Groundhog Day is a stone-cold comedy classic, the singular achievement which was heralded above all others when director Harold Ramis sadly passed away earlier this year, and undoubtedly the greatest achievement of Bill Murray's career. Probably Andie Macdowell's, too, but we pay a lot less close attention to her's. The performances are all dead-on (shout out to Stephen Tobolowsky!), there's countless iconic lines of dialogue, and the tone is just right. Right at the core of all that, however, is the real reason Groundhog Day has become some firmly lodged in the film-watching populace's consciousness: it's that irrepressibly ingenious premise, the idea of a man trapped reliving the same day over and over again, until he gets it "right". Ramis said he was inspired by Buddhist conceptions of reincarnation, and originally the film had a much darker tone, with Murray's desperate weather reporter repeatedly committing suicide in various gruesome ways, hoping to escape the waking nightmare of his neverending day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Now imagine that same premise, with a similar amount of death, albeit transposed to a summer sci-fi blockbuster template, rather than a Bill Murray rom-com. Congratulations, you just pitched Edge Of Tomorrow, this year's big comeback film for Tom Cruise which was surprisingly great! The poster boy for Scientology got roped into gunning down alien invaders over and over again, until he managed not to get squished by them, with a similar dark vein of humour to Groundhog Day. Technically we guess the rip-off happened with the Japanese novel it was based on, All You Need Is Kill, but whatevs.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
