Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Hard to believe we're on the fifth Mission: Impossible movie. It's harder to believe that they're any good still. What's with some of these action series getting better with each sequel? This shouldn't be happening.

Anyway, so what's Rogue Nation about? You know, typical spy crap. Some underground organization wants to do something, and it's up to the other underground organization to stop them. At least it's a little more grounded in that the villain's goal seems somewhat realistic and don't involve some crazy weapon of mass destruction thingy. There is a device everyone is after, but they practically call it a MacGuffin, as if to throw their hands up admit that it's meaningless. It's also nice when the villain is someone that the hero actively admits he's overmatched by. Raises the stakes a little bit.

The action scenes were solid, if a bit uninspired. It's entertaining, but nothing you haven't experienced before. However, there's a motorcycle chase that might be the best I've ever seen in terms of point-of-view and sense of speed. It appears Cruise did most of his stunts again and you have to applaud the guy for the dedication and willingness to put himself at risk. You know that airplane scene that you seen in all the commercials and trailers? That's the opening scene! It's not even relevant to the plot. Just some cool shit to start the movie with.

Rogue Nation brings back the primary cast from the Ghost Protocol (and other MI films), with the exception of Paula Patton, so there's continuity as far as that goes. You won't miss Paula Patton though, as the one thing most people will come away with is how badass Rebecca Ferguson is. A lot of people, myself included, praised Ghost Protocol for Patton's character being more than just window dressing, but Ferguson's blows her out of the water and it's not even close. She's tough, cunning and sexy. Other spy/action films should take note. Tom Cruise, is well, Tom Cruise. What else can you say about him at this point? Simon Pegg provides the comedy relief and I enjoyed that Rogue Nation had a sense of humor and it was peppered by funny moments.

Oh, and can Christopher McQuarrie just write or direct everything that Tom Cruise is in at this point? Yes, please!

While it's not quite as fun as Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation is still a solid entry in the series and holds up with the best of them. It feels like this has been kind of a weak Summer for action, so Rogue Nation was the nice kick-in-the-pants, adrenaline boost I've been looking for. Definitely worth checking out on the big screen.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) - Movie Review

What if I told you that Obi-Wan Kenobi, Al Swearengen, Beast from X-Men: First Class and the Dad from Easy A were all in a movie together?  Slam dunk, eh?

Actually, that's not totally respectful to Stanley Tucci, but I couldn't think of his character's name from The Hunger Games.  Could anyone though, except for you nerdy book-readers?  I'm kidding of course, as I'm actually reading The Hunger Games right now.  What the hell was I talking about again?  Oh yeah, Jack the Giant Slayer.

Jack the Giant Slayer is the latest in the re-imaging of classic fairly tales, combining elements from both "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer".  This is one of the times where I felt the expansion on the existing tale worked well.  You get a little more backstory about their world and then they added more typical fantasy elements. It's done in a way that felt natural to the story.  It still manages to not be all that deep, so I didn't feel afterwards that this was a world I wanted to visit again.

The basic premise hasn't changed.  Jack (Nicholas Hoult) is an orphaned farmboy living with his uncle.  He's sent into town to sell off a horse and cart.  The cart gets stolen right away, and then a monk dupes him into trading the horse for a small pouch of useless, 'magic' beans.  Yes, Jack is kind of a screw up.  Jack does (unsuccessfully) try to defend the honor of Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), so at least he's a nice guy.  It turns out Isabelle is a princess who is expected to marry Roderick (Stanley Tucci), but she's not having it and wants to have adventures of her own.

This leads to her getting lost and finding Jack's house.  While taking shelter from the rain, one of the beans gets wet and a giant beanstalk grows upwards rejoining the human and giant realms.  Isabelle is carried away to the giant realm, so the King (Ian McShane) orders a small group of soldiers, let by Elmont (Ewan McGregor) to rescue her.  However, the giants haven't forgotten the humans (the humans have forgotten all about them) and how delicious they taste, so they are anxious to get back down to the human realm for some snacking.  It's up to Jack, the nice screwup, and Obi-Wan to stop them.

The main issue I had with Jack the Giant Slayer was that I felt it was all kind of lifeless.  There's no zip at all to the dialog, and not much chemistry between any of the characters.  I think it's the same problem the Star Wars prequels had in that there's so much CG that the actors don't react naturally to what's going on around them since nothing is actually there.  I will say that the CG is good, actually great in a few places, but I still got that sterile feeling I get from movies that use too much of it.  It's like The Hobbit, where sometimes you feel like you're watching a video game cutscene.

Another issue I had was that you have this great cast, and then don't really get to do much.  I was hoping that Ewan McGregor would get to show his swashbuckling, Jedi swordplay chops (even though I still hate Obi-Wan for what he did to me), but he doesn't get much of a chance to fight.  He actually loses his sword pretty early on in the movie, and then in the one hand-to-hand fight he has it's with Stanley Tucci, who's holding his own against him, despite not being a trained soldier.  You'd think a trained soldier would be able to beat the crap out of an aristocrat in like two seconds.  Stanley Tucci plays 'obviously evil guy' and has a creepy henchman (Ewan Bremner). They were about as generic as villains can get.  I was disappointed that there wasn't much to Ian McShane's character either.  There's just not much for him to do other than deliver his lines.  He seemed kind of bored with it.

I did like Nicholas Hoult and Eleanor Tomlinson (who reminds of me of a young Rachel Weisz), even though I didn't think there was a ton of chemistry between the two.  They are attractive and easy enough to like, but again, there's just not that much beneath the surface of their characters.

I'm going to harp on the dialog again.  It's actually not bad, but it's disappointing that there wasn't anything really clever about it.  Most of the humor came from fart jokes, and I only heard kids laughing at those moments.  There's this scene at the end (it's in the trailer, but maybe I'm remembering it wrong from the film), where the main giant catches Jack and he goes, "Who are you?"  Jack replies defiantly, "It's Jack!"  As if the giant knows who Jack is, or that should mean something to him.  Dialog really fails when it's just for the audience, and not for the characters in the film.  It would have been great if the giant replied, "And that means 'what' to me?"  The screenplay by Darren Lemke, Dan Studney and Christopher McQuarrie (never a good sign when there's three writers), really needed some punch up.  I'm surprised especially with McQuarrie's involvement, as he has written some great stories in the past.

When I heard Bryan Singer was involved, I took that as a mark of quality, as I figured he was just producing.  I was very surprised to see he actually directed it, as I didn't think he would have made something that's so clearly a kids film.  There is a lot of action and with the effects being as good as they are, that aspect of the film is entertaining and it's biggest strength. Jack the Giant Slayer isn't boring and well paced for a two hour film.

Even though this is PG-13, I didn't think there were any particularly scary images, and I didn't see any of the kids in the audience covering their eyes.  It'll depend on the kid, of course, but it might be a little too much for kids under 5.  The whole movie I thought about how much my nephews (8 and 5) would like it.  Contrast this with both X-Men and X-Men 2, which were both PG-13, and while also not bloody, both films felt so much more adult.  There are a lot of deaths in the film, but the film was largely bloodless or the camera cuts away at the point of impact.  Most of the deaths are of the video game variety, and involve disposable 'red shirt' characters.  The characters are so disposable that they didn't even bother with giving them decent names, if they were given names at all.  One of the guards name was "Bald".  Yes, he was bald.  I kept waiting for "Four Eyes" and "Porkins" to show up.  Anyway, I really think they could have gotten away with giving this one a PG rating.

Jack the Giant Slayer is sometimes fun and has really good effects, but ultimately a little too flat to be considered great.  They assembled a great cast, but then didn't give them much to do or anything interesting to say. If there had been a little more wit about it, then I think this would have had a much broader appeal, but it's ultimately a kids film. If you have a kid in that 5-12 range, then I think you can take them to a matinee and won't be too bored yourself. For anyone else, this is a rental.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Jack Reacher (2012) - Movie Review

Jack Reacher would totally kick Ethan Hunt's ass.

It's interesting to me that just two months ago I saw Alex Cross, a movie based on off a popular book series that was meant to re-launch the character.  I wasn't aware of this before hand, but Jack Reacher is based off a book series by author Lee Child.  The big difference is that Jack Reacher is how you do it right.  This particular story was based off the book "One Shot", and yet another series of books I may have to add to my Amazon Wish List.

In a chilling and effective opening sequence, a sniper opens fire, killing five people.  It's a disturbing image and way to open the film, and then it occurred to me that considering recent events it might be a little too much for some to watch.  It's unfortunate timing for sure.  A former military sniper, James Barr, is captured by the authorities and only writes "Get Jack Reacher" when being interrogated.  Reacher (Tom Cruise) sees the news report about event and shows up on his own. While not much is known about Jack Reacher, we do learn he's a former ace Military Police officer that's been living off the grid.  He partners with Barr's defense attorney Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike), and they investigate what happened.  They find that this case isn't as open and shut as first believed.

I don't want to get into the plot much more than that, as one of the things I loved about Jack Reacher what how much it surprised me regarding what kind of film it was.  When you watch the trailers, it appears to be a straight-up action flick, but it's much more than that.  There's plenty of action, but it's also a mystery/thriller.  It's also funny in the right places, but that balances out the brutality in the fight scenes.  When I saw brutal though, I don't mean to say it's bloody.  In a later part of the film, you learn more about the victims and it really give the film an emotional depth that surprised me.

One of the things I loved about Christopher McQuarrie's direction (he also wrote the screenplay) were all the little things.  Coming back to that opening sequence, the first 5-10 minutes of the movie have no dialog and the sounds are muted.  It perfectly sets up the story without saying anthing.  Later in the film, there's a great car chase sequence that stood out to me because of the realism about it.  Reacher isn't an expert driver, so you don't see perfectly executed, high-speed turns.  He fishtails, spins out, even crashes a little.  When you contrast this with something like like Taken 2, where you have to believe that someone who doesn't even have their driver license is somehow having little issue driving at high speeds on narrow roads, it really made me appreciate what they did here.  Even in the fight scenes you see use of strategy and tactics.  Granted use of tactics are a large part of Reacher's character, but I liked that the action wasn't mindless.

I can't say it's a totally genius movie though.  One of the issues I had with the movie was that when the villain is revealed, someone known only as "The Zec" (a surprising appearance by director Werner Herzog), his back story is a little too over-the-top and super villiany for what his goal was. He wasn't even in the movie that much, so it seemed a little too much for a movie that otherwise had a grittier, realistic feel to it.  Herzog's creepy performance made the character tolerable though.  The only other issue I had with the movie is that it does run a tad too long, not to the point where you're getting bored with it, but it would have benefit from being tightened up a bit.

Just when I'm ready to write Tom Cruise off, he reminds me why he's the superstar he is.  Cruise doesn't physically resemble the character as written, which may upset fans of the book series, but he owns the role.  Cruise's Reacher plays off everyone well, whether it's Helen, or a local detective (David Oyelowo).  I've always enjoyed Rosamund Pike as Helen, but I think you'll notice there's a certain part of her anatomy that's a little distracting.  Those two were the uncredited stars of the movie for sure.  Richard Jenkins has a small role as the prosecuting district attorney (who's also Helen's father), and is great as always.  Lastly, Robert Duvall shows up to class the joint up. Everyone plays their parts well, but this is definitely the Tom Cruise show.

Whether I was just in really good mood when I saw this movie, or it appealed to my basic instincts, I loved the hell out of Jack Reacher.  It's a thrilling crime drama, with good action and moments of odd humor.  Tom Cruise anchors the film with another star performance, and he shows he still has 'it' even though he's north of 50.

4.5 (out of 5) Death Stars