to terrified recruit to determined hero, Cruise ably transforms in a convincing portrayal that is only dwarfed by his superb and superior co-star Emily Blunt and some strong and exciting effects.

The narrative could have felt contrived, but works incredibly well within the genre, making for another in a long series of modern sci-fi successes. It’s also yet another in a long line of surprisingly terrific blockbuster hits this year.