I really appreciated how they built toward the ending. Clearly, he was going to "not die", get a transfusion, and lose the power, setting up a last chance for victory scenario. I didn't foresee him regaining the power, simply because it would undo everything if he did a reset. He can reset time, not alter reality! If he regains the power, and dies, all he can do is reset time to a point prior to the defeat of the Omega. So if time is reset to the point where he and Rita (and, presumably, the entire company of soldiers) were never killed, how the fuck is Omega dead?! All he could possibly do is reset time and alter their plan to try to kill Omega (again) without everyone else dying, right? And why does he reset to a day earlier than he was previously returning?

Omega is dead and so are the rest of the aliens. He absorbed what was left of the goo from Omega. In essence, Cage is the new "Omega." He's patient zero so to speak.

optimistic.

But I don't care how powerful he is, if he resets time to two days before he killed Omega, then Omega is still alive. He can control time, not reality.

If the Omega is destroyed and Cage is the new 'Omega' being able to control time, I imagine he would also control all the mimics since the assumption was that they were all connected as a type of hive-mind, and therefore he could either control them, or they would just stop functioning. I guess it's a bit of a paradox, but Wikipedia's plot summery says "Brigham announces that the Mimics have seemingly given up" which seems to point that Cruise's existence in any past day means the Mimics would stop regardless.

As far as waking up an extra day before, I don't think much of it other then the events that kick off all this wackiness is because of that helicopter ride and being sent to the war, so that's where his subconscious took him.

I thought Cruise and Blunt were terrific and I liked their characters a lot. I wanted them to win. I think it would have been a major buzzkill if the movie ended on a somber note, because it was already somber enough as it was. When he smiles at her at the end and then it cuts to the credits was perfect.

Hopefully seeing it sometime this week.

One possible explanation is fairly simple. Cruise is NOT doing the resets the Omega is. The Omega resets time when an alpha dies. It is a signal to start a different path for a better outcome. Cruise seems like an Alpha to to the Omega so everytime he dies he resets time. To do this the Omega needs an anchor in time before the point at which he resets to. Once it gets a result it likes it resets that anchor. When Cruise kills the Omega he also kills an Alpha, which is a very bad result, so it uses the anchor time but since he is dead (the Omega) all versions of the the Omega (the current future, and the anchor point) are now dead. The anchor point was a day before the reset day for Cruise so he went there, but the Omega is dead at that point now so no more resets are possible and the Omega is dead too. This explanation assumes Cruise did not do the reset at the end himself which it appeared he might have. Also, it is unclear he truly lost the ability to reset after the blood transfusion

was a dream. At least it felt that way to them.

has nothing to do with the mix of Alpha and Omega being killed, but essentially presumes that the Omega has some extra-dimensional aspect, which grants it the time-altering ability, but which also means that the resets are part of the Omega's linear timeline. The problem I had with fumanstan's suggestion is that the Omega would be alive again after the reset, so the best you could hope for would be two Omegas, the original and Cage, struggling for control of the hive, and I couldn't see Cage winning that battle against an experienced Omega. But if reset-time is linear for the Omega, then dead is dead, even if another (new) Omega resets time. This would make sense, would explain why the Alphas and the rest of the Mimics are so expendable, but the Omage is so protected... because it is vulnerable.

Why did the general go to such extreme lengths to not only send Cage into combat, but to virtually guarantee he'd be killed? He not only was sending essentially a PR flack into combat, he framed him for being a deserter.

The general mentioned something about people looking to pin the blame on him for how the war went, but was there evidence that Cage was targeting him for some reason? I don't think that was explained very well.

Any insights?

The general was originally planning to send him as an observer, but once Cage started refusing orders, then threatening to blackmail him, and then trying to run away, the General was so pissed off that he essentially arranged for Cage to be sent off to his own death.