Mission Impossible Fallout - Review

"There cannot be peace without first a great suffering. The greater the suffering, the greater the peace"

It is a line that is repeated throughout Mission:Impossible Fallout and it is a line that is true of this particular instalment and the franchise in general.
When you look at Fallout, the suffering can be the physical suffering that Tom Cruise went through when he broke his ankle performing a stunt that involved jumping off a building. It was the insurance company's worst nightmare come true (and one that had surprisingly not happened before) but Cruise being Cruise, he took a couple of weeks off and was back at it again. Further cementing the theory that he is superhuman.
The other suffering that was endured during filming was the suffering of Justice League due to Henry Cavill's moustache. Cavill was needed for reshoots on JL but Paramount said you can have him but he cannot shave off the 'tache. Everyone joked about it at the time but the end result of a CGI upper lip was even worse.
However upon seeing the end result of Fallout, the suffering of Cruise and JL was completely worth it because this cements Mission Impossible franchise as the most dependable franchise currently going and one that is rather unique in that they improve in scope, scale and action from film to film.
Further to that, this franchise is something that 22 years ago, never looked like becoming what it is today. Yet after the critical mauling of the (underrated) Mission Impossible II, it has slowly evolved to become what it is today. I say evolved but Cruise has never really changed anything because they have always had a different director for each episode (with the exception of Fallout with the return of McQuarrie) to put their own spin on the franchise.
But something just clicked with Ghost Protocol, where the series seemed to find the magic mix of ingredients that proved successful. Similar to the Fast & Furious franchise when The Rock arrived in Fast Five and has gone from strength to strength.
Fallout is the culmination of a story thread that has run through Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation. One that has involved a shadowy counter-IMF organisation called The Syndicate and one that has tied itself intrinsically into the lives of agents Ethan Hunt, Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames) and Isla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson, who is the first female agent to return for a second instalment).
One criticism of the franchise, beyond the fact that it fails the Bechdel Test every time, is that similar to the Marvel movies, they can lack a memorable villain. Dougray Scott anyone?
The series high point so far was Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian in III but Harris has a unique brand of menace which works.
But both of these are the villains who can fight Hunt intellectually and emotionally but are not a physical threat. Fallout finally produces an antagonist that can go toe-to-toe with Hunt and dominate him in hand-to-hand combat.
Henry Cavill's Agent Walker isn't an out-and-out villain however. Rather a CIA agent tasked with joining the team but there to take down Hunt is he goes rogue. Which is something that he does every single movie so it is no real surprise that this puts the two characters on a collision course.
Thankfully McQuarrie's story does not rely on McGuffins such as the "rabbit's foot" but a traditional spy movie "world ending" scenario involving missing plutonium and nuclear devices that need to be defused at the last possible second.
When executed correctly, that moment can be incredibly tense, exciting and one where the audience are holding their breath along with the characters.
That is how the audience will feel for every second of the truly exhilarating Fallout for this is *THE* best blockbuster movie of the Summer and one that moves effortlessly from one incredible set piece to incredible set piece.
Whether it is a bathroom fight that makes Casino Royale look like Johnny English; a foot chase through the rooftops of London; a dogfight between two helicopters or an incredible boat/truck/car/bike chase through the streets of Paris which is possibly the high point of the series... which is impressive in itself.
The majority of these stunts are performed by real stunt crews within the camera with very little reliance on CGI. It is a hark back to an earlier time and it shows how good these people are and it helps audiences relate and buy in and become more invested in the action when they know that it is the actors and their stunt doubles actually performing the stunts.
Say what you will about Tom Cruise as a person. As a pure action movie star, there is still no one in Hollywood who could possibly compare to him. It doesn't matter if you are Liam Neeson, Daniel Craig or even Jason Statham. You will be left holding Cruise's beer as he jumps out of a plane!
Mission Impossible might be the most incorrectly named franchise in the world but it is impossible to imagine a better example of a pure thrill ride this year.
The other line that is often repeated in the film is "Your mission if you choose to except it...". As far as one can remember, no one has ever chosen *not* to except a mission and if the films continue to set the bar for action, to the point that Cruise leaps on to and tap dances on the bar, then bring it on.

5 stars

Edge Of Tomorrow - review

By the end of the first act of Edge Of Tomorrow, it is clear that it isn't your typical Tom Cruise movie as it has him dying on the beach at Normandy with an alien's blood eating through his face.

Suddenly we snap back to earlier that day when Cruise wakes up again in Army custody being sent to the front line for the final battle against an alien invasion.

Stuck in a Groundhog D-Day-style time loop he is forced to relive the same day over and over again every time he dies.

It gives Cruise one of his best roles in recent years, with a character arc that sees him change from a weasely, Army PR man with a shit-eating grin to battle-hardened warrior.

After going through the five stages of grief/loss upon reliving the same situation again and again: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, he works towards a Phil Connors-style redemption and seeks to have the perfect day and defeat the enemy and break the cycle.

Surely this can't fit into the Tom Cruise plot device where he is a successful soldier who suffers from a crisis of confidence before the love of a beautiful women teaches him that he can be a great soldier again...

Well, sort of.

While he doesn't start off as a great warrior (he can't even turn the safety off on his exo-suit), he discovers that the Army's most decorated soldier Rita Vrataski aka "Full Metal Bitch" previously had the same alien power and she trains him up to become a "Full Metal Jack Reacher", part of which includes one of the best training montages since Team America which revolves around Blunt repeatedly shooting Cruise in the face.

Blunt is an forceful and intimidating presence. Cold and steely to begin with before opening up the more Cruise interacts with her character.

She will inspire a lot of women to Cosplay as The Angel of Verdun and was potentially a new strong female sci-fi icon in the mould of Ripley and Sarah Connor. Personally I would have just liked to see a bit more of her in action to provide evidence of her legendary fighting skills.

Edge Of Tomorrow is up there with Scott Pilgrim Vs The World as the best movie based on video games only they are not based on actual video games.

It unfolds like an incredibly difficult third person platform shooter that doesn't have the benefit of auto-save points. One mistake can cost you your life and you get zapped back to the start where you have to do it all over again from the very beginning.

Like a video game it can get frustrating and repetitive to begin with but it handles it with great pace and humour, particularly the interactions with Bill Paxton's gruff Sergeant Farell.

Soon advancing through the game becomes like muscle memory (Cruise and Blunt talk through the battle time and time again choreographing their movements) and you breeze through it in no time until you come up to a new section you need to master.

Each new section comes with its own challenges and the screenplay plays nicely with the audience and characters. Is this the first time they have been here or not?

Like Tom's previous venture into science fiction Oblivion, this films wears its influence on the sleeves of its exo-suits with echoes of Starship Troopers, Aliens and Source Code.

Yet unlike Oblivion, you are not constantly comparing it to the originals and it really works on its own merits right up until the end which doesn't really work with what has come before and threatens to collapse in on itself like a giant plot black hole.

If it wasn't for the misstep at the end, this really could have Edged it as the most enjoyable blockbuster of the summer. Best start over and try again!

4 stars

Oblivion - review

Oblivion begins with what feels like an eternity's worth of voiceover narration from Tom Cruise's Jack Harper, telling the audience in the minutest detail about how the earth was attacked, last people on earth, alien scavangers, drone maintenance, yada, yada, yada (at least I assumed he was talking to us because the only other person around was Andrea Riseborough's co-worker and late night skinnydipping partner Vika and she's already aware of the situation).
Already the audience might be thinking that this feels rather similar to films like I Am Legend and WALL-E, however WALL-E was able to introduce the world it had created with zero voiceover, just creative storytelling.
Then if in any doubt that this film will be mish-mash of elements from other entries in the sci-fi genre, the title card appears with a gigantic blast of the "Inception horn".
Yes, not only is the plot highly derivative but the score is a collection of outtakes from The Dark Knight Rises, Inception and Tron Legacy.
A lot of reviews for this film have criticised it over its similarities to other sci-fi classics, even going as far as explicitly naming several movies, which could act as possible spoilers due to certain plot points. This is actually doing the film a disservice.
"Everybody steals from everybody. That's movies" says Ron Livingston's character in Swingers in a debate over Tarantino's work versus Scorsese, and its true. Tarantino doesn't get nearly as much abuse as genre movies do for recycling ideas from other movies. Just look at John Carter last year. Criticised for being a rip-off of Avatar, Star Wars, etc despite being based on a 1917 novel that actually inspired those films in the first place.
All that should matter is whether or not the movie is actually any good.
My advice would be to skip reading about what movies it has ripped off, only watch the initial trailer, which unlike the others actually doesn't give too much away, because there is certainly a lot that can be appreciated in Joseph Kosinski's world. It might not be a hugely original film but it certainly isn't a bad film either.
Much like his previous film Tron Legacy, Kosinski (with his background in architecture and engineering) is very adept at creating fully realised worlds, whether it is recreating the ruins of a football stadium or the Empire State Building on the barren wastelands of Iceland or designing a living quarters that looks like it has been furnished top to bottom by Apple. All of it beautifully shot by Claudio Miranda, who just won an Oscar for his work on Life Of Pi.

Tom Cruise is dependable as ever, recycling the Everyman role he does so admirably, with the usual amount of stunt work and running added to meet his quota for the year.
The real one to watch though is Andrea Riseborough who elevates what could have been an underdeveloped role of just sitting in front of a desk reciting computer jargon into something much more engaging, delivering at times an icy turn that channels a Weyland-Yutani Company suit but with a vulnerability and longing underneath that makes the pairing "an effective team", much more so than Cruise & Kurylenko.
As with I Am Legend and WALL-E, Oblivion is a much more interesting film when exploring the post-apocalyptic world it has created and starts to lose its way with the arrival of new characters/humans/monsters and starts to unravel quite quickly under the weight of the various plot holes (if Jack has had his memory wiped how can he remember someone telling him about a Superbowl game from 70 years ago?) and the need to tick the boxes on summer blockbuster action set pieces.
Ultimately watching Oblivion is like going to a really expensive restaurant and having a Michelin-star looking plate of food only for it to still leave you feeling hungry and remembering that you've eaten a dozen similar meals which were all much more satisfying.

3 stars