Look, I’m not sure what to tell you. There is a point when a movie is not reviewable, and this applies to Think Like A Man Too. Is it above reprisal? Is it so far beneath my standards, it isn’t worth rubbing the brain cells together? Well, it’s neither, but this is not a film made to be reviewed. This is an empty seats film. The success of the first film, plus the budget of the new film, offset by the number of potential seats to be filled with a sequel is the premise of this film, and nothing more. A film engineered to be as efficient as viral marketing and sustaining as fast food, Think Like a Man Too is not bad or good, but simply exists.

So you’re a young, attractive, and ridiculously successful group of friends. What do you do? You get married in Vegas! And on this foundational trope, they build a super-structure of every wedding weekend cliché ever. Yes, in perhaps the film’s most impressive feat, all of them are accounted for. With everything from the ill-advised bachelor/bachelorette party the night before the wedding, to the will they make the wedding scramble, to the pregnant pause after the ultimate wedding ceremony fabrication of, “any objections,” this film is loaded down with weightlessness.

The arc is stitched together with a clumsy voiceover narrative device equating the weekend to a basketball game. Because, get it, all these couples are a team. And they’ve got…like…teamwork stuff to figure out. This chunky, overly long, too frequently employed voiceover is delivered by the philosophical and symbolic head of the film, Kevin Hart. Having mastered the art of being relentless in his likeable unlikeableness—or is it unlikeable likeableness [?]—there is no more apt engine for Think Like a Man Too. At times the other actors seems to suffer around him. Not by way of diminished performances, but actually suffering as they watch him gobble down all the scenery leaving even less to work with than the script allows.

The actresses are beautiful, Gabrielle Union in particular as stunning as ever. The men are chiseled, one-dimensional man children, save the sensitive type played by Michael Ealy, as per the accords of RomCom signed into Hollywood law eons ago. The cast emotes when appropriate, each couple has their quiet moments, but most commendably, they act as the tracks trying to support the roaring Kevin Hart train. Complete with celebrity cameos—including an exceptional turn from stentorian voiced Dennis Haysbert--Think Like a Man Too has it all, as long as your after nothing more than what you’d expect.

One observation I noted is the broadly drawn white friends featured in the film. Within the core group is the dowdiest, squarest suburban white couple as played by Wendi McLendon-Covey and Gary Owen. There is also another gag involving two other white actors decent enough not to spoil, including one of the funnier exchanges in the film. Where Think Like a Man Too is geared toward audiences tired of the all-white wealth and romance myth as told by so many RomComs, it was a wasted opportunity to use characters as shabbily created as the roles long given to people of color in this same genre.

Ultimately Think Like a Man Too lives in a world impregnable to criticism. This film will hit with its audience, perhaps yield a third installment, and the copy spilled will continue to be the needless hand wringing on which movie reviewers pride themselves. Because if Think Like a Man Too makes any argument, it’s to think less, because film’s like this are certainly not going to try and do more.

--Monte Monreal

I generally try not to link to writing so vastly superior to my own (read: readable), but this exceptional LA Weekly piece speaks to the last decade in Tom Cruise. The crux of the argument is simple and compelling, move beyond his personal beliefs and peccadilloes—we all have them—and forget the man jumping on the couch. It’s time to let Tom Cruise back into our hearts so he can save Big Hollywood from itself, and from us.

Tom Cruise is the last of the Movie Stars, yes with capital letters. Why do movie stars matter? The same reason a film like Edge of Tomorrow matters; as glorious as it is weightless, as gimmicky as it is sly, it serves as a reminder of the power of the blockbuster, and how remarkable Tom Cruise is even 31 years after his sock slide into our collective consciousness.

As box office returns diminish and movie studios become less risk averse, our cherished cinematic institutions careen toward the charisma vacuum. Franchises replace personalities, characters replace talent, and a reboot is more reliable than a bold idea attached to the right star. Edge of Tomorrow is not a perfect film, but it’s a damn good one. With its heady concept and dazzling execution, the film contains enough of that old star power to illuminate the majesty of the fading silver screen.

The first act of Edge of Tomorrow plays broad, just as it should. The overarching backdrop of alien invasion is heavily informed by the rise of fascism in Europe. A hybridization of WWI and WWII, up to and including references to Verdun and the Day of Days, it’s not subtle. The media, with handsome mouthpiece Cage as played by Cruise at the helm, sells the war to the public and doles out some exposition. There is even a map showing the tendrils of the alien invasion spreading across Europe. The map is colored in various, deepening shades of red, because that’s how you know it’s bad. 

Who are we fighting? Well…you know…aliens. They’re like if Sonic the Hedgehog and Predator had a love child born from a coke and booze-fueled lost weekend. Oh, and the alien(s) have a time-altering defense mechanism. Described in the film as the perfect invading/war making organism, all you really need to know is conceits count for very little in the face of such Hollywood grandeur.

And what grandeur Edge of Tomorrow has to offer. Articulated in as wide and thrilling a scope as I can recall, one set piece in particular—a sequence which too many words would only spoil—left me breathless. After an aural and visual throttling, I managed to turn to my seat mate and choke out, “that was fucking awesome!” I don’t talk during movies, and I don’t write in my cusses, but it was simply that impressive. And where a tilt-o-whirl of expertly rendered action is enough to satiate my action movie tooth, EoT has tremendous substance underneath that bullet slinging exoskeleton.

From a story standpoint, this is very much a relive-the-same-day boilerplate. You know the tropes—learning everything about everyone, repeating dialogue, humorous ‘resets,’ the struggle of countless failures within the relentless cycle—it’s all there, but no less fun. The trick with this narrative device is the moral gleaned from reliving the same day again and again, and this is the only capacity where the film falls short of its potential.

Edge of Tomorrow could have gambled and cut to black before its tacked on, logic annihilating ending. The result would have been as provocative a comment on the unbroken cycle of war as Hollywood epics are likely to make. One edit away from punching through to the realm of satirical, Sci-Fi brilliance, the decision makers opted for another tack. After all, pop songs don’t soar over the credits if you’ve just piled on a heaping helping of bummer. 

Emily Blunt adds strength to the film with her character’s unspoken depth etched into her striking demeanor. Bill Paxton plays a deceptively tricky role with aplomb. The surrounding cast is an ephemera of one-liners and recognizable character actors, but in the end, Edge of Tomorrow is Tom Cruise’s film. 

Much like the premise of the film, and the arc of his career, success is contingent on a willingness to come unstuck from a moment and confront the cycle. Tom Cruise is no savior, but he is a pillar. A bold appointment, one whose breadth is perhaps too far reaching, but Edge of Tomorrow proves Cruise pillar enough to prop up a Hollywood blockbuster worthy of the descriptor, ‘summer.’ And pillars have an uncanny ability to withstand time’s eroding echo.

--Monte Monreal