Movie Review Mission Impossible Rogue Nation and Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011) 

Directed by Brad Bird

Written by Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Paula Patton 

Release Date December 16th, 2011 

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Written by Christopher McQuarrie

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson

Release Date July 31st, 2015 

Published July 25th, 2018 

Mission Impossible 3 made an indelible mark in my mind as the most entertaining and accomplished take on the entire Mission Impossible franchise. After seeing both Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, I can now say with certainty that the series peaked with number 3. J.J Abrams' kinetic direction was artful and exciting with an eye toward drama, action and suspense all in the same package.

That’s not to say that Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation are bad, they just lack the same clarity, focus and skill of MI3. Neither directors, Brad Bird or Christopher McQuarrie, appear capable of imposing their vision on the franchise, or at least, they didn’t impose it as well as Abrams did as each seems far more at the mercy of stunt coordinators and the daredevil antics of star Tom Cruise than Abrams was.

Ghost Protocol picks up the action of the MI story some five years after the action of MI3. Ethan Hunt is behind bars in a foreign country, accused of having murdered 6 Serbian nationals. We will eventually be told that his wife, Jules (Michelle Monaghan), a prominent part of the action in MI3, was killed, but death in a spy movie doesn’t always mean death. The big bad this time out is a man code named Cobalt (Michael Nykvist), an arms dealer with the aim of ending the world with a nuclear missile.

It will be up to Agent Hunt and his new IMF team, including Field Agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Jane Carter (Paula Patton). Carter is still reeling from the murder of her partner, Agent Hanaway (Josh Holloway, Lost) who was murdered by a killer for hire employed by Cobalt. They are joined by Analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) who gets added to the team after his boss, the Secretary of the IMF (Tom Wilkinson) is murdered and the team is disavowed.

Brad Bird is a competent and highly capable director who keeps the pace up and the action well managed. Unfortunately, the film is little more than set-pieces strung together by a thin plot and a less than compelling villain. Ghost Protocol is remembered for the controversial CGI destruction of the Kremlin and a death-defying sequence in which Cruise appears to scale the outside of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

Both sequences are solid and well captured with the Burj Khalifa climb coming the closest to evoking the best of the franchise. That said, they appeared to have the stunts before they had a script and wound up tailoring the story to the stunts. This was seemingly confirmed when writer Christopher McQuarrie was brought on half way into production for an uncredited rewrite of the script by Andre Nemec and Josh Applebaum.

Does this make Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol bad? No, it means that it comes up short of the legacy crafted by Mission Impossible 3. That film had big stunts and a big story to tell along with it. Ghost Protocol has ambition stunts but lacks the story to lift it to what I had hoped the series would be after MI3. Still, the movie is good enough, entertaining enough, and has just enough appeal that I don’t dislike it, but I don’t love it either.

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, at the very least, improved upon Ghost Protocol. Here, Ethan Hunt opens the movie by being captured by the big bad, this time played by Sean Harris. Harris’ Solomon Lane has been eluding Ethan for two years since Ethan began to track him down. Lane has remained 2 steps ahead of Ethan while creating a series of tragedies intended to have a drastic effect on world markets.

Ethan is in so much hot water that the CIA, seen here in the form of a blustering Alec Baldwin, believes he is responsible for the terrorist acts caused by Lane’s outfit called, The Syndicate. In attempting to stop The Syndicate, Ethan recruits Benji to join him on the run from the CIA and they are joined by a British double agent named Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) who has infiltrated The Syndicate and is the key to getting to Lane.

Director Christopher McQuarrie both wrote and directed Mission Impossible Rogue Nation and that fact does lend some clarity to the storytelling. The conspiracy in play is a wild one and rather clever and well executed. The film is still defined by one big stunt, in which Cruise legendarily clung to the side of a plane as it was taking off, but the stunt doesn’t completely overshadow the movie as the Burj Khalifa sequence in Ghost Protocol certainly did.

McQuarrie marries the slick, shallow thrills of MI2 with a little of the grit of the original with the craftsmanship of MI3 and creates easily the second best of the then 5 film franchise. I especially enjoyed the use of Rebecca Ferguson whose lithe physicality matches that of co-star Tom Cruise. The way she floats about fluidly in major fight scenes is really cool and in keeping with the action style of most of the Mission movies. She’s a really solid addition.

Sadly, the villain of Rogue Nation is once again the weakest part of the film. Who’s Sean Harris? He’s not a bad actor but I have no reference point for who he is as an actor. He’s not remotely on the star level of the rest of the cast, even Ferguson who makes her debut in this film. Harris’s lack of a profile makes him forgettable and when compared to the best villain in the franchise, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s exceptional, Owen Davian, he comes up well short.

The character of Solomon Lane is not all that compelling. His aims are clear but the character is a shell and a full-fledged villain should be. He has no life, no personality, he’s not tough and while he’s portrayed as super-smart, our first time seeing him, he immediately chooses not to kill Ethan Hunt even though he easily could. The sequence makes the character look silly, especially when the script gives him zero reason to keep alive the one man he’s aware could stop his agenda.

The lack of care in the details of the script of Rogue One is part of what keeps the film far from greatness. It’s still solid and has terrific stunt work and top-notch action scenes, but sadly I was hoping for more of a brain. Instead, we get yet another Tom Cruise running chase scene and another Tom Cruise motorcycle chase scene, obligatory action beats that likely existed before a script ever did.

McQuarrie is also the writer-director of Mission Impossible Fallout which hits theaters this weekend. I believe Fallout will be good but my expectations have dimmed for the franchise. I had hoped Ethan Hunt would usurp James Bond as the top movie spy of all time. Sadly, Bond’s legacy is kept safe by a star too eager for stunts and directors unable to make the stunts into a fully compelling story beyond the mere presentation of spectacle that just happens to be part of a story.

Movie Review Precioius Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009) 

Directed by Lee Daniels

Written by Geoffrey S. Fletcher 

Starring Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz

Release Date November 6th, 2009

Published November 5th, 2009

The last time I had a feeling like this was after watching the 9/11 movie United 93. That film left me with a mixture of awe and emptiness. On the one hand it is a remarkable film. On the other hand I could not imagine recommending the experience to anyone. People-watching the day the film was released; as audiences lined up with pop and popcorn in hand was a surreal and dispiriting experience. How could anyone eat popcorn while watching an accurate recreation of the horror of 9/11?

Precious left me with that same empty sadness. Do I appreciate aspects of the film? Yes, the acting in Precious is top notch. The problem is an overwhelming sadness and sense of despair that suffocates while the movie plays and lingers afterward. Like United 93, regardless of what's good about Precious, how can I recommend it?

At just 16 years old Clarice 'Precious' Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is pregnant with her second child. Both children are born of rape; rape by Precious's own father, an abuse witnessed by her mother Mary (Mo'nique). Precious deals with these horrors by escaping into fantasies of fame where she walks the Hollywood red carpet with her light skinned boyfriend.

At school Precious can hardly read. She has like far too many American students been passed along by a system ill-equipped to deal with her level of trauma, abuse and an almost genetic trait of ignorance and despair. When she finally arrives at an alternative school, where she belonged all along, it's almost too late.

At this new school Precious finds uncommon kindness from her new teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) and acceptance from her fellow alternative school classmates. Ms. Rain, like anyone else, is incapable of dealing with the Jovian hills heaped upon poor Precious but unlike so many others; she doesn't try and pass the buck. The film gets its most painful, emotional moments out of Precious and Ms. Rain's scenes.

Outside of the scenes between the newcomer Ms. Sidibe and Ms. Patton, Precious plays like a horror film with Mo'nique as a strange sort of villain who begs for our sympathy in the end for the horrors she brings, an Eli Roth ‘Hostel’ villain but with scruples. There is nothing wrong with Mo'nique's performance, it is effective and memorable, the issue is the amount of her time spent committing heinous abuse.

I understand wanting to demonstrate what Precious is up against but the repeated horrors contribute to a suffocating air of depression that does not allow audiences to feel anything else. Do you sympathize with Precious? I guess, but not in the way I'm sure is intended.

Precious is meant to elicit our sympathy and like a victim in a horror movie she has our sympathy on a basic human level. Once the horrors are piled on our sympathies deepen because Ms. Sidibe is a fine actress, but at a certain point the sadness, indignity and despair suffocate any and all feelings other than severe depression. I'm not saying lighten up, I'm saying there has to be a more effective way of making the point about Precious's circumstances than bludgeoning the audience with sorrow.  

I think the point that director Lee Daniels is trying to make in Precious is that there are girls like Precious out there and something needs to be done about it. That is an unquestionable fact. However, the movie is far from the most effective tool for doing something about it. The series of horrors depicted in Precious will not send audiences home with thoughts about fighting poverty and abuse; rather they will want to rid themselves of the experience of so much forlornness and melancholy.

Movie Review Idlewild

Idlewild (2006) 

Directed by Bryan Barber

Written by Bryan Barber

Starring Andre Benjamin, Big Boi, Terrence Howard, Faizon Love, Paula Patton, Ving Rhames

Release Date August 25th, 2006 

Published August 26th, 2006 

I've seen bad movies and I've seen disappointing movies but I have never had a movie leave me with the kind of disappointment and frustration as Idlewild. After a sensational trailer that made the film look like an epic musical from hip hop's reigning duo, Idlewild turns out to be a wildly eclectic misfire of both filmic and musical proportions.

Idlewild tells two stories at once. Two pals, Rooster (Big Boi) and Percival (Andre 3000) are living their lives in Idlewild Georgia circa 1935, give or take a year. Rooster is a nightclub performer and part time thug who helps a mobster (Ving Rhames) move booze. Percival is Rooster's piano player but most of his time is spent working as an undertaker in his father's (Ben Vereen) mortuary.

Both Rooster and Percival have dreams well beyond the juke joints and southern climes of Idlewild. Rooster is a family man who longs for the days when there won't be a bullet with his name on it. Percival is a talented musician; who writes terrific songs that no one has ever heard. He dreams of one day leaving Idlewild for the big city's up north to perform his songs.

The two friends' lives are changed in a matter of days when a rival gangster named Trumpy (Terrence Howard) kills his way to the top of the liquor trade by killing Rooster's boss Ace (Faizon Love). This leaves the club in Rooster's hands and the ruthless mobster at his back.

Percival meanwhile is hit with a bolt of lightning in the form of Angel (Paula Patton); the feature act that Ace hired before he met his untimely end. Angel takes an immediate liking to the piano player and the two make beautiful music together on stage and off. Angel encourages Percival to leave Idlewild with her for a shot at stardom in Chicago, this despite a secret that threatens to cost both of them their lives.

These two plots compete for attention in a picture crowded with colorful characters whom director Brian Barber cannot find time for. Consider for a moment the supporting cast that includes Ving Rhames, Ben Vereen, Terrence Howard and makes little room for Patti LaBelle -in a blink and you miss it cameo-, Macy Gray, Paula Jai Parker (Hustle and Flow), and Bill Nunn. Characters are introduced very briefly, often unnamed because there is simply no time.

Barber simply has too many balls in the air, from his sprawling cast, to his lavish musical numbers to the love story and the gangster story and finally trying to coalesce all of this into a coherent conclusion. That he does manage to reign it all in at the end to give the film at least a sensible finale is quite a feat.

The story experience of Idlewild runs a distant second to the music of Idlewild which is seemingly the purpose of it all. Idlewild plays like an overlong concept music video collection. The competing storylines, gangsters and booze vs art and love story, play not unlike the last Outkast project, the dueling albums Speakerboxx/The Love Below.

Like that 2 disc collection, Andre 3000 and Big Boi in Idlewild are essentially working on different projects in which each makes a cameo in the other's story. The only differences are that this is a movie, not just a CD and it all comes together under one title instead of two.

Of course, the star of Idlewild is the music and again drawing parallels with Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Andre 3000's music is more daring, unique and entertaining than Big Boi's, only lacking Big Boi's showmanship which he uses to sell his best contribution to Idlewild, the song "Bowtie" a rousing introduction of his slickster character Rooster.

Andre 3000's musical contributions to Idlewild are a wildly eclectic mixture of hip hop and old school rhythm and blues piano arrangements. His musical repertoire, as he demonstrated on The Love Below and previous Outkast records, is seemingly limitless and he shows that once again in Idlewild. And Andre is as unique with his lyrics as with his music in Idlewild. Check the song "Chronomentrophobia" and don't bother looking up that title in the dictionary.

Idlewild as a movie is a jumbled, messy enterprise. As a collection of music videos, this a good, not great concept soundtrack. Andre 3000's work on Idlewild, much like on Speakerboxx/The Love Below, is superior to his partner Big Boi's but neither really reaches the heights of their previous works.

For Outkast fans, Idlewild is an easy recommendation, the music is by no means sub-par, just not as good as what came before. For non-fans Idlewild is an okay introduction to the work of Outkast, but you are better off grabbing a copy of Stankonia or Speakerboxx/The Love Below to get a real idea of the genius of Outkast.

Movie Review: Deja Vu

Deju Vu (2006) 

Directed by Tony Scott 

Written by Terry Rossio 

Starring Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton, Bruce Greenwood, Jim Caviezel 

Release Date November 22nd, 2006

Published November 21st, 2006 

The space time continuum seems like simply a Star Trek invention but the fact is many scientists believe time travel is possible. The physics are still unclear but theorists have begun discussing the ethics of time travel and how travelers may effect the history they are visiting. The new sci fi thriller Deja Vu is not a discussion of ethics or science but the film does take vague advantage of the concepts to craft a quick witted action vehicle perfectly suited to the talents of star Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott.

A ferry carrying American soldiers and their families to a party in New Orleans explodes moments after leaving port. Nearly five hundred people are killed including a woman named Claire Kuchaver (Paula Patton). There is something odd about Claire's death however, something that ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) is the first to notice. Claire was not killed in the explosion or the ensuing fire.

Though her body washed ashore with those of the ferry victims, her injuries indicate murder and yet her car is identified as the car that was packed with explosives and placed on the ferry. Convinced that Claire's death is the key to finding the man or men responsible for for the ferry explosion, Carlin is detemined to investigate this case.

His determination and attention to detail catches the eye of FBI agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) who asks Carlin to join his unique investigative unit. Pryzwarra oversees a group of scientists headed up by Dr. Denny (Adam Goldberg) who have invented a device that allows them to peer into the past at a particular moment in time and examine that place in that time from any possible, visible angle.

There are limitations. This time twisting device can only look back four days and twelve hours. It cannot fast forward and it cannot rewind. The key is watching and observing and acting on the details gleaned from observing victims, witnesses and suspects ahead of whatever incident in which they are involved. Carlin leads the team into Claire's life and eventually finds himself chasing Claire and the terrorist through time itself.

To say much more might spoil the fun of this scientifically goofy but modestly entertaining sci fi actioner. Deja Vu toys with the time space continuum and in doing so  reveals a dichotomy in director Tony Scott's telling of the story. On the one hand he has a need to make his story plausible right down to the math. On the other hand is an open admittance of the futility of trying to keep up a realistic timeline. If you can put aside the goofiness and give up on the math, there is a compelling action flick beneath thee convoluted sci fi stuff.

Denzel Washington is a different breed of action hero. He can go hand to hand or gun to gun with the worst of villains but his true talent is as a cerebral presence. His mind cooking behind those blazing eyes is fascinating to climb inside. In Deja Vu we are right there and though he is forced by plot to be clueless at times, he is never made a fool of and in the end he carries us past any questions we might have about the confounding sci fi plot.

The key to enjoying Deja Vu is working hard on the suspension of disbelief. Though it is hard to not get caught up in trying to follow the math of the movie, the folding and unfolding of this unusual timeline, you must realize eventually that the timeline is meaningless and that even the filmmakers could not keep it all straight. Once you can put that aside (if you can put that aside) there is a surprisingly edgy and exciting action picture.

The best scene in Deja Vu is a car chase in which Denzel chases after the bad guy, played by Jesus himself Jim Caviezel, through time. As the bad guy, played by Jim Caviezel, being watched four days in the past, is about to drive out of the range of the equipment, Denzel hops into a modified hummer and chases after him in hopes of keeping his four day old trail in view.

Trust me, this makes complete sense in the movie. The car crashes are big and loud but the context of the chase gives it an extra bit of edge or your seat excitement and what follows plays back into the overall plot in clever ways.

Not alot of Deja Vu makes sense. If you can follow the movie and keep its weird math in some sense of order you will likely watch the film come apart like wet newspaper. Scrtutinize to much and the movie goes to pieces. Watch Deja Vu for the action and for Denzel Washington's always charismatic and compelling presence and you will find much to enjoy in Deja Vu.

Goofy as all get out but still quite entertaining, I'm recommending Deja Vu.

I'm recommending Deja Vu.

Movie Review Mirrors

Mirrors (2008) 

Directed by Alexandre Aja 

Written by Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseure

Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Amy Smart

Release Date August 15th, 2008 

Published August 14th, 2008 

The fact is, Kiefer Sutherland is forever his 24 character Jack Bauer. Blessing or curse? That is for Sutherland himself to decide. Regardless, Jack Bauer is a pop culture icon and sitting down to watch Kiefer Sutherland pretend not to be Jack Bauer in the new horror flick Mirrors, I got just what I expected, a Kiefer/Jack head down, eyes forward badass with a purpose This works for Jack Bauer, not so much for Ben Carter the protagonist of Mirrors whose Jackism prevents him from connecting emotionally in the ways necessary to deepen the puddle deep ambitions director Alexandre Aja brings to Mirrors.

Based on a 2003 Korean original, Mirrors stars Kiefer Sutherland as the new night watchman at a burnt out old department store where only the mirrors seem to have survived the blaze that killed 40 some people, some years earlier. It is not long after accepting the job that Ben begins to notice something strange about all of those oddly pristine mirrors

The mirrors in fact not only reflect reality but have a reality of their own for anyone looking at them. On one of his first nights in the store, Ben nearly burns to death as a mirror shows him covered in flames. There are no flames but the pain feels real. Of course it could have something to do with the pills Ben is taking to overcome a drinking problem. Is psychosis a side effect?

As all of this is happening at work, Ben is trying to win back the love of his wife Amy (Paula Patton) who threw him out of their home because of his drinking. The couple has two kids that Ben still see's but Amy is resistant to him returning, especially after he starts babbling about the mirrors coming to life and trying to kill him.

That is a determinedly vague description of the plot of Mirrors. Even though I didn't like the movie, I don't want to ruin it for those inclined to see it. The thing is, this isn't that bad a movie, just not very original and not even a good rendering of a formula. More derivative than dramatic, more pushy than thrilling, Mirrors is yet another of those horror movies where things leap and make noise off screen for effect.

Birds flap their wings at ear snapping volumes, doors creak and slam louder in this creepy department store than they do anywhere else. Then there is the score which builds to obvious and unoriginal orchestral spikes meant to quicken the pulse. They do, but the payoffs are more often cheap and irritating than edge of your seat exciting.

The main reason I didn't enjoy Mirrors has much to do with the skill-less direction of Alexandre Aja. This horror movie hack with a real taste for the ugly sides of humanity, directs Mirrors with little care for developing the plot beyond mirrors being bad and Kiefer Sutherland fights them. The director of The Hills Have Eyes remake and the trashy High Tension, directs Mirrors minus any plausible explanations, rules or guidelines for his killer of title.

Why do the Mirrors kill? Why do they kill who they kill? A movie doesn't need to explain everything, but Aja is so deliberately vague that it becomes obvious even the director has no idea what drives the evil of the plot. Instead, Aja sits back and waits for the plot to reveal itself. It never does. Mirrors, like The Grudge, The Ring, The Eye and Shutter before it; is just another lame teenagers in danger movie ripped from a likely superior Korean version. Even if you love Sutherland as badass Jack Bauer, you aren't likely to be moved by his listless head strong imitation Jack Bauer in Mirrors.