Mission Impossible: Fallout

I know it's the sixth film in an action franchise staring a grade-A jerk, but these movies are awesome generally, and this one is specifically top tier.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is the first film in the series to repeat with a director and it also serves as a direct sequel (the love interest and villian from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation return) as well. I was initially hesitant to much of thar, but the film is all the better for it given how great Tom Cruise's chemistry is with Rebecca Ferguson's Illsa Faust and uow insync Cruise is with Christopher McQuarrie.

I love how this one distinguishes itself by leaning into the neurosis of Ethan Hunt -- so much of what has become fun about watching Cruise in these is in his daring, physicality and reaction shots, but here they really build out the character as an anxiety timebomb, and I love that.

The helicopter chase scene is bananas, the Paris car chase scene is even better, and the bathroom fight scene is worthy of all the memes, but my favorite moment is how Cruise plays the realization that his ex (Michelle Monaghan) is in the same location as an armed nuclear bomb (the start of which is shown below). The way he says Julia crushes me every time. Cruise pulled a similar trick in showing vulerability in a key moment of Edge of Tomorrow, and these scenes encapsulate so well why Cruise is the best action movie star out there. Not only can he do his own stunts, but he can absolutely bring the acting chops.

My one critique is that the opening scene (and thus much of the plot) necessitates a level of stupidity on the part of these very smart operatives, but it's not enough to dim the wattage here. This is a great entry in a phenominal franchise.

Cruise Leads All Star Team In "Mission: Impossible -- Rouge Nation"

Rebecca Ferguson provides an excellent sparing partner for Tom Cruise.



I’m going to go out on a limb and say it: Tom Cruise is the greatest action star of all time.

For some people, that statement is craziness, mostly because Cruise doesn’t have the physicality of Schawarzenegger or the innate toughness of Eastwood.

But just look at the films and tell me which other actor has a better body of work within the genre. I’d put the threesome of Collateral, Minority Report and Edge of Tomorrow (my review here) up against pretty much anything. Hell, even Cruise’s lower tier stuff – Jack Reacher, Oblivion (my review here), Knight and Day – would wipe the floor with the best many other action stars have to offer. And, I’ve said all of this without even including the trump card that would be the Mission: Impossible series, which recently became even more impressive with the release of the wonderful Mission: Impossible – Rouge Nation.

Right off the bat, Rouge Nation calls on Cruise’s greatest appeal as an action star – his reckless commitment. The focus of the film’s ad campaign has been the scene where Cruise hangs off of an Airbus A400M, and yet the stunt occurs minutes into the film, a little appetizer to jack up the audience. You could argue it's a superfluous scene, but really it's quite meaningful in how it sets up the film's meta narrative.

Just as Skyfall explored the relevance of James Bond and the MI6 in today's world, Rouge Nation questions the need for Ethan Hunt and the IMF. Early in the film, Alec Baldwin's CIA director insists Hunt is a reckless gambler and that the IMF is an extravagant, outdated organization that should be dissolved, but eventually he gets on board, saying "Ethan Hunt is the living embodiment of destiny."

That all might as well be a commentary on Cruise, a big-money superstar who is largely a remnant of a bygone era when movie stars were sustainably bankable. It's a different world now, but Cruise is still chugging along, wowing us with the real-world peril he puts himself in to sell these confections to audiences. There's a few cracks here and there, but he's mostly an ageless marvel, and he carries it all off with such precision, dedication and good humor.

The plot has something to do with The Syndicate, a rouge spy organization pulled right from the old TV show, but the specifics are pretty irrelevant. Like all Mission flicks, Rouge Nation simply revolves around Cruise needing to get some item (usually a list, code, or both) that's impossible to get. Differentiation comes down to the director at the helm, the team of cohorts working alongside Cruise, and the set pieces that prop the film up.

Christopher McQuarrie isn't nearly as definitive as the other directors to take a turn on this series, but I like what he does here, combining Brad Bird's jaunty tone (Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol) with Brian DePalma's Hitchcockian tension (Mission: Impossible). Like it's immediate predecessor, Rouge Nation continues the hard-right turn into romp territory, and, I'll just say that it's amazing how much comedy these last two movies have gotten out of Cruise's minimalism. Guy does so much with a shrug or a glance. Meanwhile, The set pieces live up to the high bar set by previous entries in the series. I have an affinity for the staging of the tense opera sequence, but the water scene at the center of the film is a doozy, up there with the very best the series has done.

But Rouge Nation really excels when it comes to the team, a veritable who's who of the series' bests. After sitting most of the last entry out, long-time sidekick Luther Stickel (Ving Rhames) is back in action, along with Benji (Simon Pegg) and Brandt (Jermey Renner). Renner gets less to do this time out (he's mostly comic relief alongside Baldwin or Rhames), but Pegg shines here as he takes another step toward basically becoming a co-lead in the series.

Paula Patton is the only main player from Ghost Protocol who isn't back because, you know, sexism. Fortunately, the trade off means we get a large dose of Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, an agent who may or may not be a loyal member of The Syndicate. Ferguson combines vulnerability and nerve into a fascinating package, giving the type of performance that makes you sit up and ask, "Who is this actor, and why aren't they in everything?" The relationship doesn't get full-on romantic (after that last scene in Ghost Protocol, it's still unclear where Hunt stands with his wife), but the actors have oodles of chemistry. At the film's end you're dying to see more of Ilsa, and I hope Cruise and his collaborators don't jettison Ferguson once they start breaking the story for the inevitable sixth entry in the series.

For what it's worth, Rouge Nation nestles right in at two on my list of favorite Mission flicks, right in between Ghost Protocol and the original. Honestly, it's hard for me to rank all but but the second film, which is decent enough, but definitely rates last. That's because these films are such finely-tuned entertainments. It's barely greenlit, and I'm already excited for the next one. A-

"Edge of Tomorrow" Provides Fun Commentary on Gaming Experience

Edge of Tomorrow plays with the time loop concept previously seen

in the likes of Groundhog Day and Source Code.

Edge of Tomorrow is Tom Cruise’s latest foray into science fiction. In the film, he plays Major William Cage a smarmy, army publicist who pisses off the wrong general leading to his getting thrown on the front lines of a battle against an invading alien force. Ill prepared for combat, Cage dies within minutes, but somehow he winds up in a time loop, forcing him to relive the experience again and again.

 

Cage’s situation enables him the opportunity to learn his environment, improve his skills, and, potentially, take down the seemingly unbeatable aliens (called mimics) once and for all. It also allows him to grow close to Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a celebrated war hero who understands what he’s going through because she experienced the same thing earlier in the war.

 

Watching a film like this, it’s hard not to immediately draw parallels to other films, which neatly ties into thoughts from my last piece, a review that touched on how it’s impossible to judge films in a vacuum. A lot of people are labeling Edge of Tomorrow as Groundhog Day with action (an idea given extra relevance by the love interest having the name Rita), but Next and Source Code are even better comparison points given their genre trappings.

 

Director Doug Liman gets a lot of mileage out of the premise, using many of the same tricks employed by Groundhog Day and Source Code to not only avoid monotony, but also to provide a great deal of exposition, humor and depth. As happened in those films, our lead begins to fall for the girl, but, unfortunately, although he has developed feelings and gotten to know this woman over weeks, years, decades or more, she can’t know him at all.

 

There is a great scene set on a farm in which Cage tries to stall their next step, because he just wants to live in the moment with Rita and knows that, no matter what he does in this setting, she will soon take action in a way that ends her life. However, the script tells a lot more than it shows, and I would’ve preferred an additional scene or two showing Cage and Rita’s developing bond. Cruise deserves credit for doing a lot of heavy lifting to overcome that issue.

 

This is yet another science fiction movie that boils down to taking out

a central hub to neutralize an alien threat.

One major positive to having an clued-in love interest in a film like this is that Rita is aware what Cage going through, which at least helps circumvent the “if you think about it” issue that plagued the other two films. For instance, in Groundhog Day, I was always amused by the fact Phil (Bill Murray) is finally able to land Rita (Andie MacDowell) on the day he barely spends any time with her at all (since he’s so busy helping out the townsfolk). Spending an entire day romancing the woman gets him nowhere, but building himself into a local legend and sculpting one ice sculpture makes her willing to not only sleep with him, but to drop everything in her life, marry the guy and move to Punxsutawney as well.

 

That’s not enough to kill Groundhog Day – it’s actually my all-time favorite movie, and it’s not like we haven’t gotten a chance to see that relationship develop – but it is one of the best examples I can think of when a movie goes “forget the logic – all that matters is that it works for the audience” (another example: the whole “T-Rex pushes the car over the cliff that wasn’t there” thing in Jurassic Park). At least in Edge of Tomorrow, Rita knows they must have formed a bond and is able to judge Cage and react to him based on that knowledge.

 

Beyond the inclusion of a strong, in-the-know female, Edge of Tomorrow also distinguishes itself as a clever commentary on the video gaming experience. Cage is dropped into a very Halo-esque scenario each day, and when he dies he respawns back where he started, ready to learn from his mistakes and advance. The film has a great deal of fun with Cage’s exasperation related to his failures. Even though Liman edits the film so that we aren’t seeing the same things over and over again, there’s an underlying understanding that Cage is going through the motions each day to get the his last point of death. Cruise humorously translates the frustration every gamer has felt as the film wears on and he fails to make progress – one training scene even has him try to convince Blunt he’s good to continue despite having broken his leg just so he doesn’t have to go through the motions of getting to this point again.

 

The film is pretty great from start to finish, but it really crackles in the middle third. I was somewhat annoyed it devolves into the typical mission concerned with blowing up a central hub, which, if you recall, also occurred in Cruise’s last sci-fi vehicle Oblivion (Why do so many damn movies resort to this plot point? The only trope more popular in the action genre seems to be the powerful object that falls into the wrong hands). It’s a little more forgivable here given that this movie is intentionally aping and commenting on what it’s like to play a video game, and, well, that’s a pretty common endpoint in alien invasion first-person shooters.

 

The film concludes with a questionable denouement that arbitrarily betrays the established logic of the film. It’s sort of cribbed right from Next, but not as annoying as it was there, because it feels more earned (I’m trying not to ruin either movie here, but if you’ve seen both, you’ll get what I mean). Regardless, as with Groundhog Day, the ending isn’t enough to hurt my view of the film. Edge of Tomorrow is an enjoyable, smart and well-drawn actioner – the kind it would behoove Hollywood to make a lot more of. A-

Oblivion Plays Like a Decent Enough Mash-up of Other, Better Sci-Fi Films

There's some pretty remarkable sets in this film.

Note: This review has heavy spoilers.

There are several things I like about Oblivion, the Tom Cruise sci-fi movie from earlier this year that focuses on a pair of humans charged with mop-up duty on Earth in the aftermath of a major alien war. But there’s also a lot of cliché riddled crap and shortcut taking that makes the film play like an inferior mash-up of a dozen better examples from the genre, particularly The Matrix, Wall-E and Moon.

On the plus side, it’s absolutely gorgeous. Writer/director Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) has a background in architecture, and he puts it to good use here, crafting sleek visuals and eye popping production designs that do a great job of rooting the film in a specific aesthetic.

It also plays with some interesting ideas related to the nature of identity and how concepts like cloning and memory play into that. Is there something tangible about our unique individuality or are we just a collection of our thoughts and memories? This stuff is nothing new, but the film takes an interesting stance that reminded me of my favorite line from Danny Boyle’s Trance (my review here) – “To be yourself you have to constantly remember yourself.”

I was particularly intrigued by the notion that Cruise’s Tech 49 Jack feels a pull toward his previous life, while Tech 49 Victoria (Andrea Risborough) is totally content to be oblivious. T49 Jack dreams of the real Jack’s experiences with wife Julia (Olga Kurylenko) and says it feels more like memories, but it is implied that T49 Victoria is living out the dream of the original Victoria (who makes eyes at the real Jack during a late-in-the-game flashback).

Oblivion wastes a couple of good actors in nothing parts.

But, despite these elements, there are times when the whole enterprise is just too lazily derivative. While I can live with working with the same central themes and even plot points of countless other science fiction movies – most specifically Moon, which also involved a series of clones who were duped into doing a maintenance job for an off-planet entity – there’s a throw paint at the walls approach to this thing that make it ultimately feel trite and unimaginative.

Take, for instance, the rebel forces led by Morgan Freeman’s Beech. When you’re already evoking The Matrix by including an underground rebel force fighting against an alien enemy that’s basically feeding off our planet, is it really necessary to make the leader look like a Morpheus doppleganger? And if you’re going to go down this road with these rebel forces, couldn’t you do anything to flesh them out if even just a little bit?

As great as he is on Game of Thrones, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is utterly wasted here as Beech's second-in-command. He may have more than three or four lines of dialogue, but it doesn't feel like it. Bob, the bobble head figurine glued to the instrument panel in T49 Jack's bubble ship, seems a more fully rounded character. Freeman doesn't get it much better, but he does get more characterization than Bob, so that's something.

The bonus features show a deleted scene in which Beech tells T49 Jack that the real Jack (who was an astronaut) was his hero as a boy, which made me realize there could’ve been some interesting grace notes about how it psychologically played on the human race to have an American hero become the face of their oppressor for 60 years. But nope; not even that one scene makes it in the film, let alone an expansion of its potential implications.

I’m also at the breaking point when it comes to climaxes like this. Why do so many world bad guys have infrastructures that can be totally wiped out by attacking one central location? As in Independence Day and Stars Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, this movie has the hero destroy something, which then renders all the subordinate drones useless. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. And this overused trope is made worse by two, hard-to-ignore annoyances – 1) Why do the aliens even let T49 Jack in with the cargo when they know he’s gone kind of rouge, and 2) Why does exploding a little drone demolish a gigantic alien space shape?

Cruise transcends the script, providing a character
worth caring about.

Thankfully, the film has a dynamic lead in Cruise, whose grounded intensity and a committed physicality does a lot to smooth over the rough spots. He overcomes a thin script to give us a character worth caring about through sheer force of presence alone.

Thinking on the film now, my main thoughts drift mostly to Cruise in favor of the actual film. I’m sometimes a little sad about the trajectory Cruise’s career has taken since all that couch jumping crap eight years ago.  Up until that point, he had proven undeniably adept at humanizing pricks. Sure, there was the occasional Ethan Hunt, but more often than not, he was flawed and complicated like Charlie Babbit, Jerry Maguire or Frank Mackey. Cruise was always a pretty boy, but he brought a real edge to his roles, and his willingness to be borderline unlikeable despite being the biggest star on the planet was always the biggest draw for me.

Lately, Cruise has shied away from these types of characters. Outside of the occasional eccentric supporting performance (the great Tropic Thunder, the horrible Rock of Ages), he’s basically opted to play the genial inoffensive hero in a plethora of action movies. In other words he’s become Will Smith, going for safe pop corn flick after safe popcorn flick. It seems an atpyical thing for a movie star of his stature to do as he delves deeper into his 40s and 50s, particularly in today’s movie landscape. Most (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Hanks) tend to stretch and tackle more interesting fare, but Cruise has instead opted to go all Liam Neeson.

Coming out of the 90s, if you would’ve told me Cruise still wouldn’t have an Oscar by 2014, I’d have been shocked. His star power was too big and the net he cast when working with all-time great directors was too wide to think he wouldn’t have gotten that recognition by now. But, 2014 is upon us and Cruise hasn’t even given a performance worthy of such consideration since Collateral, which was nearly a decade ago. And he’s not likely to do so any time soon given his next five movies are all firmly planted in the popcorn realm.

Cruise always brings his A-game, so it’s hard to fault him for doing something he does well, but it does sometimes feel like this is an adult playing kids games. Still, despite the rant, he’s a definite asset to this film, which, for all its faults, is a pretty solid entertainment. B-