Mission: Impossible - Rogue; Nation = Jamie's (review)

The grammar primer's fifth instalment is the fourth best, ranking behind the beautiful De Palma confection in first place, Brad Bird's rollicking cartoon in second and JJ Abram's vicious, elevated-by-Philip Seymour Hoffman third entry in third. Woo's whiffy second entry, which now seems a lot more fun then it did at the time, remains in last position.

But they don't exist in a steep curve from excellent to crap. All five are of a high standard for this sort of whizz-bang-pop PG summer action confection. The franchise is helped by the fact that a different director takes on each entry, resulting in a new flavour every time, from De Palma's taut, balletic staging to Woo's hollow melodrama and slo-mo absurdity, from Abram's chaotic, verite paranoia to Brad Bird's live action Incredible's comedy and cartoonish stunts.

McQuarrie might have been expected to bring a bit of that seedier, more grounded street-level action seen in the under appreciated Jack Reacher, but instead the film is a bit of a grab-bag of styles (because who the hell wants a grounded Mission: Impossible film?). The results are mixed.

The stand-out sequence is a taut assassination attempt with multiple shooters poised around an opera house as Cruise tries to silently take them all out. Did McQuarrie watch the similarly-excellent opera scene in Quantum of Solace (also the highlight in that film)? There's something about theatre-set suspense that works well on-screen. Watching a theatre audience triggers a Pavlovian response in the cinema audience. We experience a disproportionate concern that the performance will be disrupted. See also the rollicking, grand guinol Grand Piano.

Cruise is also great. I've always been a fan. Say what you will about his cult membership, he is a movie star and he is not lazy. Ironically, he never cruises. Tom Effort would have been a more appropriate stage name. It's a quality that's more and more recognised now. I wondered if the film's opening was a knowing nod to the memes that have built up of Cruise sprinting, which he seems to do in every film, always with maximum effort writ across his beautiful brow, because as soon as the movie opens he's off, dashing like a dog let slip - inexplicably in a suit, like he's run straight from his running scene in The Firm.

Cruise is great in this. The shift in his attitude in the first film (which is now, unbelievably, almost 20 years old), where he accepts each sure-to-be-fatal task with a confident swagger, to this one, where he sighs and resigns himself to the next insane battering, is a good one.

Rebecca Ferguson, the putative but unconsummated love interest, is also good. Unlike Cruise, who like a true movie star plays himself (albeit to perfection), Ferguson is enigmatic. She's also interesting to watch, she's strong without being Hollywood's traditional version of female strong (boring leather-clad robot) and she does a neat jumping leg strangle.

Less successful is an action sequence underwater, because it looked too much like a computer game to me.

One interesting feature of this entry, which I'm not sure I like, is the winking at the audience. At one point the bad guy talks about Cruise in abstract terms as a manifestation of destiny itself. Several times the team's descriptions to one another of the latest bizarrely unique sequence of locks they have to break through verges on parody. Though I guess each heist has to involve doing something visually spectacular that hasn't been seen before, so it will get pretty ridiculous (M:I 19: "the only way in is through the guts of a crow, so we'll have to shrink you, and it will explode if it detects that you have lungs, so we will have to remove your lungs").

The increased involvement of Simon Pegg broke the fourth wall for me. I couldn't stop imagining how Pegg must have been pinching himself constantly as he shared scenes with Tom fecking Cruise. His mugging is a bit much, but I suppose the franchise is aiming to replicate a team feel.

That team dynamic is a telling return to the television set-up of M:I. Back in '96, Cruise was a massive opener, the biggest star in the world, and the M:I rights were used to give him and only him an action role. So the film opened with the rest of the team being promptly killed off. Now, Cruise isn't so robust at pulling in the crowds by himslf (a pity: I'm sentimental and weirdly protective about the Cruister's movie star status, plus he clearly likes to be liked, plus Edge of Tomorrow is tremendous) and the Fast & Furious films have shown the box office benefit of an action family. Hence the somewhat awkward appearance of Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames, crowbarred in but no-one knowing quite what to do with them.  It can't help but feel like a bit of a cynical imposition. Ethan Hunt is a fair weather friend, I would say (the less said about his here-today, gone-tomorrow wife the better).

But it's still a good solid blockbuster.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - Danny's Review

This is the fifth film in the series. I didn't really want to see it but nothing else started at the right time. I think for a blockbuster like this to be worthwhile, it has to be really good. It's not like some arthouse film you might find crushingly boring at the time then think of a week later; a Mission Impossible film is about instant gratification. It's got to be thrilling at the time. And this was not.

In the very first scene Ethan Hunt is hanging on to a plane, and his irritating sidekick Benji (Simon Pegg) is fumbling about trying to open the door. His slapstick efforts reassure the audience that there's no real danger here, and it's just a bit of fun. When Hunt does board the plane he finds some missiles and jumps off the plane with them. This scene has little bearing on the rest of the film, but it's justified as being part of a general plan for the evil boss to spread mischief and mayhem, which he continues to do. As far as I could tell, by the end we still don't know why he was doing this.

There's two standout action scenes. One is at the opera, where no fewer than four shooters are aiming at the Austrian Prime Minister. The other where the team rob a bank with Hunt diving into an water vault to change a security card. It's an exciting sequence, but you have to question the design of the bank. What do they do when they legitimately want to change the security cards, send down a diver? They are robbing the bank on behalf of the villain who it seems couldn't rob it himself; he needed the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) to do it for him.

So a couple of good bits, and Cruise is certainly a watchable star, but overall it does not hang together well. It's disjointed, with action scenes that don't move the story forwards then a burst of explanation. The chase scenes are dull. At least let's have Tom Cruise running really fast, like he does through the desert in MI:4. Another weak point is Ving Rhames, who pops up looking very much like a man with a contract to appear in all Mission Impossible films. Apparently this one had a lot of Chinese financing, which explains the extensive touristy scenes in London, including one shot featuring no fewer than six red phone boxes. There's also a Chinese name high up in the credits who does not appear at all in the film, presumably she was only in the version released in Asia to boost the appeal to that market.

Terminator Genisys - Danny's Review

I'm a big fan of the Terminator Series, and I'm pleased to say that this new instalment is the fourth best. It's better than Terminator Salvation but not as good as the first three.

As the plot gets quite complicated most of my review is recapping what goes on to try and make sense of it. Spoilers coming...

The story begins with the humans in 2029 fighting against the robots, and about to win. John Connor is very rugged and Kyle Reese looks up to him gormlessly. It's good stuff. Just before their final victory against Skynet John Connor is thwarted when the machines manage to send back a young-Arnie Terminator to 1984. The humans manage to send back Kyle too (just as John Connor is mugged by Doctor Who) and we get ready for a face-off in the 80s. So far this is a lot like the first Terminator film.

The twist comes when young-Arnie Terminator gets a surprise by meeting an old-Arnie Terminator. Old-Arnie is well prepared and kills the young version with the help of Sarah Connor, who is now a badass. However, there's also a shiny Asian T-1000 liquid metal Terminator chasing around Kyle Reese. I'm not sure where he came from. Then Sarah, Kyle and old-Arnie get chased by the T-1000 until they manage to trap him with some acid.

Kyle and Sarah decide that rather than justing killing the Terminator they should try to stop Judgement Day from happening altogether. But rather than going to 1997, Kyle has a weird vision that Judgement Day is now going to be in San Fransisco 2017 so they travel there on a time machine Arnie and Sarah built. In 2017 they get arrested but break out with the help of John Connor. What's he doing there? Old-Arnie shoots him straight away, and suspicious Kyle thinks that Arnie's mission all along was to shoot John Connor. But actually John Connor is now evil, he's a Terminator hybrid. This is the low-point of the film. He's half metal half-person and is determined to stop them stopping Skynet from activating. He's also highly magnetic, which turns out to be his undoing.

I didn't like all of it, and the stuff about Kyle meeting his young former self was a bit rubbish. There's a few interesting aspects though. The best of these is that the old-Arnie was originally sent back to about 1975, where he rescued young Sarah Connor from another Terminator. We never actually find out who sent back that pair of Terminators. Since her rescue Sarah was raised as an orphan by the Terminator, who she calls Pops. They've then been waiting for the next batch of Terminators to arrive in 1984. Then when Sarah and John jet forward to 2017 Arnie says he's going to get to 2017 'the long way' by waiting 30 years. I like the idea of a Terminator calmly waiting in a bunker for 30 years to be of service again.

Another nice idea is that in 2017 everyone is desperate to get hold of the new Genisys social-media super-App, not realising the danger they're in. They're all addicted to their phones too. We are a lot closer to Skynet level technology now than ever before, which is a point nicely made.

There's some nice continuity points in the film. The mall-cop who arrests Kyle in 1984 is still around in San Fransisco 2017 and is the only one who believes them. The new Cyberdyne building also features some molten metal and a quantum-accelerator, which get well used.

The cast are OK. The stand-out, of course, is Arnie. He is an old and world-weary Terminator in 1984 and even more so in 2017. It's touching when he admits he is "old....but not obsolete". His deadpan delivery is expertly done, and he doesn't quite as many awful lines as in T3.

This is not quite the Terminator film I wanted, but it's quite good and I might watch it again.

Jurassic World - Danny's Review

JW is the fourth film in the series, and this time they've actually built the whole park on Isla Nublar and opened it to the public, specifically two boys. The younger boy is excited by everything; the older one only gets into it once the dinosaurs escape and start chasing them.

There are many references to the disaster of the original film. Although John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is dead the new Indian billionaire owner also believes the aim is not to make money but to teach people to revere nature. However, he inexplicably leaves the day to day running to a frosty young lady who is in the pocket of the shareholders and sponsors, demanding bigger and bigger thrills. This is an obvious parallel to the franchise itself, which is seeking bigger thrills to excite the jaded audience. Hence Indominus Rex, a genetically modified T-Rex, and loads of CGI.

Apart from being about dinosaurs, JW is about family. The mop-haired younger boy works out that his parents are getting divorced, which means the brothers have to depend on each other even more. There is a strange series of scenes with some girls smiling at the older boy and him trying to look tough, until he stops chasing girls to look after his brother. Bros before Hos. There's dinosaur families too. Chris Pratt is a soldier who specialises in training Raptors. I was pleased to see he uses a clicker which is common in animal training to signal the animal has dome something you want, although I've never seen anyone hold one in such a macho way, side-on like a pistol. It's gangster behaviour training. The raptors just about do what he says, because he respects them and they respect him.

Spoliler alert! - towards the end of the film these raptors meet the Indominus Rex, but after smelling each other and a bit of dinosaur-barking they decide not to attack it. This is because they somehow recognise that the Indominus has raptor DNA in. This is stupid for several reasons. Firstly, how would you recognise shared DNA? Secondly, shared DNA sequences are common: we share DNA sequences with chimps, sheep and even bananas. Thirdly, if for some reason dinosaurs don't attack those with the same DNA why do the two T-Rexes fight each other?

In the end though, the Raptors decide that their bond with badass Chris Pratt is stronger, as although he's not genetically related to them, he has looked after them since they were born. In a way, he's their real Dad. This is a bit like the moment in nearly all films with aliens or artificial intelligence, where it is shown that nothing is stronger than human compassion. Here it is shown that nothing is stronger than human-dinosaur compassion. It's a touching moment.

There are a few good visual highlights in the film, such as when the big fish-dinosaur jumps out it's tank, and when all pterosaurs escape. The worst special effect is when a raptor is flung against a wall and explodes, like a car that's fallen off a cliff.

There are many lowlights. Whereas Jurassic Park cleverly explained about dinosaur DNA and everything else in a way that made you empathise with the characters as they explored, in Jurassic World you are clumsily told things that you don't need to know. Who cares that the hamster balls are made of toughened aluminium? JW also uses the old I-have-enough-phone-signal-to-call-you-but-not-enough-to-hear-you-clearly gimmick no less than three times in the first hour. Three times! This device should be limited to a maximum of once per movie, or given some sort of warning with the certificate. PG-12, contains scenes of mild terror and frequent phone calls cutting out at key moments.

The Indominus escapes it's enclosure, by masking its heat signal using the fact that is has DNA from a frog that can mask infrared heat. It can also camouflage because it contains DNA of cuttlefish who can disguise themselves. This is nonsense. It was a nice idea in Jurassic Park for female dinosaurs to switch genders as nature finds a way but now they've taken it to far. Is the Indominus going to start flying because it has some strands of pigeon DNA?

My final gripe is with a very odd scene when the two boys are on the run and discover the old Jurassic Park control room, and steal a jeep. The older boy constructs a torch to help him light the way for about 30 seconds. Each stage of the torch construction is carefully illustrated. First he finds a bone, then a stretch of cloth to wrap around it, then finally he asks his younger brother "Have you still got those matches?". The younger boy looks confused, as you would, as the matches have never been mentioned before. But then astonishingly he does produce a small box from his bumbag. Why on Earth would a 10 year old boy be carrying matches in his bumbag for a trip to Jurassic World? And, even more oddly, why did the film-makers feel the need to meticulously explain the origin of the matches? Couldn't they just have been found on a bench? It wasn't even important that they made a torch. When they get to the jeep and need to repair it, the older boy then whips out another hammy line "Do you remember when we fixed up Grampa's old truck?"

Overall then: good special effects, and an interesting idea about training raptors, but pretty poor otherwise.

Mad Max: Fury Road - Danny's Review

Whenever there's a remake/sequel of an older film it's a trade off. You're expecting something bigger and brighter and possibly full of CGI, but without the originality and excitement of the first one. The success of Mad Max: Fury Road is that it captures the mad spirit of the originals. It's like a beefed up remake of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. This is not surprising, as it's also directed by maverick George Miller, and according to reports he was able to make the film that he wanted.

Right from the start vehicles are set in motion and the chase is on. Max himself takes a slightly peripheral role, and has his face covered for the first hour. Even when he files away his iron mask there's no sudden change, and he's far outshone by Charlize Theron as the Imperator Furiosa. You get the feeling this is the way Max would have wanted it. He drifts in and out of other people's stories, saving their post-apocalyptic communities then disappearing into the crowd, with barely a nod of recognition. It reminds me what a great (and underrated) film Waterworld is. Mad Max is a really dusty Waterworld.

My favourite parts of the movie are the crazy touches that are added but never explained. That simply wouldn't happen in a big studio picture. The big boss and all his cronies are strangely deformed (inbred?) and are supported by a warrior caste of bald and painted maniacs. These warriors are religious fanatics believe when they die they'll be born again in Valhalla, and when they think they;re about to die spray their faces with metallic paint. This doesn't actually do anything except further excite them. The landscapes are incredibly barren, and at their best reminiscent of Conan the Barbarian (the original, certainly not the remake). At one point the big-rig, having temporarily outrun their pursuers, is travelling through the night and the weary passengers are slipping in and out of sleep. They drift through a marshy land with camouflaged men on stilts wading along the water. It looks great.

When I came out of this movie (at 3pm) my head was spinning and the lights seemed far too bright. It's a crazy thrill ride.

Fast and Furious 7 - Danny's Review

I was unexpectedly called in to work this morning, and had to rush across town for the 10:45 am showing of Furious 7. I popped my Volskswagen Fox through the gears and raced along the motorway, overtaking a bus and swerving into the car park. Screech! I made it just in time, thanks to the 29 minutes of adverts at Cineworld Glasgow.

Being the seventh in the series (including the non-canon ones) there's a whole lotta history, and this is acknowledged. There's especial poignancy as Paul Walker is dead (more of this later). In the very first line villainous Jason Statham claims that "They say if you want to glimpse the future, just look behind you" although I've never heard anyone say that. Then it pans out to reveal he's killed all the special forces people protecting his kid-brother, who presumably was the conquered villain in a previous film (I've not seen them all - who has?). Statham is now out for revenge, and that's his character sorted.

Cut to Vin Diesel driving along. "They say the open road helps you think" he muses and so it goes on. They race through a few locations, and in every one there are rows of shiny cars, young people cheering and women in bikinis jumping up and down. What was I doing here?

For their part the team are out to get Statham, but get heavily sidetracked by the surprising appearance of Kurt Russell. He tells them about a hacker, who is identified merely by 'Ramsey' and a blank photo (so it's clearly a woman). She's invented the God's Eye that can hack into all cameras and find anyone. Kurt Russell says that if they find it he'll let them use it to find Statham. While they are looking for the God's Eye they come across Statham several times, but seem to forget that finding him is their ultimate objective. Then in an extremely fanciful setup the device is inexplicably hidden inside, you guessed it, another sports car, which they obviously end up stealing and driving.

There are a few good moments. Early on Paul Walker revs up a car, only for it to be revealed that it's a mini-van, and he's now a family man. In the very same scene there's a second visual gag where a car speeds round but it's a toy car and the kid then throws it on the ground. "Cars don't fly" says Walker, prophetically, as later in the movie cars do fly. He gives a a strangely muted performance. He seems genuinely morose to be shackled by his family, but then when his loving wife absolutely insists that he abandon their family and go on another reckless (and pointless) mission he still seems rather morose. The only time he perks up is when delivering a touche comeback to his kung-fu nemesis he's just sent hurtling down a big hole. "Too slow!" he says with childish glee, though that sort of bad-ass line would be much better deadpan. During filming Walker was a passenger in a car that hit a lamppost, killing him. The film was finished with the help of his similar looking brothers.

He does get the best moment in the film, which you may have already seen in the trailer. It's when he's running up a bus which is falling off a cliff. He also gets a rather odd tribute at the end of the film, when Vin Diesel goes on and on about what a brother he's been and there's flashbacks to a young curly-haired Paul Walker grinning in front of some more sports cars. The spiritualism runs deep in Fast and Furious 7. When The Rock decides the hospital can't hold him any more he doesn't cut himself out of the plaster cast, he simply grimaces and his arm bursts out. When Vin Diesel's heart stops, following his final stunt attacking a helicopter with his car, the CPR has no effect, but an emotional appeal from his amnesiac girlfriend brings him back with a gruff one-liner.

I think the appeal of the film is the sense of camaraderie between Vin's team, and they act as a high functioning gang of delinquents. That's probably the appeal of the whole series. I'm partly tempted to go back and watch all the rest now.

John Wick - Jamie's Review

With John Wick, Keanu secures his legacy as a film star for the Taken generation (being Hollywood actors in their 50s and 60s who want to play taciturn hardmen). Reeves isn't a natural fit in that bracket, despite being 50. Unlike king-of-the-genre Liam Neeson and upstarts Sean Penn and Kevin Costner, he still looks 24.

But I think unlike those guys, Reeves picks projects out of love. He's a geek who isn't just after a box office rocket but a story that sparks his interest (how else would you explain Johnny Mnemonic?). So whereas Neeson et al go through the motions double-tapping Albanians muttering "is this what the kids want, ok then", Reeves is invested. And it shows. He often picks projects which have a risky dose of weird in them, and he's done it again here. The result is a good, dirty little film which hits almost all the B-movie beats you want in a story about a retired assassin forced to saddle up to avenge the death of his dog, but is also unexpectedly elevated by the reveal that this isn't happening in the world we know.

The dog really is cute. You don't want it to die. Keanu seems a lot happier after his wife's death because of it. You understand why he takes up arms when a punk (Reek from Game of Tits & Dragons) shoots it in the head. I'm a cat person, and even I was upset on Keanu's behalf.

With a grizzled aspect and a cold manner which suits him, because Keanu emoting is a bit gruesome (exhibit #1, Bram Stoker's Dracula), he kills acres of goons to get to his man.

One of the best things about the film is the spin it puts on the action movie convention of baddies underestimating the hero, Usually they think he's laughable, and don't even really worry about him when they discover that he won a silver star in 'Nam, is an expert in black ops and only took the job as the nuclear submarine's cleaner because he killed so many of the world's terrorists he made himself redundant. Not so in Wick, where the big bad immediately shits his pants when he hears whose dog his son popped. Over a punchy meeting with his entitled spawn, he explains that Wick once murdered three hard cases with a pencil. Even though they far outnumber Wick, the army of bad guys reckon he has a pretty good chance of killing them all, whatever they do. Almost all his enemies approach him with grim-faced expectations of death, which in every case he satisfies (the ones who are cocky or dismissive of his reputation also die).

Oddities like this make John Wick stand out. Oddest of all is its setting. Wick takes place in an underworld where everyone hangs out at a hotel for villains, where the currency is special gold coins. It's weird, this break with reality, and it could have flopped. But instead it injects a welcome novelty into the familiar, heartwarming trope of revenge killing.

It helps hugely that every supporting role is cast with a top-drawer character actor - Willem Dafoe, Lovejoy, Reek, Lester Freamon from The Wire, but Keanu's also solid. I say he's embarrassing when he expresses himself, but there's one bit where he shouts which is quite powerful, though even then I can hear him bursting to say "dude" at the end of the sentence. He just has that kind of voice.

And so he can add John Wick to his list of Good Movies Starring Me, under Point Break, Speed, Bill & Ted, The Matrix, Devil's Advocate and, yes, Constantine. Dracula is also very good, though that's in spite of Reeves, whose dudeiness nearly derails it completely.

Wick is a much better fit.