That we would get a Tom Cruise summer sci-fi action flick as forgettable as Oblivion last year, and one as fun as Edge of Tomorrow this year, just kinda puts into perspective how much better summer 2014 has been compared to years past. It’s a little sad that EoT gets a heaping helping of bonus points for feeling like an original creation, because its problems are ones shared with a lot of the other sequel/reboot blockbusters out there. Mainly, its third act is a cliché fireworks display and the ending is something of a let down.

But, man, all things considered, I still left my screening of this with the sort of charge that you often won’t get from tentpole releases. Pacific Rim was last year’s original property surprise for me, and while EoT isn’t quite up to that level of originality or purity of insanity, it’s admirably close. Perhaps the collective surprise at how good the film really is has as much to do with its premise as it does its quality: Tom Cruise plays a Tom Cruise hero, Cage, as he relives the same day of combat against an alien menace over and over again. Dying causes Cage to wakeup hours earlier on the same day, leaving him to figure out how to stop the invaders, and how it is he’s gotten into this Groundhog Day­-style loop.

When the studio changed the movie’s name from the gleefully aggressive All You Need is Kill to something as generic as Edge of Tomorrow, my worry was all the unique and weird edges of the premise would be sanded off as well. Far from it: director Doug Liman and writer Chris McQuarrie play into their central hook for all it’s worth, and as a result, the picture makes for an engaging philosophical mind-bender that’s also a flat-out hilarious action-adventure ride to boot. Montages of Cruise getting himself splattered, blown-up and toasted make for grim, hysterical breaths of fresh air, as the usual summer movie playbook gets flipped on its head once it becomes clear just how vincible Cage is compared to every other action movie hero.

I wrote about this more in the comments section over at film site The Dissolve (the comment then being highlighted for discussion in the link above), but I saw a real subversive streak in Edge of Tomorrow that gave it a lot of juice. Shame it hasn’t done better at the box office, as original blockbusters like this should be the rule, not the exception.