SINGAPORE — To say I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Edge Of Tomorrow is somewhat of an understatement. Perhaps I came with lower expectations but director Doug Liman’s sci-fi actioner, based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel All You Need Is Kill, is genuinely fun. It imaginatively ticks all the right time-travel action genre boxes while, at the same time, throwing us for a loop with its surprisingly good mix of humour and action.

The director who gave us The Bourne Identity more than delivers on the film’s intriguing, if a little unoriginal, premise. Mankind is fighting invading aliens and Tom Cruise’s cowardly Major William Cage is forced to endure the same battle over and over again when he’s sent in a time loop.

It’s Groundhog Day-meets-Starship Troopers-meets-Source Code, and it’s a blast. Cruise is in top form, showing he has both the mettle and skills to still pick great material and carry a film. He has great chemistry with Emily Blunt as star soldier Rita Vrataski, who is as bad-ass as they come.

The action is enormously thrilling with clever editing and pacing that give credit to an audience intelligent enough to keep up and keep track. Perhaps the only wrong foot placed here is the somewhat frustrating and feebly envisaged finish, which may or may not be big studio meddling. For what it’s worth, at least it’ll spur on a lively post film discussion long after the credits roll.

(PG13. 113 mins)