Live, Die, Repeat
I watched LIVE, DIE, REPEAT last night and really enjoyed it.
The premise is that aliens invade Earth and overrun most of Europe before they’re contained. Humanity develops “Jacket” technology, basically a powered exoskeleton, that lets human soldiers go toe to toe with the aliens. Equipped with Jacket technology, the human armies plan to launch a massive invasion from the UK into France to drive back the aliens.
Tom Cruise plays Major Cage, a sleazy officer in the PR office of the US Army. When Cage tries to blackmail a general to get out of a dangerous assignment, the unamused general has Cage arrested, demoted to private, and sent to the front line of the invasion. Since Cage doesn’t know how to use a Jacket properly, this is effectively a death sentence. Cage lands with the rest of the troops on the first day of the invasion, which immediately turns into a disaster – the aliens were ready and waiting, and during the battle, Cage is killed when he blasts an alien with a claymore mine.
Except the explosion sprays Cage with the alien’s blood, and he wakes up to find himself back on the day of the invasion. Once again he goes on the invasion, gets killed, and wakes up again on the morning of the invasion. Cage finally figures out that he is caught in a time loop, and dies many, many more times.
However, before one of his deaths, he saves the life of the war hero Sergeant Vrataski, who realizes what is happening to Cage and tells him to find her when he wakes up. When he does, Vrataski tells Cage that the same thing happened to her – she killed an alien Alpha, was drenched in its blood, and got caught in a time loop. The eventual accumulation of prescience over thousands of loops allowed her to win one of the biggest battles of the war, but in her final loop, she was wounded and received a blood transfusion, which lost her ability to reset time.
The aliens apparently have the ability to create time loops, fighting the same battle over and over until they achieve the desired outcome, much like a gamer reloading a save state over and over again. The power accidentally passed to first Vrataski and then Cage – and the aliens know it and want it back. Cage and Vrataski need to find and kill the alien Omega, the governing consciousness of their hive mind, before the aliens find and kill them.
I don’t really like time travel stories in general, but I do like time loop stories, and have written a few of them myself. LIVE, DIE, REPEAT is an excellent example of one, with high-concept sci-fi mixed with big-budget battle spectacle. It’s also interesting to watch Cage’s moral journey from self-centered, amoral officer through despair and finally grim determination.
Definitely recommended if you’re looking for something to watch this weekend.
-JM