Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Released:  July 31^st, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Paramount Pictures

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, Alec Baldwin

Directed by:  Christopher McQuarrie

Written by:  Christopher McQuarrie

Personal Bias Alert:  never seen a M:I movie, likes Tom Cruise

8 of 10

            Ah, Tom Cruise, the man who jumped onto a couch and (allegedly) killed his career.  It’s true that since that incident only 5 of his 11 films have grossed more than $100 million domestically and his public persona has been overcome by the odd actions many link to his religious beliefs, but the reality is that Cruise was unfairly judged for expressing exuberant love all those years ago.  Americans are now suspicious of their once-beloved movie star, but anyone willing to give his films a chance know that his magnetism hasn’t faded.  Now, Cruise has passed the 50-year mark, entering the later portion of a career that he has worked diligently to construct, and it’s a shame that he’s relegated to rebuilding instead of reaping from a diverse career.  Still, he’s got his action stalwart Mission:  Impossible series to hang from, and it’s only a matter of time before audiences realize that he brings the same level of enthusiasm and effort to all his other films as well.

            Rogue Nation, the fifth installment of the series, finds Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his fellow IMF agents hunting a shadowy organization called the Syndicate.  The CIA doesn’t even buy that the group exists, and after forcing the IMF to disband and declaring Hunt a threat, the team must track down and stop the group without the aid of official backing.  As is wont to happen in this series, that means an endless parade of action spectacle, a series of setup and execution scenes that loosely build to a climax and have a great time getting there.  It’s not the most artful affair; in fact, most of its elements are straight genre stalwarts, but the pacing is excellent, moving swiftly between set pieces and explaining things just enough so that everyone’s motivations make sense.  This sucker is tailor-made for blockbuster season (despite its initial release date in December), and it’s one of the best to grace our screens this summer.

            The other great of the season, Mad Max:  Fury Road, shares many similarities with Rogue Nation, perhaps providing a template for commercially and critically successful action films for years to come.  Both films lean heavily on live stunts, meaning that what you see is what actually happened, and the palpable realism of these sequences is what left so many slack-jawed.  In case you didn’t already know, Tom Cruise was tied to a plane that actually took off with him outside, a stunt that few other actors (or human beings, for that matter) would try in the age of CGI.  Why would he risk it?  Because Cruise wants to entertain us, and he knows that audiences can still tell the difference between reality and fiction.  Putting real people in elaborately (and brilliantly) staged sequences allows the cameramen and the characters to react to the insanity happening around them, adding a frenzied liveliness that CGI work simply hasn’t been able to replicate.  Delivering these breathless moments in an efficient fashion is what so impresses people, and both of these films have the pacing and dedication that sets themselves apart.

            Cruise, of course, is a known asset to these sorts of films, carrying the banner for live stunts and old-school movie stardom at a time when no one else seems committed to either.  The big find of the film is his female costar, Rebecca Ferguson.  She struts through the film as a real-life badass, handling the action and the exposition with a charm that equals her scene-mate, even outshining him with her more nuanced quiet moments.  She is the true second lead of the film, with Simon Pegg coming in at a close third, and the trio is a delight to watch navigate their character’s twisty relationships.  The movie relies less on a clear plot and more on keeping you on your toes, and all the cast pulls off this light-but-serious balance that other similar series seem unable to locate.

            While never crossing into silly territory, Rogue Nation is very shallow, fading from your mind quickly after you walk out of the theater.  The generic plot and barely memorable villain is its downfall, but these are mere quibbles when you’re sitting in the theater.  What Rogue Nation gives you is a thoroughly American film filled with astounding violence, one that remembers that modern audiences don’t want to see their heroes ride off into the sunset.  We prefer to see them limp off to the next battle.

Other Notes:

Ø  Get ready for more of Rebecca Ferguson.  There’s no way she walks away from this and her upcoming film with Meryl Streep without getting stacks of scripts to choose from.

Ø  Ferguson is also the youngest main cast member at 31.  Take that young Hollywood.

Ø  If you like this, go back and watch last year’s Edge of Tomorrow.  You won’t be disappointed.

Minority Report

Released:  June 21^st, 2002

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  20^th Century Fox

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg           

Written by:  Scott Frank, Jon Cohen

Personal Bias Alert:  likes exploration of ideas, weirded out by Neal McDonough

5.5 of 10

            I’m pretty sure I saw Minority Report when it was released.  I remember the screens sliding around, expanding, overlapping, moving in a way entirely unknown to me at the time.  I also remember Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise-y, although I could be getting that confused with all the other times he’s played that character.  Problem is, I didn’t remember anything else; the story has slid so far out of my mind that its twists and turns seemed fresh and new to me when I re-watched it.  I’m sure they were in my brain somewhere, right next to The Bridges of Madison County and that one episode of Futurama, but I find the movie so utterly forgettable that I can already feel it sliding out of my head all over again.

            Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, Minority Report follows John Anderton (Tom Cruise), the leader of a group of cops who use the predictions generated by three psychic “precog” humans to arrest murderers before they commit the act.  The legality and accuracy of this is brought into question, and the department is investigated by a government representative named Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell).  After an unusual prediction by the precogs, Anderton’s life is thrown into disarray and the holes in the department are left open for Witwer to see.

            A lot of the appeal of Minority Report comes from its sleek vision of the future, with just out of reach technology (some of which we’re already seeing today) and a modern architectural style that compliments the film’s overexposed lighting.  It looks good, but it’s also a world we could envision ourselves in.  That’s a sweet spot to hit in sci-fi that appeals to hard core and transient fans alike.  Except for the cars.  Those were just a bit too strange.

            At its heart, Minority Report is an action film, so it spends a good chunk of its time in long, semi-silly fight scenes.  These are staged all right, but they’re pretty generic and had a few moments that made me unintentionally chuckle (listen to those punching sounds in Cruise and Farrell’s fistfight and try not to laugh).  Since Cruise can pull off action sequences and borderline cheesy lines with the best of them, he’s an excellent fit for the lead role.  You can never question his commitment to a film.  His wholehearted effort always shines through, so it’s too bad that he’s left with a one-note character and no arc in this one.  He tries, but there’s no saving a character written this lazily.

            There is an effort to bring some age-old sci-fi dilemmas into the mix, but the film’s more successful at bringing them up than actually exploring them.  I’m hesitant to give the screenwriters much credit for the ideas themselves, as I’m almost certain they were lifted straight from the Philip K. Dick short story.  Since they don’t expand on them, the film really does nothing with its ideas, treating them more as plot points than themes.  The screenwriters then chose to handle them with dull, on-the-nose dialogue that makes the ideas feel more labored than revelatory and makes this whole aspect of the film a real let-down.

            There are a couple scenes towards the end that really click, and for a moment I thought the film was going to recover from its lackluster middle section.  The film is directed by Spielberg, after all, which always gives you reason to hope for an entertaining but substantive piece.  Too often, though, Spielberg fails to find the right mix, and here the entertainment portion wins out.  The ending abandons the momentum it started to build and goes for a big, silly finish that doesn’t make much sense.

            Actually, most of the film doesn’t make much sense.  The plot holes are pretty big, and when sci-fi writers fail to make their world plausible, I tend to check out.  That’s what happened with me and Minority Report.  I smelled a manipulative, soft sci-fi story from the beginning, and that’s pretty much what I got.

Other Notes (Ridiculous Sci-Fi Version):

Ø  My advanced technology is always thwarted by towels shoved under a door.

Ø  How would the alarms not go off when he scans his old eye?

Ø  Aw, there’s a flush button.

Ø  It’s saggy Tom Cruise!

Other Notes (Regular Version):

Ø  I found the score a bit too overbearing.

Ø  Don’t name your film after a MacGuffin.

Ø  We interrupt this sci-fi action movie to bring you a Gap ad.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Released:  June 6^th, 2014

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  Warner Bros.

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson

Directed by:  Doug Liman 

Written by:  Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth

Personal Bias Alert:  likes time travel stories, not averse to Tom Cruise

8.7 of 10

            After seeing this film, I immediately texted my friend “find out nothing about ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ and go see it.”  It really is a film best seen cold, which brings up an old, tired dilemma for reviewers:  how do you talk about a film without talking about it?  There’s no good answer, so I’m going to try to balance my bubbling desire to talk about this film with my equally strong desire for everyone to go see it and have as much fun as I did.  Translation:  I’m going to be as vague as possible, but I encourage everyone to take the advice I texted my friend.  Stop reading this unless you’ve seen the film.  Please.

            Tom Cruise plays William Cage, a spokesperson turned soldier for the allied human forces fighting a species of alien invaders.  The aliens are marching across Europe, greatly helped by their ability to reset time.  Meaning, if things go wrong, they can rewind and start things over again until they get it right.  Humanity has recently landed a rare victory at Verdun, which prompts an ambitious, three-pronged attack against the aliens.  Cage is sent to the shores of France to participate in the first wave, only to witness the human forces be slaughtered and eventually be killed himself.  But he, in the process of killing an alien, absorbs their reset power and begins reliving the 24 hours preceding the invasion over and over again.  His task becomes to change the outcome of the attack, save humanity, yada yada yada.  He is helped by Verdun hero Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), one of the few people who believes his insane story.

            Now that’s just the setup, which, like here, does take some time to get through.  It’s something we’ve seen before, and this portion of the film does feel a bit tired.  It’s a necessary thing to get through, though, and there are moments of humor and some great battle sequences to keep you from getting too bored.  It’s what happens after this setup that makes the movie great, unfolding in zigs and zags as they try to figure out how the day needs to play out.  I’ve seen these sorts of movies before, and I was pleasantly surprised with the turns the film took.

            Cruise is made for these roles, either that or he’s done them so many times they have become part of his DNA.  He sells the crazy stuff happening, lands the jokes, and is incredibly watchable while doing it.  I don’t know what it is about movie stars like him, but they are just able to command a viewer’s attention.  Blunt is another great choice, but she’s not so obvious a fit as Cruise.  Then again, Cruise isn’t a young man anymore, and casting a slight woman and an aging man as your leads in an action film is kind of daring.  It works here because it sells the premise that his reset ability is what’s important.  It also lends an odd couple feel to the whole thing, which is the source of a decent amount of the film’s humor.  That humor keeps things from getting too dark, something the film flirts with throughout its midsection.  Part of me wanted it to go there, but then again, that would have slowed things down.  The steadily building plot is the strongest part of the film, so I’m fine with that particular choice.

            You’ve probably seen promos that heavily feature the robotic exoskeletons that humans wear as they fight the aliens.  They’re cool, but I also like that they didn’t give the soldier’s too much power.  They aren’t running around blowing everything up like super soldiers.  The suit the actors wore was supposedly very heavy (85 pounds).  I’m sure those were a pain to film in, but I loved that you could see the actor’s stance and gait change under the weight.  It really helps sell some of the action sequences, but others are hampered by blurry images that I can’t be sure were due to bad effects or bad camerawork.

            The plot is the star here, and I was enthralled by it.  At one point, I came out of my reverie and realized that I wasn’t paying attention to lighting, music, or any of the other technical stuff I should make note of in my review.  I was just having much fun with it, so I said screw it and dropped right back into the story.

            Other Notes:

Ø  The characters can be a bit thin, but then again, most of them never go through more than a day’s change.

Ø  For a time travel movie, there are remarkably few plot holes.  There’s always some, though.

Ø  Nice tie-ins to both world wars.  Verdun was the site of a major WWI battle and the invasion sequence looks like D-Day from WWII.

Ø  I wish it didn’t end that way.  It really feels false and tacked on.