Mission: Impossible - Fallout

First Hit: Holds tension and action throughout, however it is long and we all know the ending.

I’ve said this many a time, what I like about Tom Cruise (here as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt) is that he’s always all in for the characters he chooses. As Ethan Hunt he’s one with the role. What is always disappointing is that we always know how the film is going to end. For instance, my previous review of the film Blindspotting, I had no idea how the movie would end, that’s what partly made it great. Watching Mission, I know that Hunt is going to save the day in the nick of time and he doesn't fail.

Despite that, this film is action packed from the very beginning and creates tension by delivering on some hair-raising predicaments and stunts. One of the nice touches was how the film began. Playing the Mission: Impossible theme music, it showed brief pictures of was to come, just like the television show use to do. The cast is solid, especially Hunts team of Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benjamin “Benji” Dunn (Simon Pegg). Their chemistry of working together on previous Mission films makes the impossible missions more possible and believable to the audience – they are pros.

The plot has Hunt attempting to obtain three plutonium devices that are on the black market. The US Government want to keep them out of the hands of terrorists. Hunt makes the choice to save the life of Luther over obtaining the devices.

Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), who Hunt previously captured and put into prison, is attempting to obtain the devices through surrogates. He wants to use the devices to make a point that the world must suffer greatly if it is to get better. His former organization, The Apostles, want the weapons as well.

One of the plot devices is to have CIA agent August Walker (Henry Cavill) join the team to protect the CIA’s interest in IMF’s plot to re-obtain the devices. Walker is directly under CIA Director Erica Stone (Angela Bassett). The twist is that Walker is also playing John Lark who is an enemy of the CIA and IMF.

Hunt and his team are under the direction of former CIA Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) who now leads the IMF task force. The film shows the tension between the CIA and IMF because the CIA doubts that the IMF can get the job done.

Another twist to this plot is the MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) who has to redeem herself to her organization, therefore she must also obtain the plutonium devices.

Lastly, trying to broker a sale of the devices the story has the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). I'm not totally sure why this part was needed but it worked.

What the film has is a number of different groups trying to get control of;  the plutonium, a captured prisoner, or Hunt.

There are plenty of gun battle scenes, lots of chases (cars, motorcycles, running, and helicopter), and plenty of costume changes that the Mission: Impossible team is noted for. Everything is done very well, and the cliff hanging scene is simply a great cliffhanger. Lastly, one of the highlights for me was the different ways the theme song was used throughout the film.

Cruise always puts everything into his action roles. He can be funny, self-effacing, and believable all at the same time. Cavill is good as the agent with dual identity. Rhames is fantastic as part of the IMF team. He shows smarts, affability, and is fully believable in his role. Pegg is spot on as the one always questioning whether a plan Hunt has devised will work or not. In the end, he does his part and is often the one who figures things out. Ferguson is excellent as one of two women Hunt admires and loves. As an agent of MI6 she’s excellent. Harris is good as the slightly off-base mastermind who wants to teach the world a lesson or two. Bassett is good as the CIA Director that is elusive about her commitment to the IMF team. Baldwin was very good as Hunt’s immediate boss. Kirby was good as the White Widow, but I found it difficult to buy into why she held so much sway. Michelle Monaghan was excellent as Hunt’s former wife who is in jeopardy at the end of the film. Christopher McQuarrie wrote and directed this adventure with complete idea of what he wanted and with a knowing how to build tension to the end.

Overall: This was a fun filled film although it was a bit long.

American Made

First Hit:  It’s a Tom Cruise film and therefore you will always get everything he can give; full tilt entertainment.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it. Tom Cruise will probably never be in a film and be someone other than Tom Cruise. This isn’t a bad thing because he gives everything to each film he’s in. The issue is that you always know and see ‘Tom Cruise’, not the character he’s playing.

Here he uses the role and true story of Barry Seal, a TWA pilot that ended up working for the CIA and even the White House, to give the audience his, boyish charm, intensity, and action. Seal was a bored airline pilot who, on occasion, would turn off the auto-pilot and make the plane turn and twist in the sky just to wake up his co-pilot and passengers.

One day he’s approached by Monty ‘Schafer’ (Domhnall Gleeson) a CIA operative to fly spy camera photo missions in Central America. For this he will get a cool plane to fly, have lots of excitement, and make a little money. Without telling his wife he quits TWA and takes this new mission on, full tilt. Soon afterward, he gets a deal to smuggle drugs from South America on his way back from taking spy photos. This becomes very lucrative for him and he begins making a lot of money.

However, the DEA finds out and wants to bust him in his Louisiana home. The CIA is willing to turn a blind eye to the drug smuggling because of his excellent spy photographs and therefore move him and his family to Mena, AK. Here they give him more than 2,000 acres of land, an airport, hanger, home and a new plane.

He does so well for the drug cartel and the CIA that he buys more planes and men to fly them. He’s got hundreds of millions of dollars in banks, all over town, in his house, in his hanger, and buried in the ground around his home.

All the while he gets into scrapes that he gets bailed out from. Finally, he has to turn witness against the drug cartel and when he does, he’s in trouble. His punishment for all the drug smuggling was 1,000 hours of community service with the Salvation Army, which he does. However, the cartel isn't so lenient.

As I said the film is fun, and the action scenes are good with Tom making it all good fun.

Cruise knows how to make a film fun with his personality and ability to make the audience feel good. Sarah Wright as his wife Lucy was good. I loved her line about having to go back to work at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Gleeson was good as the CIA agent who recruited Seal. Jayma Mays was strong as the AK State DA who wanted to prosecute Seal. Gary Spinelli wrote an event filled script. Doug Liman let Cruise be himself and bring engagement and excitement to the screen. Just don’t think you’re going to see a meaningful story about Barry Seal.

Overall:  It was an excellent vehicle for Cruise to be, well; Tom Cruise.

The Mummy

First Hit:  Starts off okay, but falls off quickly into a waste of film and time.

Tom Cruise (here as Nick Morton) gives his all in everything he does. In some films like Risky Business, Top Gun, and A Few Good Men, it is more than enough and strong but you still know it is Tom Cruise.

The difference between those films and this one is they had good and believable stories. This story fails early on. The idea that Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), an Egyptian princess, decided to embrace the dark side and be all powerful when her legacy is taken away from her because of the birth of a male child, was rather thin. Then to make the story interesting, because of her new-found power, she was killed and was buried in Mesopotamia. The fear of her power required that she be interned in a tomb filled with mercury to keep her powers deplete. This made the reach too far to be believable. In fact the finders of the tomb said it was far fetched that there was an Egyptian tomb in Mesopotamia.

The story has Nick and his side-kick Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) being artifact hunters who illegally sell what they find. Nick steals a map of an artifact site from Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) and accidently finds the sarcophagus with Ahmanet.

Until this point the film is tolerable. But after the plane, which is transporting the tomb to London, falls out of the sky and Nick survives without a scratch, the film really reaches into the bag of unbelievability.  And it's at this point we get that Nick is part of Ahmanet’s plan to destroy the world.

The visuals are good and there was no expense spared in making the visuals work, however, for me Ahmanet’s costume failed. She’s supposed to be wrapped in mummy cloth strips, but the outline of her underwear was too obvious. Additionally, I don’t think any of the body markings on her face or body added anything to her role.

Cruise, as I’ve said in other film reviews with Tom Cruise as the star, is simply Tom Cruise in a role. He never embodies a character and becomes the character, he is Tom Cruise as a character. Boutella was okay. I didn’t think the double eye irises added anything of interest. Of course, with four irises, I don’t know how she could see. Johnson was okay as the side kick, but as a zombie, it didn’t work. Wallis was the best part of the film. She came across as smart and in control of her role. David Koepp and Christopher McQuarrie wrote a far-fetched screenplay. Alex Kurtzman did an okay job of directing the actors. That the story was mediocre and that Cruise will go all out making sure we know it is Tom Cruise acting a role, made his job harder.

Overall: Another waste of time watching an expensive blockbuster.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

First Hit:  Better than the first but still not quite as strong as other loner films, such as the Bourne series.

The first film was entertaining mostly because Tom Cruise (as Jack Reacher) is good at what he does, be intense, entertaining, and be Tom Cruise. One never loses the thought that it is Tom Cruise on the screen. In other words, it is Cruise with a character's name, in this case Jack Reacher. Not that this is bad, however there is never any doubt about who is starring in the film.

In Cruise films there always seems to be a scene where he's in a shower and the shot is a profile of the water hitting his head and then flowing down his face. It is generally to show is anguish and his human side before he gets revitalized to go out and do become the intense focused character he’s playing. This film is no different.

In this version of Reacher, the opening scene has Cruise assisting the government in rounding up a sheriff who is trafficking illegal aliens. This sets up Reacher as someone who gets the job done, even if it sets him up for additional issues. This opening also tells us that Reacher is smart, knows what is going to happen, and has a singular focus. The writer and director tell us all we need to know by telling the Sheriff what is going to happen in the next 90 seconds. The sheriff laughs, then realizes that Reacher has the last laugh.

The biggest flaw I saw at the beginning of the film was how did he have such a close working relationship with Major Turner (Cobie Smulders), the person who took his job in the Army? This was never well established and this little loose end bothered me throughout the film. The film made a big deal about them meeting for the first time, and that they had a phone relationship, but somehow it didn’t work for me. However, their on-screen chemistry worked and they were well match with intensity.

The plot is about Reacher and Smulders finding out who is using the US Government Military complex to perpetrate fraud why. It has to do with arms dealers, government contractors, and drugs. To move the plot, in an interesting and heartfelt way, Reacher is accused of not providing child support to Samantha (Danika Yarosh) who happens to attach herself to him and Smulders as they find themselves in the thick of a battle between the government’s MPs and the contractors.

Cruise is Cruise. He gives you all he has, he does it well but in the end it is never about the character but it is Tom Cruise. Smulders is very strong in her character and in her physicality. Yarosh is very good and I like what she brought to the film. Aldis Hodge was OK as a MP captain charged with bringing Reacher to justice. My favorite character in this film was Madalyn Horcher as Sargent Leach who helps Reacher with information as the story unfolds. Lee Child and Richard Wenk wrote the screenplay and it is works better than the first Reacher film, but all told it isn’t very strong. Edward Zwick did well to present this story and the characters in an interesting way, but it wasn’t an overall strong film.

Overall:  When you compare a film like this with a Jason Bourne film, the storyline, why it is shot, and the acting are far superior.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

First Hit:  This film was action packed although it did not unnecessarily make much sense – but who cares – it's really fun to watch.

Each MI film is a stretch of the imagination and Rogue Nation continues the tradition. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) never plays by the rules because he knows better than any other character in the film. And as obnoxious as that is, it works really well.

Cruise makes statements so strong and with such confidence that certainty of his plan or statements are never questioned, despite the strong smart people on his team. In this film in the opening scenes (which is also in the trailer), he grabs on to the side of a plane taking off so that he can get inside and foil the bad guys who are transporting poisonous gas. His crew William (Jeremy Renner), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Luther (Ving Rhames) are here again and with the introduction of Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) as an English agent representative working the same sort of case.

The villain they are after is Atlee (Simon McBurney) who portrays an evil doer looking for a huge payoff. The action scenes are not so elongated that the audience tires, yet the film is filled with them. The chase scenes are long and short enough to capture interest. The quips by the MI team are well thought out. Is this film filled with award winning performances? No. Is the storyline one for the ages? No. Yet the film works and is very fun to watch.

Cruise is easy to watch. He’s competent at making the audience think and believe he’s the character. Cruise does intense and action well. Simon Pegg is funny and good as the head support guy in the MI group. Renner is OK in a more subdued role and delivers what is required from the part. Ferguson is strong as an English counterpart to Cruise. Rhames is OK is a small and important part. McBurney was good as the villain. Christopher McQuarrie wrote a strong action script and did a really good job of directing this action film.

Overall:  This is a fun action film.