Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

Review #2384: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

Cast: 

Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Hayley Atwell (Grace), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Esai Morales (Gabriel), Pom Klementieff (Paris), Henry Czerny (Eugene Kittridge), Angela Bassett (Erika Sloane), Holt McCallany (Serling Bernstein), Janet McTeer (Walters), Nick Offerman (General Sidney), Hannah Waddingham (Rear Admiral Neely), Tramell Tillman (Captain Bledsoe), Shea Whigham (Jasper Briggs/Jim Phelps Jr), Greg Tarzan Davis (Theo Degas), Charles Parnell (Richards), Mark Gatiss (Angstrom), Rolf Saxon (William Donloe), Lucy Tulugarjuk (Tapeesa), and Katy O'Brian (Kodiak) Directed by Christopher McQuarrie (#1117 - Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, #1119 - Mission: Impossible – Fallout, #2040 - Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One)

Review: 

Once upon a time, there was just a movie that loosely adapted elements of an old television series. Sure, the original television series (as created by Bruce Geller in 1966) might have been thought of as a "mind game", and sure, some people may have thought the movie was too different from the source material (cough cough, Martin Landau), but let's be real for a second. The first film, released on May 22, 1996 (as directed by Brian De Palma and scripted through a variety of people in David Koepp, Steven Zaillian, and Robert Towne for a production that didn't have a finished script at the start), was merely cutting out the fat that came around with trying to make totally legit ideas of espionage that ranged from "making a dude remember his wife was killed by Hitler" to "cats being used as part of a detailed robbery"* and instead focus on some interesting action with dazzling execution. Sure, the movies hemmed and hawed in quality (if I rewatched the movies, perhaps one of them might have challenged Fallout is terms of being the best in that measure), going through cast members like a deck of cards (remember Jeremy Renner? Oh...), but I suppose it is nice to see a film that reckons to use the word "final" (as opposed to just calling itself Part Two to follow the original plan) for the eighth and presumably last one of these movies, at least with Tom Cruise as star. As was the case with the last movie, the script was written by Erik Jendresen and Christopher McQuarrie.

Sure, 170 minutes is a bit steep of a runtime. Sure, it might seem a bit absurd to encounter the number of flashbacks and little callbacks that come through here.** Sure, sure, sure. But it is the kind of movie that will still find ways to captivate you once it cuts down to all-around viewing when it comes to staging and action, and it does at least make for a worthy enough bow for Cruise and company to at least be proud of. Let's play a bit with some quibbles first, which namely is with the first hour: it really does seem that they wanted to make sure the bases are cleared for even the most possibly confused person, particularly with the flashback to remind that a person with a stomach scar was in fact, totally fine from the last movie. There are other quibbles, but you can check that under "spoilers", I suppose.***, but most can be summarized as just, well, not all action movies are created equal. But the underwater sequence is a generally involving one to really get things moving in interest, one with minimal dialogue that just lets you feel the pressure that comes with making the type of popcorn-chewing curiosity. With that in mind, Cruise hasn't lost a step in the conviction that arises in handling stunts and making you buy the calamity and importance with a smile. His energy is infectious and I will surely miss the audacity to want to ride a plane or go underwater for the audience's enjoyment. You might say he dominates the show, since a good chunk of the movie divides him from say, the charming Atwill and company, but at least the odyssey is worth seeing in dwelling a tiny bit on why choices and coincidences matter, as opposed to just being "it's that guy, remember?" Tillman is a pretty fair highlight alongside Saxon, admittedly. I do wish Morales was a bit more involved in the movie. The general threat being an AI and a wannabee devotee craving power can only go so far when he isn't in it that much and the general threat is really more just the sense of danger (uncertainty?) that could befall our heroes rather than one guy (there is a movement mentioned early, but I suppose they went the way of the Occupy guys). Instead, he does exactly one thing for nearly two hours before he shows right back up to cackle in a plane, and even Whigham or Czerny seem more apt to serve as accidental players in oppositional menace. The attempts at generating tension in the, shall we say, war-room, is probably a bit played out, but I guess a played out rendition is better than if it wasn't there at all. The action involving a couple of planes and wires and time (duh) is fairly satisfying, winding itself up with enough "oohs" for awe to ensure the movie will at least stick most of its ideas about making choices and actually sticking to it. As a whole, it may have been a hard mission to deliver a satisfying type of closure for a near-thirty-year franchise of movies with one key center and commitment to spectacle, but The Final Reckoning delivers a worthwhile enough experience to make one appreciate the journey.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Look, I've only seen the first two seasons of the original show. Hell, the "second show" had a handful of episodes that were just remakes of the original!

**Nothing is as good as remembering that yes, Hayley Atwill is in the movie.

*** (in light text, you know what to do): Okay, maybe this is a two-fold point: What's the point of introducing folks to be on the team if only one of them end up dead? I think we saw more examples of the prices being paid for being a member of the IMF in M:I III nineteen years ago. The other little quibble is that I forgot about Czerny and Whigham in terms of motivation for a good chunk, and let's be real: even when knowing someone is "Phelps Jr", were you really going to think that would matter for the end of the climax? Also, the death of Morales' character really is a bit too funny. You might say there's something to critique in what McQuarrie and company think AI is, but computer nerds aren't that interesting anyway.

Creepshow 2.

Review #2268: Creepshow 2.

Cast: 

Wraparound story: Domenick John (Billy), Tom Savini (The Creep), Joe Silver (The Creep voice), with the voices of Brian Noodt, Marc Stephan Delgatto, Jason Late, P.J. Morrison, and Clark Utterback.

"Old Chief Wood'nhead" segment: George Kennedy (Ray Spruce), Dorothy Lamour (Martha Spruce), Philip Dore (Curly), Frank Salsedo (Ben Whitemoon), Holt McCallany (Sam Whitemoon), David Holbrook (Vince “Fat Stuff” Gribbens), Don Harvey (Andy Cavanaugh), and Dan Kamin (Old Chief Wood'nhead)

"The Raft" segment: Paul Satterfield (Deke), Jeremy Green (Laverne), Daniel Beer (Randy), and Page Hannah (Rachel)

"The Hitchhiker" segment: Lois Chiles (Annie Lansing), David Beecroft (Annie's Lover), Tom Wright (The Hitchhiker), Richard Parks (George Lansing), Stephen King (Truck Driver), and Cheré Bryson (Woman at Accident)

Directed by Michael Gornick.

Review: 

Oh hey, remember Creepshow (1982)? That was the fun-as-hell anthology film (distributed by Warner Bros.) that had the 1-2 punch of George A. Romero directing five stories that had each been written by Stephen King. There were plenty of interesting shots in the film that aimed to capture the feel of comics such as Tales from the Crypt that had interested the minds of children (and made whiny complainers mad) in the 1950s. Five years after the general success of the film came a sequel that had Michael Gornick serve as director. In addition to being the cinematographer of five Romero features (such as Creepshow), he had directed a handful of episodes of the Romero-created Tales from the Darkside (1984-86) show; this is the only film directed by Gornick. Stephen King wrote an outline for the film that George A. Romero utilized to write the screenplay. Of course, because of a lessened budget for the sequel (reported to be half of the original, as distributed by New World Pictures), the plan for five stories instead became just three. "Pinfall" involved a rivalry between two bowling teams that turns deadly in more ways than one. Apparently, the story was adapted into a comic book of limited quantity in 2016. The other story, "The Cat from Hell" (a story written by King in 1977), would eventually find its way into filming as one of the segments for Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), which if you remember was co-written by Romero. The movie was a mild hit with audiences. There was a Creepshow 3 (2006), but it is more "in name-only" than anything; a TV series based on the 1982 film (with two King stories adapted into episode form) came out in 2019.

This time around, there are a few wraparound segments (done in animation), such as the five-minute opening involving a delivery boy and "The Creep" (seen in live action for the intro and the final shot before the credits). I wanted to like this movie, but there is an underwhelming fashion to it all that reminds me more of lesser episodes of Tales from the Darkside than the fun times one had with Creepshow (there isn't anything as entertaining as say, Leslie Nielsen casually burying a man on the beach). It just doesn't have as much interesting things to really play in grand execution, seeming more a problem of middling acting and budget more than anything. In terms of "not quite great anthology", it probably matches more with The Vault of Horror (1973) than Tales from the Crypt (1972), which is to say is not a compliment. "Old Chief Wood'nhead" is somehow the longest story at 28 minutes, probably because it loves to stall for what it thinks is atmosphere for the beginning when it comes to setting up an old dying town and two leads in Kennedy and Lamour that is then interrupted by-oh you get the idea, something has to happen for a wooden Indian statue to matter. It is about as predictable as the gore that will arise from it, for better or worse. "The Raft", lasting roughly 20 minutes, was based on the King story of the same name (as published in 1982), albeit with a few small changes. It probably matches the best in terms of compact pacing with a useful enough terror to go with some silly teenagers getting nabbed. "The Hitchhiker", lasting roughly 24 minutes, is mostly a duet where one hangs inside a car and one hangs from it. Chiles and her casual nature of trying to cope with what is and what isn't real in that debate of culpability while one gets to hear "Thanks for the ride, lady!" again and again. The movie didn't really have that much steam to lose, anyway. The wraparound segments aren't even that satisfying after a while because really, what's the point of having Tom Savini under makeup anyway? The animation is mild and overall conclusion involving plants isn't even worth writing home about. In conclusion, there are plenty of things one can say about the movie that are "okay" or "mild", but the movie in total never particularly gels greatly enough in enough of its stories to really pull a punch. Being the sequel to a really fun anthology is no fun, managing to make the subsequent Tales from the Darkside film come off as being better handled is another matter. I can't call it a good movie because I know it will just fade from my head as quickly as it came in, which is a shame.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Iron Claw.

Review #2166: The Iron Claw.

Cast: 

Zac Efron (Kevin Von Erich), Jeremy Allen White (Kerry Von Erich), Harris Dickinson (David Von Erich), Maura Tierney (Doris Von Erich), Stanley Simons (Mike Von Erich), Holt McCallany (Fritz Von Erich), Lily James (Pam Adkisson), and Michael J. Harney (Bill Mercer) Written and Directed by Sean Durkin.

Review: 

“These big wrestlers are in the ring performing acts of extreme emotion—pain, glory, injustice. But then they go back behind the curtain and have to follow these old-school ideas of male toughness—keeping their emotions inside, not talking about mental health, and not dealing with how depressing it is to spend 300 nights a year on the road. That was the real curse. I think the reason Kevin survived and was able to start again was because of his access to his emotions. He speaks so beautifully about his pain and is so unafraid to talk about it." - Sean Durkin, 2023

"I wouldn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. What am I doing today? I watch Ross play football; my kids call and tell me they love me; my investments do well. I have a good life, and I’m planning on having a lot more. When people say, ‘How do you do it?’ the answer is pretty simple, really. If you don’t have any choice, then it’s easy to deal with. What else are you going to do? Just drop dead and sink into the ground like rain?” - Kevin Von Erich, 2005

Admittedly, film and life can be pretty interesting in those things (big or not as big) that can't quite make it in the telling. For one thing, Fritz Von Erich had the name he played in the ring come two ways: Stu Hart (famed promoter in the business) came up with it to play with the heel gimmick of a Nazi (Fritz, really named Jack Adkisson, had a mother with a maiden name of Erich), which he utilized for a good chunk of the 1950s (before eventually going lighter). This gimmick saw him paired with Walter Sieber, who went by "Waldo Von Erich" and would fight for a variety of years, most notably with the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. Fritz had six sons: Jack Jr, Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris, for which three died by suicide and two died suddenly (one from drowning after electrocution and the other by dubious circumstances). Fritz himself died of brain cancer at the age of 68 in 1997, five years after he went through divorce (apparently, before his death, he even put a gun up to his son Kevin). Von Erich and Durkin had an open dialogue about the project, although that did not extend to the script written by Durkin, which excised Chris (who had suffered from asthma as a child that left him at 5'4 and had tried to make it as a wrestler for years before his suicide). I would like to mention that not only did Kerry win the world heavyweight championship in the first held "Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions", the promotion of having a memorial parade named after the Von Erichs went for five straight years. And yes, Kerry did in fact wrestle after he lost his right foot (while telling little about the prosthetic he wore under a boot in the ring); the details of his trouble with the law, particularly the chance of being sent to jail for violation of probation right before his death, is not addressed in the film nor are his children. While Durkin was nervous about showing the final film to him and telling him about what it would and wouldn't show, Von Erich was fine with it, calling it a vision where "you don't want the film to be about grief". Almost lost in this is Durkin, who spent several years in developing the film, which is his third feature effort. The Canadian lived in both England and America as a youth before studying film at New York University.

Wrestling isn't exactly something I watch or think about on a daily basis, but I do have the occasional memory in childhood of viewing it...because my parents were pretty interested in viewing WWE stuff from time to time (one particular theme sticks out). Of course, before WWE became the big thing among things in wrestling beyond regions, promotions such as World Class Championship Wrestling made their mark, and it surprised me that I did not know about this North Texas mainstay before. That blend of theatricality rolling with physicality has driven crowds for over a century (in fact, there are newspaper articles in multiple decades that show perceptions of people who view it knowing what professional wrestling "really is": they don't care). Technically speaking, watching a film involving professional wrestling is watching actors act as wrestlers who are acting out moves for an audience (where the champs are usually ones that have played themselves to the crowd well enough, such as on the mic that is demonstrated in the film). The result is a fascinating film that far from being about curses is really the tragedy of a family ripped apart from the inside. The irony is in the fact that the sons are so dedicated to the belief by their dad in that if they are the "toughest, strongest, and most successful" that nothing can hurt them, that they end up being the one to end themselves. Wrestling is a tough venture for any one person, but the toil of trying to live up to the image that is presented to the public, particularly in an infused era of mania of the old days (drugs or otherwise) is just as tough. One could argue just how much tragedy one should and could see in a film (one that is a film as opposed to say, Vice's documentary series Dark Side of the Ring). Or wonder about the portrayal of say, Ric Flair, but that is its own can of worms. Efron is the heart of the film because beyond the physicality that is shown from time to time is a sense of a man who really has to learn to grow beyond the predisposed ideas that made him who he was in growing up. Yes, the real Von Erich would wrestle on and off until his final match in 2017, but one detects both the screen and real Von Erich had the courage to go on tĥeir path without being swept in denial. Efron finds the footing best in showing that beneath the pain of theatrics in the ring and the pain outside of it is a man in dignity. It is composed pain that does not ring false in the chemistry required with James (the only main presence beside the Von Erichs, whose best scene may be their date that has her communicate her interest in him to seemingly his surprise) to show that in the end it is not merely enough to just be physically tough because one doesn't have to do it alone. The on-screen chemistry (in the facets that come in wrestling, drug use, etc.) of the siblings in Efron-White-Dickinson is worthwhile in the devotion that is seen between them that makes for such tremendous tragedy when the roots start to wither. Undoubtedly, McCallany and Tierney play the support of a family with the illusion of strong faith with useful tenor of hard-driving hubris (particularly from McCallany). I feel that the film really could have made for an even better miniseries than a film, because the muddling in the timeline (i.e. what happens in biopic a chunk of the time) does make the execution for the end a bit strange; the two sequences to counter each other in brothers being together is certainly a choice to see play out. As a whole, it is a pretty good effort in the ways that matter most, headlined by Efron in particular, that make for a worthwhile modern tragedy of illusions and reality coming to hit one another like wrestlers in the ring.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Takashi Miike's Audition.

Men of Honor.

Review #1645: Men of Honor.

Cast: 

Robert De Niro (Master Chief Leslie 'Billy' Sunday), Cuba Gooding Jr (Boatswain's Mate Second Class Carl Brashear), Charlize Theron (Gwen Sunday), Aunjanue Ellis (Jo Brashear), Hal Holbrook (Mr. Pappy), Michael Rapaport (Gunners Mate Snowhill), Powers Boothe (Captain Pullman), David Keith (Captain Hartigan), Holt McCallany (Machinist's Mate First Class Dylan Rourke), and David Conrad (Captain Hanks) Directed by George Tillman Jr.

Review: 

"I realized that some of these aspects related to my path as a filmmaker. And I believe audiences will find a part of themselves in Carl - the best part of themselves - perhaps the part they haven't used lately."

George Tillman Jr wanted to make movies from a young age. The Milwaukee native was shooting things he saw with a 8mm camera he borrowed from his father as a child, but it was the viewing of films such as Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), Claudine (1974), and Cooley High (1975) that inspired him to enter the world of filmmaking. He studied film and video at Columbia College in Chicago before moving into a partnership with a fellow classmate with Robert Teitel in Menagerie Films, a directing and producing partnership. Through years of rising from production assistant to writing/directing his own script, Soul Food (1997) became a hit. Tillman has so far directed seven theatrical films while also serving as a producer on a variety of films, and this is his second overall film, for which he was attracted to the story of Carl Brashear. The son of a sharecropper that did not graduate high school, he was the first African-American graduate of the United States Navy Diving & Salvage School, having done so in 1954 after enlisting in the Navy six years prior. Sixteen years later, having overcome an accident that lost him a leg to be recertified as a diver, he became a U.S. Navy master diver. The path to making a film of Brashear started in 1980 (right after retiring from service) that bounced around from contract deals to a script in 1994 for Paramount Pictures that stalled until it went into the hands of Teitel and Tillman Jr. Budget haggling was a step to overcome alongside getting actors to appear, so here we are with a $32 million film with two Academy Award winners for stars.

There is likely a good reason that this film stood on my shelf for over a decade, because I do know my dad favored certain films that involved the military in some way or just had a good story to tell. Somewhere, in that mindset of 129 minutes spent with this film, is a struggle for something better than average when it comes to a biopic that has an interesting juggling act between its stars. On the one hand, it does manage to accomplish one basic fact: It tells the story of a man who persisted onto his goal no matter what challenge came his way (whether prejudice or one good leg), and it does so with just enough interest to hear more about the story that will likely be enough to overcome its shortcomings for those who are interested in what it wants to say. The sticking point one might have is the very fact that it is a modestly average affair all the way around when it comes to being a conventional biopic, one that just manages to not diffuse itself in tension only because the main two actors do fine enough with the material while the action in the water is at least somewhat interesting to sit through. It is as if someone wanted to make a 50s style drama biopic, one with challenges to overcome while other folks dote on them. In that sense, De Niro does just fine with what he is given, trying to toe the line between hard-driving mentor and maniac without playing to the angle of biopic scene-chewing camp. Granted, it is an angle that can only go so far in middling depth, but De Niro at least seems game for doing it straight rather than playing it off for an unintentional laugh. Gooding Jr (who found himself playing quite a few historical figures in the next few years) does well enough in his own distinct path in playing off courage and interest in the main subject without becoming just a man in a suit, one that has to deal with underwater action with patience alongside other moments that he is fairly up to task for. Theron and Ellis compliment the two in the moments away from the water with adequate results. Honestly, one wonders if there was more of the eccentric Holbrook left on the cutting floor, one who has exactly one scene of focus involving his eccentricities (alongside racism). Rapaport is there for basically three scenes as a counterpart for Gooding Jr that comes and goes.

Of course there are a few embellishments from history to fiction, and at least the film had the participation of the Navy. One particular name comes up with Alberto José do Nascimento, a Brazilian diver who was the only one to support Brashear, complete with being the only one to bunk with him (as opposed to the stutterer played by Rapaport). Of course, De Niro is playing a composite character of people that Brashear dealt with, and the whole episode involving a bar dispute settled with submerging one's head in water apparently didn't happen either. As for the amputation...well it wasn't because he wanted to go right back to the Navy but with a prosthetic - he was plagued by necrosis and infection (with a possibility of keeping the leg, but with a brace, not a cane). At any rate, it is a film of process for diving rather than big moments, building to its rise and fight again type of mantra with reasonable finish. Is it great? Not by any means, but it gets the job done in portraying a useful moment in history with a reasoned cast and director to reach the levels it wants without sinking, and that should be more than enough in the end.

Next Time: Closing time hits soon, but it's time for Selma.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Three Kings.

Review #1521: Three Kings.

Cast: 
George Clooney (Major Archie Gates), Mark Wahlberg (Sergeant First Class Troy Barlow), Ice Cube (Staff Sergeant Chief Elgin), Spike Jonze (Private First Class Conrad Vig), Cliff Curtis (Amir Abdullah), Nora Dunn (Adriana Cruz), Jamie Kennedy (Specialist Walter Wogeman), Saïd Taghmaoui (Saïd), Mykelti Williamson (Colonel Ron Horn), Holt McCallany (Captain Doug Van Meter), and Judy Greer (Cathy Daitch) Directed by David O. Russell.

Review: 
"I just love real characters; they're not pretentious, and every emotion is on the surface, they're regular working people. Their likes, their dislikes, their loves, their hates, their passions; they're all right there on the surface."

Some people are cut out for writing and others are cut out for directing. David O. Russell found his way into both through filmmaking that elevated him to rising star in the 1990s. A graduate of English and political science from Amherst College, he had worked a variety of odd jobs after graduation that ranged from community work to teaching. He did some work with documentaries and shorts (having found inspiration from classics watched such as Chinatown), such as with Bingo Inferno: A Parody on American Obsessions (1987). He was given grants to do a feature involving fortune cookies and microphones in a Chinese restaurant that he would instead use to do Spanking The Monkey (1994), debuting in feature films at the age of 36. The film was originally written by John Ridley (a standup comedian who later turned to writing for television along with novels), who wanted to experiment in making and selling a script in very little time; the script was done in a week and it was bought eighteen days later. However, Russell (brought in for his first major studio film) would do his own writing changes to the draft, and Ridley had to go through arbitration to get a story credit.

There had been quite a share of war films over the 1990s, but this sticks out as one involving the Persian Gulf War (1990-91); a war film involving a heist has been done before with films such as Kelly's Heroes (1970, which involved AWOL soldiers getting gold bars out of a bank vault). Russell accomplishes a distinct war film with its look, involving vibrant color though Ektachrome transparency stock (noted for its distinct look used for photographers like National Geographic) and one-shot explosions that was shot in the desert of several states such as Arizona that featured Iraqi refugees as advisors and extras. It is a reckless film that makes the best out of touching upon the consequences and spoils of war with a balance of humor and humanity that makes for a fairly clever movie that benefits from a formidable main quartet that shows its disconnect between war and the reality that comes from its perceived end without becoming absorbed in cliché or lingering on the soapbox too long. Clooney got the part after actors of various age targets were thought of/approached (such as Clint Eastwood and Nicolas Cage). He does a commendable job here, curious in a burnt-out stage of cynicism and lost values that we gravitate to with smoothness in a journey that means most to filling in the layers the film seeks to show through heist and war. Wahlberg does fine with being the middle man, an observer of being done from war on both ends with a careful brow. Rapper-turned-film star Cube makes the most of his time in conviction in handling the tension presented in faith handily. In the same year that Jonze debuted as a feature film director with Being John Malkovich, this was his first (and so far only) prominent role as an actor, doing so in a part that was written for him as a way to shake things up from the established actors, which he does in adequate comic relief. Curtis does well with providing perspective for what we know (or think we know) about the people around a simple trek for gold, which applies just as well for Taghmaoui in his scenes against Wahlberg. Dunn provides hard-edged zeal as the eyes of a fleeting moment, while the others in the cast do fine when needed.

On the whole, the film pulls itself off well within 114 minutes in delivering a clever film on the other sides of war beyond just the battlefield through a game cast and well-timed movement in pace and timing that make it as bitingly endurable as fellow war film M*A*S*H (1970) with its own style and presence worthy for its time of 1999 that still sticks a punch now.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.