Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation pits Tom Cruise and his pals against SPECTRE KAOS HYDRA SMERSH COBRA FOWL VILE SCORPIO – aw, jeez, guys.  “The Syndicate?”  You’re putting them up against “The Syndicate?”  I could come up with five better names for evil organizations right off the top of my head:  1. SPAWN (Special Project for Anarchy, War, and Nachos (seriously, those things are really bad for you)); 2. OUCH (Organization to Undermine Capitalist Hypocrisy); 4.  MTI (Moustache Twirlers International); 5. The Bay City Rollers.  Honestly, this stuff isn’t hard.

Fortunately, choosing a boring moniker for the villains appears to be the only serious shortcut taken by this latest entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise.  Here’s a spy fantasy with a cleverly written script, well-shot action set pieces, cool gadgets, a beautiful heroine, and movie star’s movie star Tom Cruise busting his tukkas in one incredible stunt sequence after another.  This movie has exotic locales,  gymkata, motorcycle chases, gunfights, even a hacker character pushing a big red button – I mean, it has it all.  Best of all, it has laugh-out loud humor, a wonderful sense of fun, and absolutely world-class production values.  

While it can’t boast a sequence that tops the amazing Burj Khalifa bit from Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, this entry in the series delivers everything one could possibly hope for from this kind of film.  If you like this genre, I don’t see how you could possibly not enjoy Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.

The Adventures of TinTin

The Adventures of TinTin is a wonderful movie.

This animated adventure, filmed with a motion capture technique that keeps us just this side of the uncanny valley, features ‘splosions, chases, floods, storms at sea, pirates, more ‘splosions, elaborate and exhilarating chases, a massive flood, a great mystery, and gun battles in which all of TinTin’s adversaries seem to forget how to aim at just the right moment..  What more do you want?

Here’s the setup: TinTin, an investigative reporter, finds himself in the middle of a mystery.  He has, unwittingly, purchased that most dangerous of all objects: a Maguffin.  Problem is, he’s unsure exactly what the Maguffin is and why anyone would want it, much less kill for it. 

The Maguffin, of course, is just a reason to get TinTin on the road to adventure, just as Maguffins have in the past and, one assumes, they will again.  The joy of TinTin lies in the road itself, in the delightfully idiosyncratic characters our protagonist meets there, and in the flawless execution of the film’s elaborate set pieces. 

Though created with 3D in mind, the film looks beautiful on an iPad, its voice acting is first rate, and its story blends just the right amounts of danger and levity.  I can’t wait for the sequel.

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol had me at the opening credits.  I’d forgotten that Brad Bird directed this film, and seeing his name flash on the screen assured me that I was in for a good time.

You see, Brad Bird directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille.  The Incredibles is the greatest superhero movie ever made, and Ratatouille moved me to stand and applaud when its credits rolled, something I’ve done exactly once.  This guy knows what he’s doing and it shows in this, his first live-action feature.

The Mission: Impossible movies imagine what James Bond would be like if he weren’t a sociopath.  Tom Cruise, as secret agent Ethan Hunt, can actually make and sustain friendships, lead people, and present himself as more than a collection of top-shelf stuff he read about in men’s lifestyle magazines.  This gives us an “in” to his character that the 007 movies simply can’t deliver.  This matters, because it overcomes the fact that this spy thriller is just another entry in the “stop a madman out to destroy the world / corner the market on X / extort ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the UN” genre.  We like Ethan in a way that we simply can’t like Bond.  We like his team, which includes recently omnipresent Doctor Who alumnus Simon Pegg.  We like his boss.  By God, we like the Impossible Missions Force, whose self-destructing messaging systems sometimes need a little whack to, y’know, actually self-destruct.  So we’re on board when things get rough.

And rough they get, giving Bird a reason to deliver breathtaking action set-pieces.  I’ve flown over Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower a zillion times, but it took this film to bring home its awesome height.  I’ve been in sandstorms, but the sandstorm here felt more dangerous and more awesome than any I’ve actually experienced.  As a film buff, I’ve seen more stunt fights in industrial settings than I can remember; but I’ve never seen a stunt fight like the one this delivers in its climax.

A friend of mine recently said that Brad Bird should get a Bond film.  I say that Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol is as good as spy action-thrillers get, and better than any Bond film I can readily recall.  Brad Bird hasn’t just raised the bar.  He’s built a better bar, taller and stronger and cooler and just plain more fun than the bars that have gone before.

I can’t praise Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol enough.  Brad Bird knows what he’s doing.

PS  … except for that last scene, which looked like it was filmed on different stock and tied everything up far too neatly.  Hey, people who follow this kind of thing: was this a reshoot thing?  I just don’t understand how you do two hours of excellence, only to go mundane at the wrap.  Thoughts?

Star Trek

STAR TREK does all the things a good summer action movie should do. It has pathos. It has jokes. It has sex. It blows lots of stuff up real good. It's also a surprisingly good picture, one made to entertain the general public while throwing plenty of bones to the trekkies in the audience.

Here's the deal: the charismatic and dangerous Eric Bana (Really, you should see CHOPPER) plays an angry guy out for revenge through multi-planetary genocide. BOTTLE SHOCK's terrific Chris Pine is li'l Captain James T. Kirk, the only cat in the Federation bad enough to take him on. Joining li'l Kirk is li'l Spock, li'l McCoy, and the rest of the gang. They crack jokes. They have conflict. They blow stuff up. Li'l Spock gives li'l Kirk one of those manly nods of the head saying, "I guess you're ok, after all." Most importantly, Leonard Nimoy shows up as Big Spock, and there is no such thing as a film that is worse off for the presence of one Leonard Nimoy.

The thing about "Star Trek" that the post - original series showrunners never got was that nobody cares about make believe diplomacy among imaginary alien races. Nobody cares about heavy handed, though well meaning, depictions of of the Marxist utopia of the future. People care about the friendship of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. That's the dynamic that has always made Star Trek worth watching, and J.J. Abrams gets it. STAR TREK may spend lots of time on space battles and angry villains, but it's really about that friendship, about sharing in the feeling that there are people around you who've got your back. It's a good feeling, and it's a good way to spend a couple of hours at the movies.

Hot Fuzz

HOT FUZZ is better than SHAUN OF THE DEAD. And I liked SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

SHAUN breaks down a bit in the third act, when it transitions from "zombie comedy" to "zombie horror." FUZZ, on the other hand, benefits from the action tradition it gently mocks - there's plenty of room for comedy in an action picture, and this film uses every square inch of it.

Here's the setup: Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is such a great London cop that he's superiors (Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy) transfer him to a quiet little village in the country, where he won't make everyone else look so bad. Once he gets there, he finds that someone, presumably the creepily hale proprietor of the local supermarket (Timothy Dalton, finding the scenery delicious), is committing murder that would be most foul if it weren't in retribution for doing things like putting on laughably bad productions of "Romeo and Juliet." From there, as any action-movie aficionado can tell you, it's but a short step to massive explosions, the crackle of automatic gunfire, and a fugitive swan.

It's loads of fun, with wonderful comic turns from a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, and even Peter Jackson. It features gags from broad to subtle, as well as surprising performances from Timothy Dalton and Paddy Considine, two actors I don't normally associate with comedy. HOT FUZZ kept me chuckling from beginning to end.

What a delightful film.