It's based on "All you need is kill". I read somewhere that in America the original novel came out with this title too. It's a bit different throughout the story, but the ending is obviously totally different. It was too tough for an american movie: they have rules to follow: the man and the woman must fall in love and have their happy ending, everybody knows that! Watch away, you won't be able to deny that they all follow the same pattern. Anyway, back to the beginning. They changed it a bit, because Tom Cruise is a major called Cage, and there's a long intro before the actual first battle, then it goes back on track; it was his first battle and when he died he turned back in time and woke up before the battle: anything he tries doesn't stop this, until one day on the battlefield he saves Rita Vrataski's life. She's famous to be a great warrior, although her character is not well depicted as it was in the manga, because all the attention is on him, and a lot of time is 'wasted' on the usual lines people say every time in that same day: still, they keep the nickname 'full metal bitch' and show she's different from the others, she trains alone and never jokes; when he saves her during the battle she understands what he's going through and tells him to look for her next time he wakes up. He does so, and she explains to him how the enemy, called Mimic, has various Alphas that can bring the time back so that they can learn about the enemy and defeat it. Having killed one of those alphas, and having been covered in its blood, Cage has become a alpha himself. Rita also tells him of the omega, the central brain of all the enemy: destroy it and you'll win the war. [:-/ it's a bit too easy this way, isn't it?? In movies it's always so easy: there's millions of them, but you just have to look for the central switch, destroy it, and voilà, the war is won! ]
It's not explained how many times he has repeated the same day, but it's a big number, because anything he attempts to do requires several trys. She trains him, then they fight together, side by side on the battlefield. She explains to him that she was once like him, she had the same gift, but she lost it because she got injured without dying, and was brought to a hospital where she had a blood transfusion that stopped it. That's the reason why she tells him that he must die, to start again and try to win the war. Every time he's injured, she kills him to start again. Every time, he has to start all over again from before they meet, so she barely knows him, while he has lots of memories, and gets to know her. One day, they are at a good point, trying to go where they think Omega is, but he's reluctant to go on because he knows she will die. We didn't know, but he admits they have done that several times, and no matter what he does she always dies at that point. He doesn't want her to die, but she's a warrior, she wants to defeat them, and goes on anyway. After she dies, he dies too. Next time he wakes up, he doesn't go to talk to her like he always did, he doesn't get her involved, he goes on alone, and that was my favourite bit of the whole movie, when he goes to see her, but doesn't tell anything, because he knows what it'll happen and he's decided he doesn't want her to die; also, he has realized that he must think only of the big picture, which is stop the war and defeat Omega, and can't "waste" any time trying to save the soldiers around him. This time, he leaves them all behind to their destiny and goes alone with the only purpose of finding Omega. Still, he finds out that Omega isn't there, it was just a trap. He manages to die so to be able to start again. This time he gets her involved again, so to study together a new plan. She tells him of a device that could link a alpha to omega, and he could use it on himself, since he's a alpha now. The device, though, is locked in the office of the General. After what we are told are several attempts to retrieve it, they get the device, but immediately they are surrounded by soldiers with orders to stop them, because the general didn't believe him, of course, he probably gave him the device thinking 'let's get this crazy man out of my office first, then we'll stop him'. While they are trying to escape, Cage tries the device on himself, and finds out where Omega really is. At that point I was almost screaming to the screen: kill yourself, or tell her to shoot you now, immediately!!! Now that you know where to find it, you should start again with no need to go through all the same stuff again, you could tell her everything right away, and go to kill it together saving a lot of other things you did all the other times !!! I mean, she always went on and on about the importance of not being injured or captured, the trouble of losing your 'gift', every time she had no trouble shooting him in the head, she did it without a thinking for a second the first time they came out to find all the soldiers waiting for them! But now, after he told her he saw everything, after telling her what he saw, she kept driving crazily fast while an army was chasing her... that was so stupid, the only reasonable thing to do at that point would have been to stop the car and kill him immediately, so to start again everything. Can you imagine how much time they could save next loop, not having to do all the battle they always did during that terrible day? After the usual explanation, straight to Paris!
But no,she doesn't do that, they go on with their attempt to escape but are stopped and brought, unconscious, to the hospital where he's given a transfusion: he loses his power! From that moment, they have only one chance to kill Omega. They get his team involved in this, manage to get close to it. Everybody else dies, Rita dies to allow him to get to omega, and even if he's killed himself, he manages to throw a bunch of bombs into its mouth and kills it, being covered in blood.
It should be the end, but as I said before, this is not a japanese manga, this is an american movies, and there are rules! Somehow he wakes up again, only to find that this time things are different. The enemy seems almost defeated, and he's not sent into battle. This is why he wakes up earlier in the helicopter, because in this reality he was never sent to the camp unconscious, so the last time he slept was on the helicopter, just arriving in London. He goes to the camp, goes to see Rita, and although she of course doesn't know him, he remembers everything, and smiles. Happy ending.
Why he woke up again though is not totally clear. I saw that after him went another Mimic, trying to stop him, and I can assume he was a Alpha, so when this Alpha got killed with the Omega and Cage himself, the blood of the Alpha covered Cage making him a Alpha again. So he goes back in time again: one last time, of course, because this time, for the first time in who knows how long, he won't die before a single day is gone. Still, it doesn't seem to make sense, since the omega remains dead, while he is alive, along with all the other soldiers. If he goes back in time and every human that died that day is still alive, why is Omega still dead? Makes no real sense. To me, if they really wanted a happy ending, they should have done what I said above: he should have died as soon as he found out where to find it, and being able to loop again he should have made all the necessary attempt at killing it as were necessary.
Also the fact that she kisses him before going to her death, knowing that they will both die on that mission, is absurd! She respected him, she may have liked him as a fellow fighter, but she didn't know him at all. She didn't love him, not possible. It was totally unreasonable, but that was another of those rules I talked about. The man and the woman must fall in love and kiss before the final battle: you can't fight against movie-rules, I suppose, although I keep hoping that someone will one day have the guts to do so.
It's understandable that he felt for her, he had learned to know her well, in all those days together, because he remembered everything, but she didn't. For what she could remember, she had just met him! That kiss was absurd and ridiculous. I knew for sure she was gonna do it, I had hoped to the contrary, but was so sure of it! Do people really want this? Don't people really care about things making sense? Or is just what they think people want? I keep wondering this.
One last thing: I liked that at the end, during the titles, we hear the song "Love me again"; it's the perfect song because it keeps shouting "I need to know now can you love me again?" which basically is what it has to happen now. Cage can know Rita from the start, since he remembers everything but she has never met him, from what she knows, so he will have to talk to her, explain her what they did together, and start all over again some kind of relationship.
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