Movie Review Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023) 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie 

Written by Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen 

Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Esai Morales, Cary Elwes, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Henry Czerny 

Release Date July 12th, 2023 

Published July 13th, 2023 

I'd never heard the term Dead Reckoning before. In the opening minutes of the new Mission Impossible franchise entry, titled Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, they explain the term in the most efficient fashion and it dawns on you just what a perfect title this is for this adventure. It's a little thing, but I absolutely love that level of attention to detail and I appreciated that the movie gave us this information not with a windy info dump but with an offhand comment that explains the context of the term. On a colloquial level, it very simply means to navigate based on limited information on your own location. 

That's a perfect metaphor for where the Impossible Mission Force, headed up by Tom Cruise's super-spy, Ethan Hunt, find themselves. They are navigating a world saving adventure plot with very little knowledge or where they are going next. Every little twist and turn of the plot, every development surrounding the McGuffin, is delivered with precision and in a way that only gives us and these wonderful characters, just enough info to take us the next step. That the McGuffin happens to be a literal Key is quite a fun and clever detail that, again, I absolutely love. 

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning opens on a Russian Submarine navigating back to Russia after a very successful mission. This mission involved fooling the entire world's worth of submarines and military intelligence. The sub commander explains that his new sub was able to get within mere meters of the most advanced submarines and military ports in the world, completely undetected. It's a game changing piece of technology that would give Russia a grave advantage in any world conflict. I say that it would, if this sub didn't soon wind up at the bottom of the ocean. 

How it got there is the world altering mystery at the heart of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. Ethan Hunt has been given the mission of recovering to halves of a very special key. It's a key that unlocks control of a world altering A.I that may itself be the villain of this movie. With his newly reunited team, including Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa, Simon Pegg as Benji, and Ving Rhames as Luther, Cruise's Ethan Hunt must recover a key but he doesn't know what this key unlocks or where the lock actually is. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Duchess

The Duchess (2008) 

Directed by Saul Dibb

Written by Jeffrey Hatcher, Saul Dibb, Anders Thomas Jensen 

Starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes Charlotte Rampling, Dominic Cooper, Hayley Atwell

Release Date September 5th, 2008 

Published October 25th, 2008

Georgiana Spencer is a long time relative of Lady Diana Spencer who went on to become Princess Diana. They were destined to be related. The Duchess of Devonshire was the Diana of her time, a celebrity diva with the eyes of a nation following her every move and copying her every dress and hairstyle. They had even more in common in private where the Duchess and the Princess lived with cold hearted husbands whose dalliances were humiliating blows especially as any challenge to that behavior were so hypocritically decried.

Keira Knightley stars in The Duchess as the legendary Georgiana. At 16 she was married off to the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes). They had only met twice but when assured by her mother that she would produce a make heir, the Duke snapped her up. The wedding was elaborate and celebrated across London. Georgiana was blown away by the opulence suddenly thrust upon her but her wonderment didn't last. Soon she finds her husband taking the help to his bed. When he finally takes Georgiana the moment is awkward and workmanlike.

Her role in his life is nothing more than broodmare and when she doesn't immediately offer a male heir, the duke becomes cruel and reviled. With a maid he fathered a daughter, Charlotte who then becomes Georgiana's responsibility. Her first two children are girls and the tension in the house is ever worsening. Then Georgiana is blessed with a friend named Bess. She has just been abandoned by her husband who has taken her two sons. Georgiana offers to let Bess stay with her while she fights for her boys, in the meantime Bess is convinced to sleep with William in exchange for his help, the humiliation drives a wedge between the women that is nearly irresolvable.

Soon the Duchess herself has found someone else. His name is Charles Gray and he happens to be a candidate for Prime Minister and a childhood friend of Georgiana. She offers to help his political career, with her awesome ability to draw a crowd but his interest goes far beyond her useful celebrity. He has loved her since before she was married and hopes that he can run away with her one day. The love story is a little rushed and forced but it's not bad. 

The Duchess was directed by Saul Dibb an heretofore unknown director who also co-wrote the script based on Amanda Foreman's novel. Dibb has a strong sense of the period, the hot house melodrama of the Duke and Duchess's home and an ear for the way these characters may have talked. I thoroughly  enjoyed the presence of Mr. Fox and his obvious lover Mr. Doyle. Together they are the perfect gay best friends for the Duchess though she longs for a real girlfriend. She had found it with Bess but the relationship ended badly, as did most of Georgiana's relationship.

So what of the Oscar buzz for Keira Knightley? Much deserved. Ms. Knightley is feisty and pouty and sexy and glamorous, everything we need in a grand, mid-centuries celebrity. Even as she indulges, the Duchess has a deeper intellect than the men in her life give her credit for. She earns the respect of her friend Mr. Fox by questioning his take on freedom, a line that will become ironic in her own life, "Freedom is an absolute, you either are or you are not".The publicity for The Duchess plays up a reputation for her being a great conversationalist. That example is not in The Duchess. Aside from her thoughts on freedom, the Duchess is not demonstrated as a great thinker.

Quick on her feet? Street smart? Yes, but no Nobel Prize winner.

A strong performance from Keira Knightley is the life blood of The Duchess but beyond her the film relies on the conventions of the period piece. There is nothing in Georgiana Spencer's life that is as compelling as Eliza Bennett of Pride and Prejudice, a demonstrably witty and intelligent character. A better correlative of The Duchess would be Marie Antoinette from Sophia Coppola's biography. The Duchess has a lot more juice than that overwrought melange of pop music and pop history. The juice comes from Knightly and the immaculate period setting. Set your expectations for the movie as a whole low and you will find yourself satisfied with The Duchess.

Movie Review: Cassandra's Dream

Cassandra's Dream (2007) 

Directed by Woody Allen

Written by Woody Allen 

Starring Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Hayley Atwell, Sally Hawkins, Tom Wilkinson 

Release Date January 18th, 2008 

Published May 22nd, 2008 

Someday this will be referred to as Woody Allen's London era. Whether this period of Allen's career will be remembered well is still in question. His Scoop was a cute, quick witted comedy that never caught on with audiences. His follow up, Match Point is a devastatingly smart thriller likely to be remembered by Allen fans as a masterpiece.

Now comes Cassandra's Dream another London set thriller that ups the ante on Match Point by going for big stars but comes up short on the smart thrills that made Match Point so brilliant.

Two brothers turn to crime to solve their financial problems only to find themselves not exactly adept. Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are Ian and Terry Blaine. Ian is a dreamer who aspires to high finance. For now he lives the life of a playboy without the actual means. Terry is more honest of his working class roots. He lives modestly with a longtime, loving girlfriend. His one indulgence is gambling and when we meet Terry he is on quite a hot streak. He eventually strikes it big at the card table to the tune of 30 grand.

Hot streaks however, never last. As Terry risks the 30 grand to get the money he needs to buy his girl a house he winds up 90 grand in the hole. Naturally, Terry turns to Ian for help. Ian for his part has fallen head over heels for a young actress named Angela (Hayley Atwell). What little money he has he hopes to use to keep Angela in the comfort she aspires to. Now however, he must help Terry. With their options limited the brothers turn to their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) a highly successful businessman. Howard has one condition for a lone, the boys must murder a man who threatens to tear down Howard's multi-million dollar empire.

To say Howard is asking alot is an understatement and that is at the heart of the issues with Woody Allen's latest tale of chance, chaos and morality. Allen has always been fascinated with cause and effect and the idea that while one action may lead directly to another there is no such thing as fate. In the end, Allen's world view is that we are the arbiters of our fate and our consequences. That view certainly plays out in Cassandra's Dream where Terry and Ian are not forced to do anything but decide to do something and then decide their own punishment until the random nature of the world intervenes in all it's unintentional irony and strange ordinariness.

The last shot of the film with the world in order but an emotional shitstorm in the offing is a strong, almost devastating conclusion. Unfortunately, the central crime is so outlandish that you are unable to truly invest in it emotionally. Yes, Terry and Ian are both desperate but are they really so desperate to do what they do? I didn't buy it. I especially didn't buy Ferrell's Terry who turns ashamedly from an average guy into the worst type of Ferrell character, the weepy, whiny mess well displayed in Phone Booth, far less interesting in Alexander, The Recruit and now in Cassandra's Dream.

Ewan McGregor on the other hand is right at home as Ian. With charm that intimates a certain moral flexibility, McGregor's Ian is more suited to the central story than is the caricature that is Ferrell's Terry. It is Ian and his relationship with Amanda that brings home the central themes of the film, the randomness of life, the luck, the chance and the lack of any real grand design. Also, in Hayley Atwell's Amanda we get Allen at his self deprocating best. In the film's best scene, Allen goes meta and breaks down the very existence of her character in the film.

The failure of Cassandra's Dream is unfortunately Allen's inabilty to craft a solid thriller plot to tentpole his favored themes. The Allen intellect, his philosophy on life, death and movies is on well display but fail for not having a structure on which to hang them. Thus Cassandra's Dream is a film of ideas with no driving narrative force that could have, with a little more care, been a devastating dramatic piece ala his previous London set masterpiece Match Point. That film delivers the same themes with a thriller plot that is involving, shocking and purely Allen-esque in how it underlines its ideals.

Rent Match Point and Cassandra's Dream off your Netflix cue.

Movie Review: Christopher Robin

Christopher Robin (2018)

Directed by Marc Forster

Written by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, Allison Schroeder

Starring Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett 

Release Date August 3rd, 2018 

Published August 2nd, 2018

Disney has had remarkable success taking their animated properties and repurposing them for live action films. And somehow, they’ve done this with no one accusing them of recycling or calling out the nakedly calculated marketing strategy that was the inception for each of these movies from Cinderella to Jungle Book to Beauty and the Beast and now to Christopher Robin, the live action take on Winnie the Pooh.

Much of the reason that we’ve given Disney a pass on such criticism is because the quality of this strip mining of our nostalgic memories of childhood have been so very good. Exceptional filmmakers such as Kenneth Branagh and Jon Favreau and now Marc Forster have turned this cynical nostalgic cash grab into something genuinely, lovingly artful. Marc Forster has even made, arguably, the most loving and artful of all of these cynical cash grabs.

Christopher Robin is the story of the young boy who found a door in a tree and bravely crossed it’s threshold into a world of wonder in the 100 Acre Woods. There he found magical creatures including a new best friend, Winnie the Pooh along with his pals, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore. Kanga and her son Roo, and the wonderful, bouncy backsided Tigger. Together they played and dreamed and had great adventures.

Years passed however and time came when Christopher Robin was forced to leave behind the 100 Acre Woods in favor of soggy old London and life in a boarding school. From there, Christopher would begin to forget his fuzzy former friends and start a real life. Grown up, and played by Ewan McGregor, Christopher met and fell in love with Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), they had a baby named Madeline (Bronte Carmichael) and he went to war.

Now home with his family, Christopher has begun to forget not just about the 100 Acre Woods but about fun in general. Christopher’s job at a luggage company consumes all his time and thoughts and even when he plans to spend a weekend away with his family, at his parents’ former cottage, he can’t get away from his work and the strain on his marriage is evident if only to us and to Evelyn.

Here’s where things take a turn. The scene shifts to Pooh Bear’s cottage. He’s just awoken and found that he has no hunny. He goes out seeking help from his friends and cannot find them. He finds the door in the tree where Christopher Robin always came from and decides to go through it into Christopher’s world. On the other side, Pooh emerges in London and finds Christopher anxiously hiding from a neighbor he doesn’t want to talk to.

Marc Forster is a filmmaker who knows a little something about gentle and pleasant kids stories. Forster’s Finding Neverland was an Academy Award nominee telling the story of J.M Barrie’s creation of Peter Pan. Christopher Robin feels a lot like that film with a similar whimsical, magical essence. Both Christopher Robin and Finding Neverland have an elegiac and plaintive pacing, an air of sadness slowly giving way to the joy of letting go. Forster worked with his Finding Neverland editor Matt Chesse on Christopher Robin and that may have contributed to the similarity in tone and pace.

What sets Christopher Robin apart is the screenplay which features work from three smoking hot properties. Indie darling Alex Ross Perry of Listen Up Phillip and Queen of Earth fame has a credit alongside Hidden Figures writer Allison Schroeder and Academy Award-winning Spotlight writer-director Tom McCarthy. Each contributes to the unique style of Christopher Robin’s story and the wonderful, whimsical way the characters interact.

Don’t misunderstand, these are still fully A.A Milne, by way of Disney, characters. Pooh still feels like Pooh, thanks to the legendary voice work of Jim Cummings and we still get to hear Tigger sing the Tigger song. But, the interaction between Christopher Robin and the rest of the world has a wit and liveliness to it that doesn’t distract from the classic source material. You can sense the respect that this creative team has for the source material, there is a loving care to the way Pooh and friends are presented, never with anything less than dignity; it's fun with a British sort of propriety.

Ewan McGregor is a wonderful Christopher Robin. I adored his stiffness early in the movie and the way his shoulders slowly go from up around his ears to fully at ease. He’s a man under desperate stress to do the right thing and he continually does the wrong thing until Pooh comes along and puts him straight. There is a lovely similarity to the recent Where the Wild Things Are when Christopher is in the 100 Acre Woods as an adult and realizes that he may, in fact, be the problem with his life and not everyone else.

McGregor is well matched with Hayley Atwell whose sympathetic care for her husband is only matched by her witty, self-protective, innate feminism. This is not a woman who will put up for very long with a man who doesn’t properly appreciate her, and especially her daughter, and you get that sense solely from Atwell’s manner and grace. She has a steely quality that easily gives way to softness and concern in the way only a great actress can show.

I have not even begun to praise the true star of the show, Winnie the Pooh. Earlier this year people were tripping over themselves to praise the over-hyped Paddington with his childish pratfalling and simplistic story. For me, Winnie the Pooh in Christopher Robin is my thesis statement on why Paddington doesn’t work. Pooh is charming in ways Paddington only hints at. He’s lovable in the ways that Paddington pretends towards. Most importantly, Pooh’s pratfalling antics and general mayhem are more well-explained and lovable than the destruction that Paddington wreaks upon his friends and family.

Christopher Robin is a lovely film, a gentle yet funny, sweet and harmless trifle that will make all audiences smile. Marc Forster is a director of immense talent and he brings that to bear in Christopher Robin with the lightest and most deft touch. The film is artful in how it is never flashy, you don’t feel as if you see Forster directing. The touch is light but effective, you sense how beautiful and well told the story is but it doesn’t feel as if you’re being steered and you sort of melt into the beauty and warmth of this story.

I feel as if, on a moral level, I should be upset about Disney strip mining my childhood for a quick buck. I feel like I should be annoyed that they aren’t developing original material and are instead basking in the dollars that existing products in shiny new packages can bring in. In the back of my mind, in fact, I am rebelling against these Disney products and their weaponized nostalgia. That said, up front and personal, Christopher Robin made my heart happy. The movie is completely adorable and a wonderful film for the whole family, proof that commerce and art can work together to create something beautiful.

Movie Review Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America The First Avenger (2011) 

Directed by Joe Johnston 

Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely 

Starring Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Stanley Tucci, Dominic Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Hayley Atwell 

Release Date July 22nd, 2011 

Published July 21st, 2011 

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was a 98 pound weakling with a heart twice the size of his tiny frame. In 1942 all Steve wanted was to defend his country in the 2nd World War. Steve didn't have bloodlust or a death wish, rather, he saw Hitler as just the kind of bully that he'd spent his young life fighting against and he was eager to strike a blow on behalf of those being harmed by Hitler's evil.

Steve wasn't likely to get a chance until he met a German scientist, Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) who managed to escape Hitler's Germany with some of his extraordinary research intact. After meeting Steve Rogers, Dr. Erskine was quickly convinced that he was just the kind of good man who would be a perfect candidate for his super-soldier program.

A Hero Born

Indeed, Steve was the perfect candidate and after undergoing the remarkable procedure Steve develops the type of body to match his guts, heart and determination. Soon, Steve Rogers is transformed into the symbolic hero Captain America before gets the chance to become a real hero on the frontline in Europe battling Hitler's rogue defense minister Johan Schmidt aka The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).

Captain America: The Last Avenger was directed by Joe Johnston, a director very familiar with high end special effects having directed Lost World: Jurassic Park 3 and Jumanji. Johnston's effects work in Captain America exceeds even those two exceptional special effects adventures.

Chris Evans 98 Pound Weakling

Most eye-catching is the remarkably seamless transformation of star Chris Evan from the scrawny Steve Rogers to the muscled up Captain. Early on Johnston attempted to merely paste star Chris Evans's face digitally onto that of another actor but it just didn't look right. Then, employing techniques like those used to help Brad Pitt age backwards in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Johnston and his special effects team shrank the real Chris Evans down to size.

The effect is exceptional as are the action effects that show Captain America and his team heroically battling Red Skull and his robotic super soldiers. Yes, comic book fans, Captain America does whip that awesome shield at many bad guys and in many unique ways as well. Just as cool is Cap's James Bond-esque motorcycle; built by none other than Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper); future daddy to Iron Man himself, Tony Stark.

Here Come the Avengers

Chris Evans is a real surprise as Captain America. There was never any doubt that Evans had the physicality to play Captain America but based on his past performances I was shocked at Evans's ability to deliver Steve Rogers as a compelling, sensitive and well rounded character; it really is a terrific performance. Evans is aided greatly by Stanly Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones in support and Hayley Atwell sparks tremendous chemistry with Evans as Captain America's plucky English tomboy love interest Peggy.

Captain America: The Last Avenger's most lasting effect is as the perfect set up for the summer 2012 blockbuster The Avengers. Walking out of Captain America I was excited by the notion of watching Evans's square jawed, classically heroic Cap work opposite Robert Downey Jr's anti-hero Iron Man. If that were Captain America's only virtue, it would be enough. That Captain America happens to be nearly as good a movie as Iron Man and a better movie than Thor or either of the Incredible Hulk films (other members of The Avengers team) is a fantastic bonus.