Review: Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part One

Mission: Impossible
Dead Reckoning, Part One
Cert: 12A / 163 mins / Dir. Christopher McQuarrie / Trailer

Things have finally heated up inside the cinema as well as out and the war is truly on for Summer box-office dominance, as the major studios triumphantly present their long-planned showcases for audiences who stopped going to the pictures in 2019. You love to see it. Paramount's saviour is, once again, Tom Cruise - perhaps the last of the great bankable movie stars who manage to get bums on seats purely by being themselves again in a slightly different hat. Anyway, there's a new Mission: Impossible flick out...

This penultimate instalment sees Ethan Hunt and his ragtag IMF team trying to prevent various world- and criminal-powers getting their hands on 'The Entity', a lengthily described yet sketchily defined self-learning, fake-news generating Artificial Intelligence, which could either destroy humanity or just convincingly swap-out the faces of everyone on ITV (whichever is the most inconvenient), activated by a two-part interlocking key*¹ that's been stolen from a Russian nuclear submarine. As McGuffins go, this one is nailed so firmly onto the zeitgeist that it's actually kinda quaint...

NOTED

Before we get into specifics, it should be noted that Dead Reckoning is incredibly solid. It's just never more than a Mission: Impossible movie. And while it's certainly arguable that it doesn't need to be, the whole thing plays out with breathless adrenaline and surgical flair, yet no real emotion at all. There's never the sense that this is leading to anything bigger than in previous entries (no matter how much Lorne Balfe's score swells), and for a screenplay which spends so much time harping on about its past, you'd be forgiven for expecting it to mean more, somehow...

There are slightly too many characters for the (admirable) simplicity of the story, each set-piece is slightly too long, and every rubber-unmasking is unintentionally funnier than the last.

Simon Pegg gets the lion's share of the comedic quips (delivering them perfectly, it has to be said) and a high-speed chase across the Italian cobbles in a yellow Fiat 500 brings some much needed silliness to the mood, but overall Christopher McQuarrie has gone for brooding intensity over fun. Again, whether levity should even be necessary is a debate for more scholarly viewers, but Dead Reckoning is far more slick in the moments when it's got a grin on its face.

GOODYEAR

Cinematographer Fraser Taggart puts in solid work all round with framing, composition and deftly following the action, plus capturing the immersive yet distinct colour palettes of the many locales. Unfortunately his work is slightly undone when it comes to the melee scenes (of which there are many), where Eddie Hamilton's editing fast-cuts between angles so quickly that the whole thing loses coherence rather than adding excitement. And because these physical sequences are often used to move the story along, the script then requires regular industrial-sized injections of exposition from Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, as they sit in front of generic nonsensical laptop displays and explain to other characters where we're all at and what's happening next.

The choreography and stunt work itself is - it should go without saying - beautifully executed of course, huge in its scope and minute in its detail. At this point in 2023 however, the thought occurs that since Fast X has already shown us pseudo-family-bonding and destructive car chases, Mr John Wick has brawled and shot his way through half of Europe and Indiana Jones has had a prolonged train-top fight for a powerful golden artifact on a steam engine which is hurtling towards a bombed viaduct... well, what is Ethan Hunt bringing to the party exactly, except for all-of-those-again?*²

ANCALENDAR

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is great on a technical level, but unambitious on a narrative one. There's plenty in there to come to the cinema for, and yet little take away. Since the audience only trusts four characters at the start of the movie (and that only really raises to five), there's little jeopardy in tantalising that others 'might be a bit shady'. They're all a bit shady mate, that's why we're here. But Esai Morales going full Bond-villain as the marvellously camp Gabriel lifts that end of things considerably.

Decent, but the series has been better than this*³, so next year's finale has its work cut out.

Oh, and I'm taking points off for McQuarrie chickening out of a potentially brilliant and literal-cliffhanger ending, instead resorting to a damp squib of a decompression coda accompanied by another two minutes of expository voiceover...

*¹ SPOILERS, highlight-to-read: Apparently the powers-that-be are desperate to get their hands on both halves of this key, even though they're shown in the first act as having an exquisitely detailed 3D model of it, so they could just print that and then cast their own copies. There's something about some red and white 'dragons egg' jewels in the key's handle which light up when it's assembled, probably acting as a verification system, but this isn't explained in any practical sense either. We see two guys using it at the start of the movie and they literally insert the key into a lock and manually turn it. Lads, Timpsons are open until 6, they can run one of those out for you...
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*² Look, I know it's not Bruce Geller's, Erik Jendresen's or Christopher McQuarrie's fault that the action sequences of Dead Reckoning have been undercut by its own release-date but seriously: we've already seen most of this, and in films which weren't afraid to also make us laugh. I mean if they'd had Ethan Hunt punching a giant prehistoric shark at the end, at least he'd have got his foot in the door before Jason Statham...
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*³ The first two Mission: Impossible films are the best ones and for wildly different yet complementary reasons thank you I will not be taking questions at this time.
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DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The Son

The Son
Cert: 15 / 123 mins / Dir. Florian Zeller / Trailer

It's Earnest™-season so here comes Florian Zeller's The Son, a turgidly po-faced, navel-gazing domestic melodrama starring Hugh Jackman as the worst type of Pantomime Business Dad who doesn't know how to set his phone to do-not-disturb for meetings, who pulls sad-faces for two hours because his teenage boy doesn't appear to be coping well with his parents' divorce from a decade earlier.

Laura Dern turns up intermittently to sob into her Martini, Vanessa Kirby pouts around an apartment which thinks it's too good for wallpaper, and Anthony Hopkins phones in just enough of a performance to secure the 'and' in the credits-ranking. Hugh's boy is played by Zen McGrath, setting out his stall here for a tour of the Northern club circuit as a Timothée Chalamet tribute act*¹.

WRONG

This is one hundred and twenty minutes of characters angrily asking each other what's wrong and nobody having the answer. It's depression. The kid has clinical depression. It's no-one's fault and it can't be cured, only treated. There, saved you two hours. To be fair, the film doesn't come up with any magic solutions for all this, not least because there aren't any of course, but in the meanwhile it wallows in knowing that anyway and tormenting members of the audience who can see it a mile off.

The whole thing might be meaningful if it wasn't so offensively average, whilst also apparently refusing to explore the subject it's chosen for itself. Going full-Atonement in the last stretch just isn't good enough. Adapting his own play (again), Florian Zeller is happy to churn out a desaturated Channel 5 weekday afternoon angst-a-thon, and Jackman is happy to take the money for pretending he can do serious films as well. Theirs is the only happiness you'll see here.

And I'm taking points off for the shot where the kid is filmed walking alone the 'wrong way' down a heavily signposted one-way street. That's GCSE film-making.

Beautiful Boy was far better at all this, and at least there was some excitement 'cos of all the skag...

*¹ Oh and Hugh Quarshie turns up as well - that's right, Captain Panaka - as a hospital administrator, and nobody calls him Dr Griffin which means this film doesn't take place in the same continuity as Holby City despite having the obvious opportunity and quite frankly I'm probably more furious about this than I am about the appalling approach to mental health issues (including the very scene which Hugh Quarshie is in, for the record).^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Fast & Furious - Hobbs & Shaw

Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw
Cert: 12A / 136 mins / Dir. David Leitch / Trailer



I can't believe you've come here to read this and decide whether you should go and see Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw. Even if you've only seen one of these before, you already know where you stand on this. The trailer tells you all you need to know, I promise you.

But still. This paragraph would usually be a brief setup/synopsis, although that's barely needed here. Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) are the muscle-bound, chalk-and-cheese odd couple who basically flirt with each other for over two hours. They're up against Brixton (Idris Elba), a cybernetically enhanced mercenary (think The Winter Soldier but with more sarcasm) as he tries to recover a weaponised virus for his mysterious employer. The virus has been stolen by Shaw's sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), an MI-6 agent who did this to prevent it falling into the wrong hands (ie Brixton's), and has been helpfully framed for murder as a result. This film is basically an extended fight-scene, albeit one that's way more entertaining than it has any real right to be.

CONTENDER

A solid contender for 2020's Academy Award in the 'Screenplay Apparently Written By A 15yr Old' category, there's an action sequence every twelve minutes and industrial amounts of exposition between that really don't matter. With the likes of Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Eddie Marsan, Rob Delaney and Kevin Hart all straining to get on the cast list for the hell of it, this sequel-baited strand could well turn into the Carry On of action cinema.

What's perhaps most interesting (if that's the correct word), is that after eight full installments the first Fast & Furious spin-off movie is centered around characters who were only introduced in parts five (Johnson) and six (Statham). This alone should tell you that this is an F&F flick in name only, to the point where there's a surprising lack of vehicle chasing going on. In fact, while the main series has always leaned toward high tech when it comes to show-cars, with the voice-activated attack drones, smart-bikes and cybernetic super soldiers on display in Hobbs & Shaw, the series just took the leap into soft sci-fi. It is second only to Hellboy in 2019's chart of cinematic ridiculousness. Yes, it is that daft.

LADY

The 12A certificate ensures that this is a largely bloodless affair of course, despite more gun-related deaths than you'd care to count. As a result, the fight scenes have editing with cuts so quick you stand more chance of seeing Jason Statham control his own accent than you would a punch actually landing or a single bullet going in. That said, the script which begins with a reliably grubby "nice tats" line to a female tattoo artist also includes such quips as no fuckin' way, bitch, arsehole, balls and wanker. The 'A' in 12A really does stand for 'advisory' more than ever before*¹. Take your 8yr old to this and reap precisely what you sow.

But perhaps best of all, writer Chris Morgan seems to believe there are stretches of road from St Paul's Cathedral in London where you could run for five minutes without being picked up by a single CCTV camera. This might actually be the funniest joke in the whole thing. Although there's another screen-nod to Greggs for the 2019 list, which is also outstanding work.

SO BEAUTIFUL SO RIGHT MY LOVER EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE

Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw is good. In places it's even great. Everything you expect and fear it to be*², it's loud, funny, makes no sense*³ and is indelibly cheesy. Director David Leitch is not going to change your life, and doesn't claim to try. If you're along for the ride, Hobbs & Shaw is great fun, and is not even going to attempt to change your pre-existing opinions, so leave any baggage back in the car park.

But it's also at least half an hour longer than it needs to be*⁵, and a more cynical reviewer might remark that the it has the absolute gall to evoke the great Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner during Elba's final scene, before the movie limps to a damp squib of an ending.

I couldn't possibly comment…

As much as I enjoyed Hobbs & Shaw, I really can't emphasis enough that it's not a Fast & Furious™ film. This is M:I-Lite with dick-jokes, although it does still carry that slightly unhealthy obsession with Fahh'mly™.



If you're going to see it at all, sure.



The film will lose quite a bit of punch on the journey to the small screen, but if you're a collector of the series then you'll be happy to have it on the shelf all the same.



With the best will in the world, no.



That's entirely possible.



There isn't.
Which, for a movie such as this, is an absolutely unforgivable sin.



Level 1: Well there's a scripted Death Star reference, a Han & Chewie reference, and also Rogue One Vader's in this.





*¹ Although credit where it is undeniably due, the 'Michael Oxmaul' routine is a great joke, and while I chuckled more than I'd like to admit throughout Hobbs & Shaw, this was the one gag which caused me to shamelessly guffaw. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² How come Vanessa Kirby's Hattie is an absolute bad-ass up until the point where Hobbs and Shaw have a conversation where Hobbs points out that she's an absolute bad-ass and from then onwards she's just The Girl One? The movie managed to leave behind gratuitous shots of women in swimsuits after the first twenty minutes, and I expected better, frankly. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ All the bad guys' firearms have activator-chips Because Technology.
"We can get the weapons offline for six minutes!" says Hattie.
"Six minutes could be all we need!" says Deckard.
So that'll be why the Samoan gang*⁴ are squaring off against the goons in bike-leathers in pitch blackness, it kicks off, then all of a sudden it's broad daylight and they're still fighting using fists and sticks and the guns come back online about ten minutes later when they're chasing a helicopter off a cliff? Okay then… ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Don't even ask how Dwayne Johnson's (a notably proud Samoan) screen-family are shown to be living in Samoa when more than half of them are clearly from New Zealand over two thousand miles away. I know they're all Polynesian, that doesn't mean they're all the same for actual fuck's sake…
(and yeah, I did a footnote-within-a-footnote for this one. That's how committed I am to calling out lazy casting-racism. I mean when I notice it, admittedly.) ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ No really, this is too fucking long for what it is. And if your bladder is strong enough there are three during-credits scenes plus one afterward. I have to be honest and admit that I didn't see the final one as The Need To Pee™ proved greater. Seriously, you know those ones where you realise about halfway through that you should have timed yourself, and then you slowly realise that you realised this when you weren't even halfway through and it's not like you've even been drinking booze and dear god will it ever stop? Oh, just me then. TMI. Okay, as you were... ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Me Before You

Me Before You
Cert: 12A / 110 mins / Dir. Thea Sharrock / Trailer



Well, thanks a bunch. This is how Karma repays me for daring to venture out of my comfort-zone and take a punt on a movie which wouldn't normally appeal. I can't remember the last time I was patronised for so long and with such brutal, cinematic efficiency. Thea Sharrock's screen adaptation of Jojo Moyes' weepy-bestseller could only be more twee if the cast were replaced by kittens wearing unicorn costumes, nibbling on cupcakes while The Archers played in the background.

The story of the soulful, burgeoning romance between Will Traynor, a quadriplegic former business-whizz and Louisa Clark, his pro-level Ditzy™ hired-companion is headed up by Emilia Clarke, who deftly weaves between giving me motion-sickness by acting entirely with her eyebrows, and inducing a migraine with a succession of garish outfits*¹, the likes of which bellow "Look at how UNIQUE I am!!" before she's even walked around the corner. Her simpering performance is further hampered by a screenplay which has the audacity to stop and explain itself every ten minutes, and a one-dimensional supporting cast spouting vacuous clichés instead of dialogue.

Perhaps ironically, the only person to escape more or less unscathed here is Sam Claflin, as the wheelchair-bound Will, struggling to come to terms with disability two years after a road-accident, despite having the best facilities and physical support that money can buy. Claflin is on very solid form here, and certainly believes he's in a far better film. This helps his performance no end, but does nothing for his co-stars. Sadly, the film isn't really interested in the only interesting character it has, and we can only imagine the turmoil he's been going through (by which I mean that we can only imagine this because it's explained, but not really shown).

Maybe I expected a film which would explore the psychology of disability for a mainstream audience. But this isn't a film about Will. This is a film about Lou, who manages to end her journey every bit as directionless and self-absorbed as she began it. If this whole thing is a post-modern experiment of social juxtaposition, intended to demonstrate to an able-bodied audience what it's like to be endlessly condescended to, then well done.

Thanks, Karma.
In the next twenty four hours I'll be sitting watching three X-Men movies back to back, and I'm going to gleefully savour every. single. punch.



Banging yourself over the head with a tin tray for an hour and a half.



This is a DVD, even for its target audience.



If you're in its target audience, I imagine it does, yes.



No.



Yes.



No.



Level 2: Emilia Clarke is in Game of Thrones, of course*², along with Gwendoline 'Phasma' Christie. Oh, that the bodycount was anywhere near as high in this film...





*¹ The film makes a point of repeatedly telling the audience how hard-up Clarke's working class family is, and that she's only taking the job to support them. This, despite her having costume-change for every single scene and never wearing the same item of clothing twice. Given that the fusty village she lives in is populated by people who wear beige crimplene as a fashion statement, it's staggering to think how much of her family's much-needed money she's spending on looking like An Australian's Nightmare™. Why do so many films automatically translate "quirky" as "annoying"?

*² And is, ironically, one of the few things I enjoyed about the episodes of GoT I managed to get through.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.