I remember being surprised by how good this movie was. I expected it to be some completely generic schlockbuster, but it turned out to have an interesting concept, with fewer tropes than it could have had. I remember liking Tom Cruise’s character, too. I thought he was going to be some tough guy G. I. Joetagonist, but he was actually kinda funny and relatable.
Yeah, I ignored it when it release, assuming it was just some stupid blockbuster action movie. I watched it recently when Christopher Bingham talked about it in his time loop series. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
Time Loop Movies

A bunch of videos all about various time loop films.

YouTube
I appreciated that at the height of the Thank you For your Service propaganda in the US, Cruise played a character that was honest about wanting to avoid combat.
The first half of the movie is good but in the second half it just becomes a generic action movie and it sucks.
Agree. It has all the usual blockbuster adornments of what usually turns out to be a good guys win linear snooze fest. I prefer Cruise in atypical roles, e.g. Tropic Thunder.

What made it a better Tom Cruise movie was that he wasn’t Tom Cruise right away.

In his movies he is always the best soldier and never makes a mistake, in this he started off unlikable and had to become the best, one mistake at a time.