The Raid: Redemption (2011)

Original Indonesian Title: Serbaut Maut

Director: Gareth Evans

A martial arts/action movie tour-de-force that I finally got around to watching. I can see why it quickly became such a beloved classic among fans of the genre. 

The story isn't terribly complex: in a beaten-down, urban neighborhood in Indonesia, a S.W.A.T. team launches an assault on a building held by a violent, ruthless drug kingpin. The team has to battle its way to the drug lord on the top floor of the blasted concrete structure, fighting through wave after wave of thugs and henchmen armed with guns, knives, and some ferocious martial arts skills. One of the S.W.A.T. members, Rama, is especially adept at both fighting and seeing the larger picture at work, and he becomes one of the very few members of his team to get beyond the first few floors of the death trap building. 

The Raid: Redemption goes all out as an action/fighting movie. Although I only just saw it for the first time, I remember hearing about it from a few action-loving friends back around 2012, when it really wasn't shown much in the U.S. Now I can see what they meant. After only about five-minutes of barely-necessary but simply effective "plot" setup, things go totally nuts for Rama and his team. They're getting sniped from nearby buildings, blasted from floors above them, and generally attacked from every angle imaginable. They acquit themselves fairly well and fight back admirably, but the tension and carnage are never more than one minute or one corner away. 

So it's one thing to just pack a movie with action. More importantly is whether the action is visually engaging. The answer for The Raid: Redemption is a definite "Yes!" However, this answer will of course be dependent on how one feels about action scenes. Some people can't get enough well-done fighting and action scenes in movies. Other people - like my wife - immediately tune out the moment a car chase, fistfight, or gunbattle erupt in a movie. I find myself somewhere in the middle on this - I'll remain engaged for a while in an action sequence, as long as it shows some visual and choreographic creativity. But my engagement will usually wear down after a while, if the action overwhelms the emotional or narrative elements of the movie. With The Raid, I did eventually grow less interested in the on-screen mayhem, despite recognizing how extremely well-done all of the action elements were executed. But if you dig intense, well-shot fighting in many forms, then you'll love the action in this movie. There's no "shaky cam" work, and the brutality of the confrontations is palpable at all times.

This one key fight scene conveys just some of the intensity
of the combat and the rather stark backdrops for much of
the action. Still, everything is lit and shot impressively.

One other thing worth pointing out is the general aesthetic. It may not be for everyone. Even if you're an action movie fan, you have to know that The Raid: Redemption is one of the grungiest, filthiest action flicks you're likely to see. This isn't a super-slick, visually dazzling "Fast and Furious" or Michael Bay movie. These are scuzzy, violent, impoverished criminals trying to brutally kill cops in a dank, grey, dilapidated building that looks like it barely survived a World War II bombing raid. To be clear, the camerawork, costumes, and settings are great; they present a clear vision from the director. But that vision is a gritty hellscape setting in which we get bloody pandemonium for over 90 minutes. 

Will I watch this again? Most likely not. I'm not a pure enough action fan to feel the need. However, I'll probably check out the sequel, The Raid 2, as it is also considered a very influential modern action movie. I'll be curious to see what writer/director Gareth Evans was able to do with a bigger budget, though I won't expect there to be much more beyond a similar fireworks show of punching, fighting, and shooting. 

John Wick 3: Parabellum (2019)

Director: Chad Stahelski

Not sure why I didn't review this one when I first saw it in theaters last year, but oh well. This third "chapter" in the John Wick series continues to do what the previous two did - provide slick, exceptionally well-executed, intense action within a visually stunning setting dark mythology. Like it's predecessor, Chapter 2, this one was arguably a bit longer than necessary, but was overall good.

The previous movie ended with John Wick, assassin extraordinaire, being declared "Excommunicado" by the vast and rules-dominated system of criminals and professional killers, meaning that he is now hunted by hundreds of his fellow killers-for-hire. He is also without the benefit of any legitimate form of sanctuary - something which provided him a great advantage in the past. So alone and seeking a way out of this lethal dilemma, John calls in a couple of very old and very valuable favors, ultimately being granted a meeting with a mysterious, powerful figure (billed only as "The Elder") who seems to hold sway over the immensely powerful criminal organizations that all want John dead. In exchange for safety from the countless killers after him, John agrees to serve him for the rest of his life in addition to killing Winston, longtime friend of Johns' and the manager of the New York Continental Hotel. Almost needless to say, things don't exactly work out the way that The Elder and the other most powerful criminals lords hope, with John and a few friends killing dozens upon dozens of would-be assassins along the way. 

I have to tip my cap to this franchise - it's done a brilliant job of taking a simple, crowd-pleasing idea and executing it with a satisfying amount of style, novelty, and exceptional attention to detail. The first John Wick made its mark in two ways: by bringing an intense, "extended shots" approach to filming action and fight scenes, and setting the story within a novel, dark fantasy world with its own mythology and rules. Chapter 2 got deeper into that mythology, and it managed to show that they could offer equally intense fights with novel twists, either through the settings or the methods that the fighters used. Parabellum continues this trend, giving us new, often exotic and dazzling locations and sets, and adding fun wrinkles to the combat. And there's a lot of combat. I know this will be sacrilege to the millions of Wick faithful, but I actually thought there was too much combat. I'll explain later.

The sequels in this series have done a great job of giving us
new environments, visuals, and companions for John. For
example, getting John and Halle Berry strolling through 
the desert with a pair of attack German shepherds.

In terms of story, the broad strokes are basically the same as Chapter 2. John seeks to get out of a massive, life-threatening dilemma, but he needs to seek out help to do it. He cashes in a few favors just for the chance at a solution, only to find that he'll have to pledge eternal servitude as a killer to The Elder if he wants to be safe from assassination. There are mysterious, ever-more-powerful characters, and a few new friends whom we meet along the way. And at every turn, John and his few partners cut bloody swaths between where they are and where they're going. In this sense, it's all very much like the latter half of Chapter 2, during which John goes from the offensive to the defensive. The most fascinating part of this is that, as John works his way up the criminal power structure, we continue to get hints at just how powerful - seemingly supernaturally so - those in control of this vast network are. I really enjoy how the story keeps these cards close to the vest. I'm still not sure if it speaks to deft storytelling or a lack of actual substance, but it still works for me. 

The combat and action scenes. Look, they're great. This is by far the major draw to this entire series, and Parabellum keeps the bar exceptionally high, arguably raising it even higher than the previous film. Whether it's on-road pursuits, hand-to-hand fighting, or gunplay, this series continues to dazzle. We've already seen how well the action and fight sequences are choreographed and shot, so that's no surprise. What each new film offers, though, is new environments, weapons, and other props. Yes, it's John Wick killing people by the bundle, but nearly every new fight does something new and different in its dark, brutal way. Just a few examples from Parabellum include a motorcycle pursuit of John on a horse, one of the longest knife-fights you'll ever see, Halle Berry using a pair of bulletproofed attack dogs, and more. Honestly, my Dad and I (we went to see it together in the theater) were as entertained by the over-the-top novelty of the kills as much as anything. 

This is Zero, John's primary fighting adversary
in Parabellum. He's actually been my favorite so
far, adding some levity to the intense fights.

For all the mastery and ingenuity of the highly dynamic and kinetic fight sequences, though, I did find that they wore on me after a while. This is a continuation of this entire series for me, actually. The first John Wick clocked in at 101 minutes; Chapter 2 expanded to 122 minutes, and Parabellum upped it a bit to 130 minutes. All three have about the same 25 to 30 minutes of "plot," with the rest given over to action. The balance was just right in the first movie for me, but it all grew a bit tiresome at the 90-minute mark in the second and third films. It didn't help that the grande finale fight in Parabellum took place in an environment that looked a lot like the final big fight in Chapter 2, so it already felt a bit familiar. I must say, though, that the actual fight against Zero and his two henchmen was much better than what I found to be a so-so fight against Ares in Chapter 2. The fights are all done brilliantly - it's just that I don't have the unquenchable thirst for action that many viewers might have. 

There's a very interesting possible path that this series may go down - the path of "tearing down the entire system." At this point in the overall story, I'm hoping that we now have the basic framework of the vast, rule-governed network that all of these criminals and killer operate within. John's arc so far suggests that he is ready to break free of it entirely, and he is now in the position where the only way to do so is to destroy it completely. This would be the logical - and extremely fun - path for the future movies to take. I recently heard that the plan is to film both the fourth and fifth movies together, so we can expect at least two more chapters in this "franchise." I'll definitely check them out, even if I'll go in expecting to grow a bit tired of the bloodletting if they go much beyond the hour-and-a-half threshold. 

New Release with No Spoilers: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

No Spoilers Here - Read Away!

Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo

What a titanic piece of work, and one that takes more than a few risks. That is why it is a highly impressive follow-up to last year's Infinity War, and a wonderfully fitting final chapter to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) first decade of blockbuster movie domination.

Before getting into my general thoughts, I should point out that Endgame, like its predecessor Infinity War, is not a friendly film for those unfamiliar with the seminal films of the MCU. For the last few years, the MCU has been better described as a large-scale film series rather than a group of individual films which take place in the same "universe". While a viewer certainly doesn't need to have seen all 21 of the previous MCU films, seeing at least a half dozen specific ones will provide far greater context for the events in Endgame. My personal recommendations for the highly recommended "homework" films would be:

Iron Man
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers
Thor: The Dark World
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Civil War
The Avengers: Infinity War
Ant-Man and The Wasp

There are a few other films that one could watch in order to fully understand some of the lesser plot points and gags in Endgame, but the nine listed above will give one a very solid foundation upon which to enjoy the new movie without feeling lost.

This being the "no spoiler" section, I cannot dive into the plot points except to state that Endgame spends a fair bit of time dealing with the fallout of Thanos's "snap" from Infinity War, with which he used the Infinity Gauntlet to literally annihilate half of the population of the known universe at the end of the previous film. The surviving superheroes grapple with the unfathomable loss just like everyone else - with varying degrees of success and failure. Some eventually move on. Others wallow in sad states of guilt and loss. Eventually, a possible and highly risky form of salvation is presented and those heroes left behind pull themselves together to try and enact it in an effort to bring back the countless numbers of people lost.

One of the movie's many strengths is seeing who among the
survivors ends up teaming together in the name of the new
mission laid out by Endgame.

Perhaps the thing that stands out to me about Endgame is just how different the pace and tone are, compared to Infinity War. That previous movie had an extremely brisk pace and plenty of action, right from the jump. Endgame takes a much different approach, using nearly all of the first act (which clocks in at nearly an hour) in a somber mood, looking at the familiar characters dealing with their grief and some still searching for solutions. It's not without humor, to be sure, but the moments of levity are fewer and further between than any MCU film I can recall. For a dedicated fan of the MCU like myself, however, this was a very welcome and all-but-necessary shift, coming on the heels of such a wild and devastating end to Infinity War. Viewers not familiar with the main characters' backstories are likely to be bored by the slower pace, but such is always the case when one picks up a series in its final chapter. Once the second act begins, though, things pick up quite briskly.

The second act of the movie was a very fun one, despite being the most obvious form of fan service in the entire 22-film MCU. This is not to say that it felt contrived or pandering. It actually does make complete sense within the plot of the movie, all while offering real fanboys and fangirls tons of "wink wink, nudge nudge" moments for about an hour, as we recall the many, many details from earlier movies referenced in this part of the epic film. It all culminates in scenes teased, suggested, and hoped for based on Infinity War - a third-act battle sequence of huge proportions and featuring just about every major and secondary character from the 21 previous MCU movies. And as they've done with their three previous MCU movies, the Russos show that they know how to do immensely entertaining, large-scale action.

I don't think it's giving anything away to mention that time travel plays more than a small role in this movie (how else did we think the surviving Avengers might seek to undo Thanos's galactic genocide?). As with any story that uses time travel as a device, the plot can get messy and confusing if one thinks too much about it. Endgame doesn't get too bogged down in the weeds on this, which is probably for the best, but it does raise certain questions that I'm yet to come up with answers to, despite mulling them over for a good 48 hours after watching the movie. There are also a few other unresolved plot threads that may give you an un-scratchable itch, but there's nothing that torpedoes the main thrust of the story.

The other aspect at the heart of this film is the characters. Like the narrative, the Russos throw us more than a couple of curve balls here, presenting some heroes as totally shattered emotionally (and not always the ones you expect) while others remain staunchly dedicated to the seemingly futile search for a way to bring everyone back. It is during these inner struggles that it helps to know about the characters since knowing about their past motivations and relationships with each other adds greatly to the emotional impact of the entire movie, especially the first and second acts. And for fans who have enjoyed the emotional heart of this series going back to the earliest seminal movies Iron Man and Captain America: The First Avenger, the ending should be immensely satisfying.

***Since writing the above, I've seen the film an additional two times and thoroughly enjoyed its full length all three times. Of course, I'm a tremendous fan of this series, but it speaks very highly of such a long film that even a dedicated fan can gain so much enjoyment from it.

Spoiler Section - Beware!!!

So let's get into this thing a little more. I could probably write a 20,000-word rabbit hole piece about so many specific details and how I loved or disliked them, but I'll stick to a few of the larger points.

The time travel. Let's get this out of the way. As a plot device to resolve the devastation unleashed in Infinity War, it was a necessary evil. But evil it still was. Yes, it provides a great reason for our heroes to go back and revisit moments chronicled in several earlier films in the series, and do so in some wonderfully entertaining ways. But still, when one thinks about it all for more than a few moments, it all falls apart rather quickly. If 2014 Thanos, along with his army and Gamorah and Nebula, jumps ahead to 2023 to confront the Avengers and gets annihilated, then you've now obliterated all of the things that Thanos (and his army and daughters) did up to and after Guardians of the Galaxy. That has a lot of massive impacts, the most obvious of which is that Thanos is now no longer around to kick of the Infinity War story. On a smaller scale, Steve Rogers going back and staying in the 1940s to live out his life with Peggy Carter (a wonderfully satisfying moment of closure) leaves a ton of unanswerable questions about their relationship, such as why Peggy doesn't ackowledge him as her husband back in The Winter Soldier. And on and on the questions go, leading to a completely shattered continuity. That's by far my biggest issue with this movie. Again, though, it was probably a necessary evil, given exactly what had happened previously.

My other gripes are much smaller and easily shrugged off. The final battle is highly enjoyable, though I could have done without the high amount of posing and the cringe-worthy "She'll have help," up-with-women moment towards the end. Don't get me wrong - I love the women characters in the MCU, and I love seeing them kick ass, whether individually or together. But that moment felt so contrived that it broke my enjoyment of the battle. Oh, and why does anyone, including Peter Parker or anyone else, think that Captain Marvel needs any help to get through a few score foot soldiers? Did they not just see her single-handedly bring down Thanos's immense warship by flying through it in about 10 seconds flat? Those and a few other things had me rolling my eyes a bit, but again - easily shrugged off.

What impressed me the most is how the plot defied my expectations. As I do with all blockbuster movies which I'm eager to see, I completely blocked out any trailers or other information about the movie. That way, it could reveal itself to me upon my first viewing. Endgame rewarded that approach. Having a handful of the remaining Avengers rather quickly track down Thanos and execute him was not something I saw coming, nor was the five year jump in the narrative. And then there was fat Thor, Black Widow's sacrifice, and Steve Rogers electing to go back and reclaim the life he lost in 1945. I really do feel like the writers took some real risks with this story. They could very well have done a full two-and-a-half hour "let's go get Thanos" story, but they elected to focus more on dealing with loss and fighting to undo a horrendous tragedy rather than focus more on a revenge tale. I think this made the movie a great counter-balance and follow-up to Infinity War, which was a very fast-paced film heavily emphasizing action/adventure elements over emotional touchstones.

The curious thing now is the question of where the MCU goes from this point. It was a bold stroke to move the entire universe five years into the future, which threatens to really jerk with the continuity that many of us MCU nerds cherish. The threat of dangling time threads aside, I'm still completely on board with what may come. Right now, there are only a few "known" movies planned, but details are extremely slim. I do hope to see at least one more movie featuring the "Asguardians of the Galaxy," as Portly Thor referred to them. That team-up has a dizzying amount of entertainment potential. 

Retro Reviews: Predator series Part I: Predator (1987) and Predator 2 (1990)

Having recently seen Shane Black's newest entry into the Predator film series, I had the urge to go back and watch (or rewatch) a few of the earlier movies which I hadn't seen in a number of years. This year's The Predator marks the sixth movie in the series, and I'd seen all but one of the previous five with varying degrees of recency. Without further ado:

This is the actual poster that I had on
my bedroom wall as a kid.

Predator (1987)

Director: John McTiernan

I didn't need to bother going out of my way to rewatch the original movie, as I watch it every couple of years or so. This keeps it rather fresh in my mind, even aside from the fact that my Predator-loving friends and I have been quoting the movie for a couple of decades now.

For those who have somehow never seen it, the brief summary is that a rescue team of special forces soldiers, led by Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger), go into the Central American jungle on what is supposed to be a rescue mission. After the mission goes south, Dutch and his team start to be brutally killed, one-by-one, by some mysterious, unseen being. The being turns out to be an extra-terrestrial hunter that pursues the most challenging "game" on this planet. Dutch and his crew try to survive, with all but Dutch and a local freedom fighter, Anna, being slain by "the Predator."

This movie is, quite simply, a masterpiece of action film-making. It was the first major film by action movie directing legend John McTiernan (Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October), and this was the movie that got him larger budgets for his later films. With a relatively paltry budget of $15 million, he transported viewers into a Central American jungle to follow Schwarzenegger's small platoon of completely badasses, as they are ruthlessly hunted by a mysterious killer using impossibly advanced technology. The story is relatively simple, but the characters are great, the pacing and dialogue are perfect, and the action and tension are top-notch. I have to assume that it was the quality of this film that urged movie studios to throw far greater sums at McTiernan for his next movie - the following year's iconic Die Hard, another absolute masterpiece of action cinema.

Back to Predator. It's not often that a movie gets made that is so much of its own time yet is timelessly enjoyable. The great noir cinema of the '40s and '50s comes to mind, as do several other films. Predator is one of those. A friend of mine once brilliantly described the movie as "Beowulf told through the lens of Reagan-era America," which I found astoundingly fitting. Like so many things in the 1980s, this movie was about undiluted machismo. You have several famously muscle-bound dudes: Arnie. Carl "Apollo Creed" Weathers. Jesse "The Body" Ventura. And several other obvious tough guys, most of whom were military veterans. This resulted in a very organic, humorous Alpha-male chemistry between everyone in the platoon. Without authentic soldiers playing these roles, it's easy to imagine how this movie could have fallen very flat. A strong argument can also be made that Schwarzenegger - never known as being a particularly great actor - was at his acting best in this movie. No, the role didn't demand much, but it fit Arnie like a glove, and he nailed it to a tee.

Two more of the obvious strengths of the film are the narrative pace and dialogPredator have tried to work in a fraction of this movie's great lines and flawless deliveries, and nearly all have failed.

Dutch and his men. They look like serious badasses probably
because nearly all of them were in real life. Even beyond the
muscles and hard stares, though, each character quickly
displays some charisma, making many of the deaths
meaningful to us viewers.

ue. The movie does spend a little time setting up the "rescue mission" story, but it's barely five minutes before we're with the guys on a chopper, listening to "Long Tall Sally" blasting over the radio and Hawkins fire off one of his crass jokes, and getting to love the entire squad through their busting of each others' balls. The movie is then off and truly running, with the slower, tenser moments bridged to the explosive action sequences through a highly memorable and quotable script, compliments of the punch-up writing of Shane Black, who plays Hawkins in the film. Countless action movies before and since

One last observation about this movie - the ending. I think it's often a somewhat overlooked piece of genius. Whereas so many lesser action/horror movies follow the trope of ending the movie with the surviving hero firing off a one-liner, or the movie leaving us viewers with an obvious teaser for a potential sequel, Predator doesn't do that. The final shots of this movie are of Dutch being carried off in a rescue helicopter, staring into the distance as the reality of his men's deaths sets in. No more pithy one-liners. No hints of further "Predators" arising to seek revenge. Just the haunted stare of an elite soldier who has survived a horrific ordeal - one which has taken the lives of every one of his closest brothers-in-arms. It's rare that such an overtly "action" movie chooses to end on such an effectively somber note, but Predator pulls it off.

There is a very good reason that this single film spawned so many other stories, mainly in movies and comic books. In terms of the films, none of the five succeeding ones has come anywhere close to matching the muscled-up magic of the original.

Predator 2 (1990)

Director: Stephen Hopkins

A sequel that was rather disappointing when it was released, given how very different it was from its predecessor. It is one, however, that holds up fairly well.

Predator 2 completely shifted the setting from a tropical rainforest to a blisteringly hot Los Angeles in which a wildly violent gang war is taking place. This was the first jarring shift away from the memorably primitive setting of the original movie. Another is that, while a sequel, not a single character and only one brief reference is made to the horrors which Dutch and his men suffered in Predator. And the final large difference is simply the complexity of the plot, which includes more than the simple survival tale of the original film. Here you have a Dirty Harry-like cop, Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover), who catches the eye of a new "Predator" alien. The Predator, for whatever reason, decides to toy with Harrigan by following him around and gradually killing of members of his squad. Hovering around all of this is a shadowy government group who is interested in trapping the Predator, in order to study it and its amazingly advanced weapons technology.

While it never really comes close to the overall quality of the original, Predator 2 is a decent follow-up and a solid enough action movie. I admire the film-makers' willingness to completely change settings, and it was fun to dig a bit deeper into the culture of the Predator species. While the drug war plotline never gets terribly interesting, it serves well enough as a hotbed of action in which the Predator and Harrigan can play their cat-and-mouse game. The cast it also strong. Although Maria Conchita Alonso can overact and over-inflect quite a bit, Ruben Blades, Gary Busey, and Bill Paxton are all great. There are a few moments when the tone is just a tad off - basically when anyone not named Bill Paxton tries to be funny - but this was a decent entry into the series.

Though never noted as an "action star," per se, Danny Glover
actually plays the part of hard-charging super-cop Mike
Harrigan fairly well. His epic chase-down of the hunter
alien packs a solid amount of intensity to it.

I feel that one thing that weakens this movie is that a fair bit of the violence is purely gratuitous. Namely, some of the gang violence, especially the scene in which Jamaican gang members string up a rival and mercilessly thrust a massive knife into his chest. This scene also includes one of several clumsy attempts to emulate the memorable one-liners from the original film. The knife-wielding Jamaican in this scene, for no clear reason, utters the line, "Shit happens," with his thick accent. This becomes a line that the Predator alien utters later, much the same way that the alien utters "What the hell are you?" in the original movie. These were just two of several moments which seemed to be going for a little more shock value or "cool" factor than the original movie, which achieved its strength and coolness in a nearly effortless and organic manner. When Predator 2 tries, it comes off as cheap B-movie fare.

I wasn't able to find a final budget for this movie, but it made notably less that the original. This is why, I assume, the series was put to sleep for well over a decade.

New Release! Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) [No spoilers]

Spoiler-Free Review - Read On!

Director: J.A. Bayona

A surprisingly grim, dark entry into the typically fun "Jurassic" film series, this movie didn't completely seem to know what to do with itself.

I'll admit right off that I'm not a particular fan of dinosaur flicks. Sure, I was dazzled by the original Jurassic Park back when I saw it as a 17-year old in 1993. The effects were amazing, and it was vintage "fun" Steven Spielberg fare, with a great cast and perfect balance between tension and humor. But I never felt any great allegiance to the series itself. If I ever saw the sequel, I can't recall it. And I'm quite sure that I never saw the third film. Still, when my family wanted to check out the revival movie Jurassic World a few years ago, I joined in. I found that movie fairly fun, but ultimately I thought it devolved into a CGI scramble resembling a lame shooter video game during most of the third act. When I saw trailers for its follow up, Fallen Kingdom, I had little interest, which waned even further when I saw the tepid reviews flow in. My instincts were correct.

Picking up in "real time," three years after the disastrous events depicted in the previous movie, the island home to the now-free dinosaurs is about to literally explode into a volcanic inferno. The lone surviving person who had a hand in creating the original Jurassic Park is attempting to spearhead an illegal rescue operation which will bring as many of the dinosaurs as possible to a new, safe island preserve. To do so, his estate enlists Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) to aide by bringing in former raptor trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to the island during the extraction. The two go along, but things soon turn both highly dangerous and very sinister. The island's volcano begins erupting not long after Claire and Owen's arrivals, and it also becomes clear that the military units ostensibly sent to rescue the dinos are really there to bring them back to the mainland to be sold as commodities to the highest bidders.

One of a few lazy story elements, the introduction of a "newer,
even scarier" dinosaur - the "Indoraptor." And there are Pratt
and Howard, taking part in the horror movie that the film
becomes for its entire third act.

This movie was simply very little fun to watch, and this is the one thing I hope to get when seeing a dinosaur movie. It's what the original film gave us all, and any subsequent movies in the series are foolish to think that they can do otherwise. There is a little bit of banter that Chris Pratt's expert comic chops help to sell, but these are very few and far between. No, instead, this movie features a lot of genuinely upsetting moments. Dinosaurs drowning to death. More dinosaurs getting roasted alive by lava. The surviving dinosaurs getting tortured and carted off to be sold. Those dinosaurs being further tortured, and then nearly gassed to death. There is a lot of animal pain and suffering on display in this movie, and it's simply unpleasant to watch. I can only imagine how upset I would have been had I been a young child, thinking I was going to see a followup to Jurassic World, the previous movie which had much of the fun of the original film. It's as if the filmmakers had actually wanted to do a documentary warning us against animal cruelty, but decided to fold the message into a Steven Spielberg franchise.

As if the tone of the movie weren't dark enough, much of the film is visually very dark. Aside from roughly 30 minutes on the island, the movie takes place at night, in the rain, and in a dark, imposing mansion. It truly is more of a suspense/horror movie for much of its length, rather than the action/adventure films that all of the previous entries have been. On top of that, Fallen Kingdom takes a stab at some profound commentary about man meddling with nature. To do so, the filmmakers decided to bring back Jeff Goldblum's highly memorable Dr. Ian Malcolm, but merely as a bookend to highlight the unoriginal idea that "if man meddles, he should be ready to face the consequences." And the consequences in this movie have rather dire implications.

The follow-up movie is already in the works, and Fallen Kingdom sets it up in rather grim fashion. I was happy to take one for the team and join some of my family for this last one, but I'll be skipping out on this franchise's next adventure. 

New Release! Tomb Raider (2018)

Director: Roar Uthaug

A completely average reboot that wastes some legitimate resources and acting talent.

Like plenty of men now in their early-forties, I played the original 1996 Tomb Raider game on the Playstation back when it was released. It was a fun little adventure/action/puzzle game, if not one that totally grabbed me. I didn't bother with any of the many sequels for a long while. I also didn't bother seeing the two feature films starring Angelina Jolie back in 2001 and 2003, as they looked rather campy and silly. I did, however, play the more 2015 reboot of the video game series, which was actually very well done and quite entertaining. This last interaction with the series, along with my brother-in-law's desire to see the film, is what brought me to the theater to see a movie I otherwise wouldn't have bothered with.

The film tells the story of Lara Croft, an heiress to a billion-dollar business empire who has little desire to claim her vast fortunes. We meet Lara as she tries to scrape out a meager living in downtown London. She is eventually confronted with the unavoidable task of signing documents which will declare her father, who went missing seven years prior, legally deceased, also making her responsible for the family's vast fortune. Lara quickly discovers some cryptic clues as to her father's mysterious disappearance, however, and she jets off to follow his cold trail and learn more. She initially traces her father's path to Hong Kong, and then to a tiny, remote, barely-known island off the southern coast of Japan. There, she discovers an entire crew of captive men being forced to search for some sort of treasure alluded to in little-known legends about a Japanese empress's tomb. Lara becomes embroiled in a game of survival and a race to prevent the potential thieves, led by the cold-blooded Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), from accomplishing their goal.

Tomb Raider is ultimately a pretty forgettable attempt to blend the most recent versions of the video game series with a few dashes from the Indiana Jones movies which have always inspired the character. There are a few culprits, but the two obvious ones are a lack of a sharp script and a misguided choice in tone.

Expect a mud-caked, battered Lara to hang from many
cliffs and grit many teeth. Actress Alicia Vikander certainly
looked and acted the part. If only the script had risen to her
dedication and acting levels.

The dialogue and character interactions never rise above mildly interesting, and often they are flat-out dull. This has nothing to do with most of the acting. Alicia Vikander and Walton Goggins do as much as they can with the lame dialogue they were given to work with (Dominic West, who plays Lara's father goes overboard, though). The film also misses out on chances to add a bit more depth to a few characters, such as Lu Ren, the young boat captain who accompanies Lara to the island. The basic idea of the character was fine, and actor Daniel Wu does well in the role; alas, nothing much was done with him to inspire interest in his plight.

The weakness in the script can also be connected to the general tone and approach to the film. About 20 minutes into the film, virtually the entire movie is pure survival adventure, with one cliff-hanger after another bombarding you. Some of the early sequences and set-pieces are actually decent. But when there are laughable coincidences and lame devices connecting one thrill-scene after another, for over an hour straight, it gets old pretty quickly. Some decent levity and comedy might have helped here, but the movie has a fairly humorless tone much of the time. And the occasional attempts at comedy always fall very flat, again due to mediocre writing more than any problems with the performances.

This iteration of Tomb Raider is one of those movies that you'd probably feel fine about watching if you're just looking for a decent, two-hour distraction while channel surfing at home, late at night. But I wouldn't suggest anyone go out of their way for it. 

Retro Duo: Drive (2011); The Heat (2013)

Drive (2011)

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

One of my favorite movies from the last decade. I just watched it for the fourth or fifth time, and I still marvel at it.

The basic story elements are straight out of the mythical Western movies of Sergio Leone: a quiet man with no name and a particular skill set is not bothered by committing acts outside of the law. However, he does have a certain code of honor to which he holds himself. When he sees the forces of darkness closing in, he decides to use his skills to fight back. In the case of director Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, instead of a gunfighter, we have "Driver" (Ryan Gosling), who is a movie stunt driver moonlighting as a getaway "wheel man" for robbers. When Driver (his real name is never given) falls in love with his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), he starts to show a tenderness unseen to us before. This nearly all vanishes, however, when Irene's husband is first paroled out of prison but then forced into committing a robbery that goes horribly wrong. Driver then finds himself in a race to track down the gangsters responsible, while keeping Irene and her little boy safe.

While Drive is not telling a story that is particularly fresh, it updates the "quiet, lone hero" tale wonderfully and tells it with such cinematic excellence that it shames other movies that have tried the same thing since Leone first mastered it in the mid-1960s. Admittedly, it helps if one has a certain affinity for this type of protagonist. I've long been a fan of Leone and Clint Eastwood's (we can technically throw Charles Bronson in there, too) Man With No Name character. I'm far from the only boy in the history of humanity who's been fascinated by the fantasy of the ever-cool and unflappable hero who is so skilled that he can take down any adversary, often without breaking much of a sweat. Ryan Gosling's Driver is cut from that same cloth, though he's traded in Eastwood's dusty serape for a slick, silver driving jacket with a badass scorpion on the back.

I know, I know. If you haven't seen the movie, you're thinking, "Come on. A silent, badass loner wearing a scorpion jacket? This is a joke, right?" No. It's not. By a lesser filmmaker, it would be laughable, to be sure. But this screenplay and direction are so tight that it's brilliant. The narrative is a case-study in cinematic efficiency, with nary a wasted scene or throwaway line to be found in the entire film. And while there is certainly plenty of intense action and violence in the latter parts of the movie, much of the earlier segments feature delicate and subtle visual cues to tell the story. These subtleties are what make the action sequences in the third act of the movie so much more impactful.

I've spoken to a few friends who have watched the movie and simply found it too slow, quiet, and brooding for their liking. I understand this. If one prefers their action to be highly kinetic and offer strings of one-liners to bridge the action scenes, a la the Fast and the Furious franchise, then Drive is not the movie for you. In place of those styles of storytelling, Drive offers stunningly framed and lit scenes, expert editing, a meditative tone, and pitch-perfect acting (the supporting cast is amazing) to tell a story that is both classic and unique. There aren't many non-popcorn movies that I watch every year or two, but this quickly became one of them. After this most recent viewing, this is not at all likely to change.

This great throwback poster gives some
idea of the tone of the movie. Think of
it as a more comedic, profane version of
Lethal Weapon.

The Heat (2013)

Director: Paul Feig

A bit of a forerunner for the even-better, modern comedy classic Spy, The Heat is a hilarious early team-up of comedy director Paul Feig and brilliant comedienne Melissa McCarthy.

The movie pairs stuffy, arrogant F.B.I. Agent Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) with local hardass Boston police officer Mullins (McCarthy) as they try to track down a high-volume drug dealer responsible for several grizzly deaths in recent months. Ashburn is a well-educated and capable but highly abrasive, career-driven woman who has alienated virtually every coworker in the Bureau. Mullins, on quite the other hand, is Ashburn's polar opposite in nearly every way. While she is equally effective at tracking and capturing criminals, her approach is far less surgical and much more that of a wrecking ball, speaking to her background as the eldest sister in her Irish, working class family. Mullins is supremely crass and on a hair trigger at all times. She and Ashburn eventually bridge the tremendous gap between their styles of law enforcement and work together to solve the case.

Anyone who has seen and enjoyed either Bridesmaids or Spy would do well to check out The Heat. Director Paul Feig has found his modern comedy movie niche with the formula evidenced in these movies (though Spy was impressively less formulaic than the other two): use a known story blueprint, hire several supremely hilarious actors, and let them run with their lines and characters. That is truly where the strength of these movies lie. When you give someone like McCarthy a few decent lines or a dynamic character to work with, along with R-rated freedom, she'll either deliver the written line with perfect timing and tone, or she'll punch it up into something even better. And not to slight Sandra Bullock here, who does a great job as the straight woman, but it's McCarthy's attitude and comic chops that set the tone here. It also helps to have some other veteran comic actors like Bill Burr and Michael Rappaport as supporting characters, just so no single voice or pair of voices dominate for too long.

Like nearly every Paul Feig movie I've seen, The Heat is probably about 10 to 15 minutes too long, due to overly generous editing. It's fairly clear that much of Feig's approach is to grant his actors a ton of freedom to ad-lib as much as they desire. This is as it should be, as it clearly leads to plenty of hilarious moments of spontaneous dialogue and reactions. However, every film of his contains at least a few scenes that feel a tad too long or simply superfluous, bogging down the narrative pace just a bit. Fortunately, they've never been a complete drag on his movies, and The Heat is the same.

I was glad to learn that shortly after I watched this movie, a sequel was announced. The trio of Feig, McCarthy, and Bullock was obviously a strong one, and there are plenty more tales of Ashburn and Mullins that would be fun to tell. I'll look forward to it. 

New-ish Releases: The Accountant (2016); John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

The Accountant (2016)

Director: Gavin O'Connor

Sometimes, despite your best instincts, you give a movie a shot. In this case, this roll of the dice was inspired by this article, which I came across a week or so ago, in which the writer explains in fairly humorous ways how he is unable to stop watching this movie. So I gave it a shot. While it's not bad, it's hardly one that I see myself ever going back to, and I can see why many critics and viewers had problems with it.

Describing the plot in any real detail would be an exercise in hilarity and exhaustion, so I'll simplify: Ben Affleck plays an accountant, Christan Wolff, with high-functioning autism, which allows him to do numerical computations at phenomenal speeds, despite his lack of communication or general social skills. Ostensibly, he uses his preternatural skills as a run-of-the-mill accountant in a strip mall. Secretly, however, he does accounting for some of the most powerful, wealthy, and dangerous people on earth. He is also a highly trained martial artist, marksman, and all-around lethal weapon. On one particular accounting job for a large company, he uncovers a highly suspicious discrepancy. This turns out to be the proverbial thread which, once pulled, begins to unravel a massive conspiracy that leads to Wolff being hunted (see what they did there?) by a gang of highly trained mercenaries.

I'm no doctor, but it actually made more than a little sense to
me that a certain type of autism might actually manifest as
world-class sniping ability. But maybe that's just wishful
thinking on my part.

I can best describe this movie only as "watchable." My expectations were fairly low going in, hoping that it might be a "so silly it's great" kind of ride. A lot of it is silly, but not silly enough to warrant any sort of real devotion. There are plenty of plot twists and turns, but most of them can be seen coming from a mile away, and they aren't revealed or presented in any particularly creative ways. The notion of an autistic action hero was somewhat compelling for about half of the movie, but the writers fumbled what could have been far more plausible character development. What they ended up with was sloppy at best and insulting at worst. It didn't help that the script for Wolff and Ben Affleck's performance were uneven. Since it's heartless to even suggest that they make a comedy out of a very real affliction like autism, one can only feel that the creators' best move was to go more dramatic and realistic with the condition. They didn't get this right enough, with the Wolff character too often showing obvious signs of empathy and abilities to interact. This is in stark contrast to the nearly crippling condition which is depicted during the flashback sequences of the film showing Wolff as a child. I'm no doctor, but I'm reasonably certain that severe autism cannot be reduced by such a dramatic amount as the film would have you believe, especially not under the harsh conditions of Wolff's childhood.

But the movie, at least, didn't pretend to be a genuine study of autism. It's an action/suspense movie, and I did actually find many of the action scenes fairly engaging. When Wolff is confronted by a thug armed with an automatic weapon and whips him in the face with his belt, I was on board. The action scenes take several pages out of recent movies like John Wick (see my thoughts on the sequel in the review below), eschewing slow motion, embracing fast-paced, brutal fight scenes, and more than a few face shots. Don't get me wrong, The Accountant is not nearly as well-executed or as relentless as John Wick, but it does emulate that modern classic in the right ways here and there, making for a few fun action sequences.

Although I found it a modestly entertaining way to spend a couple of hours, I'm not completely sure what the creators of this movie were going for. If they were trying to set up a franchise, I think they'll be bitterly disappointed. If they wanted to create a memorable one-shot, self-contained movie, it still falls a little short.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Director: Chad Stahelski

I actually saw this upon its initial release, but only just realized that I hadn't done a review of it. At any rate, it was a really strong follow-up to the immensely satisfying first chapter, even if it was a bit longer than I felt necessary.

Picking up very, very soon after the events of the first movie, we get Wick doing a bit of mop-up work against a few lingering Russian mafia clowns. At this point, just when Wick is ready to once again bury his profession and reputation as the most dangerous hitman alive, an old debt is called in by young organized crime prince Santino D'Antonio. As much as Wick wants to refuse, the debt is one that can only be repaid with his service or his life, forcing the reluctant assassin to comply. The job is no small feat, being to kill Santino's sister, Gianna, who is the newly anointed leader of their immensely powerful crime syndicate. In addition to accomplishing this arduous task, Wick eventually has to avoid countless other assassins who literally come gunning for him when a massive bounty is placed on his head.

The story is certainly not the stuff of high literature or cinema. But boy, is it fun for anyone itching for a slick, wild shoot-'em-up. The first movie was a surprisingly entertaining introduction into a visually stunning world where organized crime and assassinations are the rule of the day. Chapter 2 builds on this world by following Wick even deeper into the workings of the elaborate system of connections and protocols for the murderers and thieves who work and play in the dark corners of a place that can be deceptively similar to our real world. Really, though, I love how Stahelski and the writers make no bones about offering us what is clearly a dark fantasy world where swords are replaced by high-tech guns and magic is replaced by lethal reputation.

Just one of the many stylish and memorable set pieces in
the movie. Director Chad Stahelski shows off his great eye
for setting and choreography again and again.

A major strength of the first film was the intensity and even artistry with which the action scenes were executed. Chapter 2 does not slack on this in any way. While I do feel that some of the sequenves go on longer than necessary, in general there are enough changes in environment and choreography to keep things engaging for most of the movie's two-hour running time. I am not a person who enjoys most purely action movies (e.g. Fast and the Furious franchise and its ilk), but I've found myself hypnotized by the relentless intensity and kinetic strength of these first two films.

The plot? Don't expect too much, as with the first film. All you really need to know is laid out my my summary above, as it's just an excuse to watch John Wick do what he does best. The story keeps it all rather simple, which is exactly what it should do for this kind of movie.

So I still very much dig what Stahelski and Reeves have going here. I've read that the plan is to do one more film and create a rounded-out trilogy. This feels right, and I now have confidence that they can do it effectively. I wondered just how a sequel to the original would come off, and it really didn't disappoint, despite a few overstuffed elements. 

Mission: Impossible series

This is yet another film franchise which I recently felt the urge to work through. I had only ever seen the original, back during its theatrical release in 1996. I remember enjoying it well enough back then, but I never felt the need to see it again. With the positive reviews of the more recent films in the series, I felt like taking them all in. My thoughts:

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Director: Brian De Palma

This one has not aged very well. With espionage suspense thrillers growing smarter and more sophisticated, the original M:I movie seems a bit like a clumsy relic, despite being only 20 years old. 

For those who haven't seen it in a while, here's a quick plot summary: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team of secret agents are sent on a mission that goes horribly wrong. In the middle of the mission, several of the members are killed, seemingly due to a mole within the group. Hunt is blamed and goes on the run. he learns that the betrayal was connected to a furtive deal to sell the list of all M:I agents throughout the world to an outside party. Hunt recruits two discharged agents to help him and the one survivor of his original team to obtain the list and find who killed his team members and set him up.

The basic plot serves well enough for such a movie. The initial betrayal still has some impact, as it is rather dark and sets the stakes high enough to be compelling. And the tale of a highly-trained, highly capable secret agent using his skills to pull off amazing feats is intriguing here. But the moment one looks closely at or thinks a bit about the execution of the plot details, the movie is rather shallow. There are even times when it brushes with being unintentionally campy. 

A good spy thriller needs to have some smarts, especially with its details. With M:I, the plot whisks you along so quickly that you might forget to ask questions like, "Why are Hunt and his entire team so oddly chipper at the beginning? Are they going on a black op or a golf retreat?" Or maybe "How does the CIA headquarters not have a far safer security protocols in the event of a fire?" Or how about "Why the hell did a long-standing fellow member of his team just sell out the entire crew, aside from money (which wasn't really that much, anyway)?" The movie just pulls us along from one sequence and scene to the next, hoping that we won't notice how shoddy several elements of it are. 

The break-in of the C.I.A. headquarters is still the best and
most iconic sequence of the entire film. It's a shame that the
rest of the movie doesn't hold up nearly as well.

I will say that the data heist in the CIA headquarters still has a decent amount of tension. Aside from that 10-odd minutes or so, I now find the movie rather dull. The heroes and villains are all no more than two-dimensional (mostly one-dimensional). And here I must confess that this is one of the more annoying performances Cruise ever turned in. I'm fairly ambivalent about him, finding him to be fine at times, annoying at others, and far from a "great" actor due to a limited range. In M:I, he is at his most smug and condescending, while thinking he's being playful. 

The movie also showed several of director Brian De Palma's hallmarks which I do not appreciate. He uses tilted camera angles in an attempt to make things look different, or perhaps to convey disorientation; really, it just seemed contrived to me. And contrivances were not limited to the camerawork - the plot is filled with them. It is almost as if the writers thought up the stunts and action sequences they wanted to do, and then worked backwards to put together some questionable excuse to get the plot to the necessary set piece. Some of the action sequences are ridiculous enough to fit right in with a Fast and Furious movie. The acting, probably due to both the directing and a weak script, can be painful at times. Most obvious is Emanuelle Bearte, who seems to have been cast almost solely for her pretty face, pouty lips, and French accent. Even established actors like Cruise, Jon Voigt, Ving Rhames, and Jean Reno have more than a few lame lines they have to sell, with very mixed results.

All of my little complaints add up to me seeing the original Mission: Impossible as a rather dated and even ham-fisted spy thriller, masquerading as a slick and cunning movie.

This image sums up a lot of what this movie is about - massive
explosions and Tom Cruise's long hair blowing in the wind.

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

Director: John Woo

Back in the mid and late 1990's, John Woo had finally garnered some serious attention with U.S. audiences. After being an absolute legend of action film directing in his native Hong Kong and China all through the 1980s, he had a few solid commercial, Hollywood hit action movies, including Broken Arrow in '96 and the even bigger Face/Off the following year. I suppose the success of those films is why he was handed the reins on the sequel to the mediocre-but-money-making original M:I film. I will admit to not being much of a John Woo fan. Having seen a few of his Hong Kong movies, as well as the aforementioned Hollywood hits, his style is simply not to my tastes. His skill and technique in his preferred genre are abundantly clear, but I've found his films to heavily favor style over substance. With this in mind, I was not hopeful about enjoying M:I-2.

I found M:I-2 neither better nor worse than the original, but it is certainly very different in ways that make for an interesting contrast.

The story finds Ethan Hunt on a mission to penetrate the circumstances around the death of an eminent biochemist and virologist. Hunt enlists a notorious thief, Naya (Thandie Newton), to help him infiltrate the crew of the key suspect, the former Impossible Mission Force (IMF) operative Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott). Ambrose is a dangerously capable sociopath out for his own gain, even if it puts millions of lives at risk. Along with the wildcard Naya, Hunt re-enlists IMF hacker Luther (Ving Rhames again) and Billy (John Polson) to help him find and stop Ambrose.

The story and unfolding of it are much more in line with a typical James Bond tale - a global threat is posed by a villainous adversary, with the hero using his cunning, gadgetry, and fighting prowess to save the multitudes. The story shows a bit more sophistication than the first tale, and the chess match between Hunt and Ambrose is much more compelling than the confrontation between Hunt and Phelps in the first film. There are a few well-done turns of one-upmanship which keep the narrative from being a one-sided affair in which Hunt is always a step ahead. Rather, the equally clever Ambrose anticipates many of Hunt's moves, adding some intrigue to the proceedings. And Dougray Scott plays the part of the villain quite well.

The character of Naya was an attempt to offer a female
character who had some strength and depth. Epic fail there,
as she is little more than a pawn with a pretty face. 

But here is where the merits of the story end. The movie force-feeds us a romance angle between Naya and Hunt that is laughably rushed. The two see each other once, get caught up in a brief and tense situation, and then they are apparently madly in love. No true reason is given for this, aside from the fact that they are both beautiful people who excite in dangerous situations. Another annoying aspect is that John Woo clearly fell in love with the face-mask gadget. In the original film, it was a relatively cutting-edge prop that added some fun, but Woo uses it no less than 5 times in this movie. By the end, you can see its use coming from a mile away, and it has lost all effect as a surprise. I suppose we should have seen this coming from the director behind Face-Off, which Woo had done a few years earlier.

I must admit that the movie certainly looks far better than the original. In terms of lighting and camerawork, Woo blows De Palma out of the water. M:I-2 looks vastly more polished than the almost hyper-colored work of the first movie. This, at least, makes the movie more pleasurable to take in, for the most part.

But then there is Woo and his action sequences. The man is so enamored of slow-motion and explosions that Michael Bay would probably tell him to tone it down. I haven't done the calculations, but I'm fairly certain that if all of the slow-mo action sequences were sped up to real time, the movie would be reduced by a good 20 to 30 minutes. Fans of that type of action filming would probably enjoy many of these scenes, but they usually bore me. M:I-2 was no exception.

So campared to the first movie, the sequel is a wash. M:I-2 looks better and has a cohesiveness to it that the original lacked, but it's a great example of style over substance. This is great if the style is to your liking, but Woo's style is not for me.

In the very first scene, the villainous Owen Davien shows us
just how little concern he has for human life. Hoffman goes a
long way towards creating a more menacing air in this entry.

Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)

Director: J.J. Abrams

It's not a great movie, but M:I-3 is a noticeable step up from the first two M:I flicks.

Basically following "real" time of the movies, we jump forward five or six years in the life of Ethan Hunt, who has retired from field work and is a trainer for the Impossible Mission Force. He is now engaged to Julia, a nurse with no idea of Hunt's secretive and highly dangerous profession. Just as he begins to feel that he will be able to take on a safer and more comfortable life, one of his trainees is taken by the mysterious and lethal figure Owen Davien (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Hunt reluctantly returns to the field to rescue his former pupil, only to have her die just after she reveals Davien's plan to sell some sort of doomsday device, referred to as "The Rabbit's Foot," to the highest bidder. Complicating matters further is the possibility that Davien is receiving help from within IMF. Hunt rapidly pursues and captures Davien, but soon has the tables turned on him when Davien not only escapes but also kidnaps Julia and forces Hunt to retrieve the Rabbit's Foot for him.

Right from the jump, the movie sets a tone that is darker and more consistently intense than the previous two movies. The sly little smiles and one-liners are almost completely absent, which robs the movie of some potential charm but also helps it avoid pitfalls of goofiness or camp. Instead, the stakes are set rather high and remain so throughout. Aside from the placid establishment of Hunt's life in the suburbs early in the picture, the action clicks along at a very brisk pace, with no wasted scenes or slow-motion editing to gum up the flow. These improvements alone make M:I-3 superior to its predecessors.

I must admit, though, that while the movie doesn't make any crucial errors, there is not enough there for me to consider it anything but a solid action movie. Yes, the acting is quality, but only one role called for anything beyond panic and determination - that of Owen Davien, played brilliantly by Philip Seymour Hoffman. But even Davien was surprisingly one-dimensional. He is certainly imposing in his menacing drive to crush anyone who gets in the way of his plans, and he is played with chilling effect by the ever-amazing Hoffman. But just like previous M:I villains, there is no exploration of his character beyond the fact that he is evil and must be stopped. The same goes for nearly every other character. We do see Hunt far more vulnerable than he was in the first two movies, which is welcome. It would have been nicer to see this depth applied to at least one or two other characters, though.

The M:I movies have, up to this point, been action movies. And M:I-3 has some outstanding action sequences. Instead of relying mostly on wildly conceived fight choreography, endless massive explosions, or slow-motion, director J.J. Abrams went for more wide shots of lighting-speed exchanges. It works really well, in many instances. Davien getting dangled from a plane in the air. Hunt getting blasted into a car by an missile explosion behind him. Hunt having to lean low out of a speeding car to get off some well-placed pistol shots. These scenes could very easily have been filmed in dull ways, but Abrams used clever angles and expert filming to add some serious thrill to them. I will say that Abrams's use of a shaky cam during many of the scenes, both action sequences and others, got on my nerves (see my complaints about this in my reviews of the Bourne series of movies by Paul Greengrass), but it wasn't overly distracting. I also felt that the non-reveal of the Rabbit's Foot was a cheeky cop-out way of admitting to the use of a McGuffin.

Of the first three movies I've watched so far, this is the first that I would actually watch again. Maybe not right away or even more than a second viewing, but it was good enough for a re-watch. This is one of the better things that I can say about any film.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

Director: Brad Bird

A very strange viewing experience, in that Ghost Protocol exhibits the veneer of an action-adventure movie that's doing many of the right things for the genre, and yet somehow left me feeling that it fell well short of its potential.

Following the continuity set in place by M:I-3, we start with Ethan Hunt being broken out of a Russian prison by a few I.M.F. agents. Although Hunt had been considered disavowed by the agency, he has been brought back in order to track down and put a stop to Hendricks, a doomsday fanatic on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon and starting a global war. No sooner is Hunt made aware of the severity of the threat Hendricks poses than his small team is blamed for an explosion near the Kremlin. The I.M.F. is completely disavowed, cut off, and Hunt's crew must try to stop the frighteningly intelligent Hendricks with only a small cache of gadgets and their wits.

So many great things are in place for a brilliant story that I'm still somewhat surprised that I didn't like this movie more. This movie had a much more James Bond tone than any previous M:I film, and this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. There were gadgets, a megalomanical villain with world-wide terror on the brain, and globe trotting galore. And yet the details and cohesion came up short a little too often for me to feel like this movie was anything more than a missed opportunity. It reminds me that, if you're going to try and update or build upon the James Bond template, you do it the way that Matthew Vaughan did it in Kingsman: The Secret Service a few years ago. Ghost Protocol just lacked a consistent tone that weakened it noticeably.

Like much of this movie, the "Spider-Man" gloves set up the
stunning visuals of Hunt climbing a massive tower in Dubai.
But their existence and usage don't hold up very well under
intelligent scrutiny.

The tale itself is actually fine. I'm alright with the standard "nutjob wants to kill most of the known world" storyline as an excuse to watched badass agents go to work. But the actual methods and tools employed left a few things to be desired. Some of the gadgets were actually interesting, like the optical illusion screen, which provided for some fun visuals. But others seemed contrived or half-baked. The "Spider-Man" gloves were clearly a silly idea that were a thin excuse to create almost-literal cliffhanger scenarios, and something like a balloon camera seems a bit unimaginative for a film like this.

More than the tech, though, was a general lack of consistency with the characters and the mood of the film. It seemed as if director Brad Bird didn't have a tight grasp on who he wanted the characters to be or how he wanted audiences to feel about them. The almost-always brilliant Simon Pegg gets a solid secondary role as a field agent, but he often acts like a dopey, jittery clown. More painfully obvious, though, is the Ethan Hunt character. In his opening scenes, he's depicted as a steely-eyed, nigh-invincible tactician and combatant, single-handedly fighting his way through a horde or Russian prison inmates and guards. Later, though, he shows signs of anxiety and uncertainty in ways that were clearly meant for comic effect. And towards the end, Hunt somehow has trouble besting the aged statistician villain in a hand-to-hand fight. Such lack of integrity takes me out of movies, and this was the case with Ghost Protocol.

I can't say that the movie is terrible by any means - it just didn't all come together. Despite some decent visuals, ideas, and performances, this was was actually less than the sum of its parts. Knowing that Brad Bird is the man behind The Incredibles (my favorite of the many great Pixar movies, it should be noted), I can't help but think that ideas which would work in the medium of animated family films didn't translate into live action the way that he was hoping.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

In my eyes, Rogue Nation is easily the best of the series. It finally gets the entire balance right and gives us a solid espionage action-thriller with some smarts and cohesive characters, narrative, and tone.

In keeping with the "real time" continuity set up in the previous few movies, Rogue Nation takes place about four years after the events of Ghost Protocol. Ethan Hunt is on the trail of a shadowy group he refers to as The Syndicate, which he believes is an organization bent on creating chaos throughout the world. His superiors doubt the existence of the group, and Hunt is forced to flee from them when he is blamed for the death of a field agent and the I.M.F. is absorbed by the C.I.A. Hunt then recruits a few former colleagues to help him find and stop The Syndicate, which is a very real group comprised of former black operative spies from governments around the world. As if finding and taking down The Syndicate weren't difficult enough, Hunt and his team must also evade the C.I.A., who has declared them enemies of the state.

More than any of the previous M:I movie, Rogue Nation sets up and maintains an excellent balance between intensity and fun, with the emphasis on the former. The intrigue is laid out rather quickly, with Hunt being captured by The Syndicate, only to be set free by Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) - a member of the Syndicate who has an unknown agenda. Far more dangerous than Faust is Lane, the former British MI6 agent who founded the Syndicate and is now using his resources to cause global unrest to enrich himself and bring down a system which he despises. The cat-and-mouse game between Lane and Faust is the best of the M:I movies. While M:I-3 had a solid villain in Owen Davien, the character was never quite the force that Lane is in Rogue Nation. The final showdown is very tense in a somewhat unconventional way, which was very welcome.

The action is extremely effective. While there may not be quite as many clever shots or sequences as M:I-3, the stunt scenes are well-done and entertaining. There are also several great set pieces, my favorite probably being the water tank security system break-in. Sure, it's contrived, but it's a fun contrivance that I found engaging. And I fully appreciate the movie thumbing its nose at the mere suggestion of using the face-mask gadget yet again. That little prop's time has clearly come and gone, and Rogue Nation tosses it aside in humorous fashion.

Ilsa Faust gets on top of the situation. Yes, Rebecca Ferguson
is sexy as hell, but Faust is written and played with a tough-
ness and depth that are far more genuine and compelling
than any previous female character in the M:I series. 

The characters are handled very well in this entry, as well. Unlike Ghost Protocol, every character shows ability and stays in his or her lane. Simon Pegg's Benji is funny but not goofy. Ethan Hunt is highly capable but never a superman. And I loved Rebecca Ferguson's turn as Ilsa Faust, while Sean Harris exudes all of the iciness that the Lane character requires. If I had to gripe about anything, it is that I felt Jeremy Renner's William Brandt character a tad underutilized, but only since it was established in the previous film that he is a skilled field agent. Only for this reason was it a little disappointing to see him almost exclusively in a suit and tie, having verbal tete-a-tetes in Washington D.C. through most of the picture.

I really enjoyed this one, which was a bit surprising, despite all of the hype around it. Given my general dislike of most Hollywood action flicks and the spotty history of this franchise, it was a very pleasant surprise to find an espionage thriller that is of a quality of the very best of its kind.


Franchise Roundup

I rank the five Mission: Impossible movies thus:

1. Rogue Nation
2. M:I-3
3. Ghost Protocol
4. Mission Impossible
5. M:I-2

I'll note that there is a pretty steep dropoff between M:I-3 and Ghost Protocol. The two best films in this series are, to me, noticeably superior to all of the others. The others were commercially successful and had a few merits, but I have no reason to ever watch them again.

The Mission: Impossible series is very unique. I can't think of another large-scale, big-budget movie series that has spanned 20 years, with five movies helmed by five different directors, all starring the same leading actor. This is one thing, but the fact that the series has generally gotten better over the years is truly remarkable. While there are only two of the series that I would watch again, they are both two of the most recent three to be released. And with Rogue Nation director Christopher McQuarrie tapped to direct the next one, I will likely go to see it in the theater - a first for me since the original movie was released back in 1996. 

Before I Die #575: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

This is the 575th movie that I've now seen from the 1,177 movies on the "Before You Die" list that I'm gradually working through. It is also part of a little Bourne marathon that I did over a couple of weeks. A review of the other films is forthcoming. 

Director: Paul Greengrass

While it is often the most acclaimed of the Bourne movies, this is actually the one that I had never seen. I can now definitively say that Paul Greengrass is not for me. Ultimatum hits its marks extremely well, but this type of film only holds so much interest for me.

Picking up shortly after the events of The Bourne Supremacy, this third film in the original trilogy has Jason Bourne tracing his own history in an effort to discover everything about his past. The movie relies heavily on the revelations about Bourne's true identity and the breakneck action that takes place between those revelations.

The plot is not the most creative one a viewer will find. We do get some answers about who Bourne was before being molded into a lethal assassin, but it is not the stuff of grand revelation. Also, it is no great leap to suggest that the U.S. government has a super-secret stash of soldier assassins. Nor is it a great leap to think that those who control these assassins might be at least a little corrupt or of questionable ethics. And yet the movie presents these to us as if we are still meant to be shocked by them. The pacing of the narrative is skilled, and the actors all play their parts well, but the drama seemed stale to me. This, despite the ever-moving, ever-panning camera and edgy music score. The movie felt to me like Aaron Sorkin telling a grim espionage thriller, but without his trademark snappy dialogue.

Blurry, frenetic fights and action are a hallmark of the
Greengrass Bourne movies. They can be very impressive at
times, but my tolerance for them is limited.

Let's face it, though - the Bourne series became popular due to its action, not a particularly intelligent plot or brilliant insights. Even I must admit that Greengrass and his camera and editing crew are exceptional at what they do. Choreographing and filming the fight and chase scenes must take an immense amount of planning and work. And being able to have such a dizzying amount of quick cuts, while still communicating the overall visual story, is no mean feat. There are several sequences that are very impressive, even to a non-fan like me. The proximity of the cameras to the intense hand-to-hand combat and inside cars that are speeding, crashing, and careening all over the road do create a sense of excitement at times. However, I can't help but get bored with them after a minute or two. And when such scenes extend more than a few minutes and take up around half of a film, as Greengrass's Bourne movies do, then my attention wanes. I will admit that this style is far superior to the overuse of slow motion (I'm looking at you, Michael Bay), but it is just not my cup of tea.

I completely understand why these movies are popular, and it is easy to admit that they are very well done, for what they are. They really are, though, a case of slightly more style over substance. This is fine when the style suits you, but this is not a style that suits me.

That's 575 movies down. Only 602 to go before I can die.