"Mission: Impossible - Fallout" is Great Summer Fun, Just Nothing New

My dear mother, who has never seen any of the films in the Mission: Impossible series, asked me the day before I went to see Mission: Impossible - Fallout if I thought she’d like any of the earlier movies.  I told her that, at the risk of jinxing the new film, I’d say that the M:I series was possibly the only more-than-three film franchise of which I could think in which each new movie was better than the one that came before it.  Fast forward to the next evening, and as I’m sitting in a theater waiting for Fallout to begin, that word “jinx” creeps back into my mind. I wonder if, without realizing it, I’ve just placed an undeserved burden on the movie I’m about to see.  Nah, I think to myself - it’ll be great. Well...

Mission: Impossible - Fallout is a pretty darn good action movie.  That much is easy for me to tell you without any him-hawing. Every few years, you may see Tom Cruise’s Energizer-Bunny-like media blitz on all the talk shows leading up to one of these movies, and get jazzed up to go eat popcorn and slurp on an Icee and be taken on a wild cinematic ride, and once again, he and his production team deliver on that bargain.  However, I have to admit that, after running the experience through my mind for about a day and a half after seeing it, the jinx about which I was worried definitely materialized on this one.

The story (if you care about that sort of thing)?  Cruise’s IMF uber-agent Ethan Hunt and his usual band of cohorts are now pursuing some stolen plutonium cores that are in the possession of an anarchist terrorist group bent on making their own nukes.  Hunt’s team loses a chance to recover them and are saddled with CIA overseer August Walker, played by mustachioed Superman himself, Henry Cavill, as they continue trying to recover the goods. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are still on the team, Alec Baldwin in back as “The Secretary” (y’know, the guy who will disavow all knowledge, blah, blah, blah…), and not one, but TWO of Hunt’s previous lady-interests return - British spy Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) from the last film and Hunt’s ex-wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) from the third movie.  Hell, even Rogue Nation’s main bad guy Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) is out of Supermax/Gitmo spy-prison and causing more trouble!

As with all the movies in this series, not everyone is who they initially seem to be, and some of them may (or may not?) be working one side, or the other side, or both sides of the game.  There are rubber-mask tricks, burly hand-to-hand brawls, and multiple government agencies out to get our heroes. There’s also ultra-high skydiving into Paris, a helicopter battle through the mountains of Nepal, car chases and motorcycle crashes - all things you’d expect in one of these movies, and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie stages them all spectacularly well.  His camera work for the chase scenes throughout Paris affects the audience’s equilibrium in a way to be almost roller coaster-esque, and Cruise continues to be able to defy Father Time and convince me that he’s not REALLY fifty-five years old while doing all of this.

Yet I kept waiting for the set piece that each of these films has, a stunt or process that Hunt must perform that almost feels sci-fi-ish.  Fallout didn’t have one of those - no hacking computers while suspended from wires in silence, or infiltrating underwater centrifuges without breathing gear, or suction-cup climbing the world’s tallest building.  Just a hanging from a helicopter… Yawn…

I’m also not sure if it’s just my imagination or if there’s something actually to it, but after just the one viewing of Fallout, I find myself wondering if Tom Cruise’s agelessness is finally fading away.  I couldn't decide if the almost-blank stare he displayed on a few occasions during the film was an acting choice or merely a sign of the plastic surgery finally preventing him from emoting as he’d like.  Eh, I could be wrong.

McQuarrie is now the first director to make more than one of these movies (he wrote and directed Rogue Nation as well), and as such, Fallout becomes what is probably the first “direct” sequel in the series.  All of the previous entries in the franchise have been pretty much free-standing, not necessarily requiring any familiarity with previous entries to be able to enjoy the newest film. This one, however, is so dependent on the events of Rogue Nation that I can’t imagine being able to feel the stakes as strongly as you would without having seen the previous picture.  Some of the fun of these movies is that newness in each film, and while the story here becomes richer and deeper for having the setup of Rogue Nation, some intangible level of… oh, what’s the word I want here?... “freshness” is missing.

Now I’ll advise you, Dear Reader, to go see Fallout.  It’s Tom Cruise doing the thing he’s done so superbly for more than twenty years, and it’s the best non-superhero/non-spaceship action movie of the summer.  After I finish this essay, however, I’ll call my mom and ask her if she’s watched the first Mission: Impossible film yet. Knowing her as I do, she probably has, and is probably eager to plow through the rest of them.  I think I’m going to advise her to take her time going through the other five films, though, saving the (slight) letdown of this one for last. While Fallout was well-made action movie fun, and I certainly enjoyed it, I just wish it felt as new as all the other ones did.

"American Assassin" doesn't score a kill, just inflicts a flesh-wound

The movie industry has been trying like mad to give the public another spy-franchise for almost two decades now. Three and two-thirds of the five Bourne flicks have been pretty good, but films starring Tom Clancy’s and Clive Cussler’s properties haven’t been able to catch hold long-term, and nothing else series-worthy has really even made it into production (those God-awful Taken movies don't count as "spy" movies, either). American Assassin almost suffered the same fate, as author Vince Flynn's estate was on the verge of regaining the film rights to his Mitch Rapp character, since nothing had been done with it.  The property had been in various stages of development for years, but Lionsgate Studios finally managed to get something done in the nick of time to keep the rights.  Did legal haste make cinematic waste in this case…?

The Maze Runner’s Dylan O’Brien plays Rapp, who proposes to his girlfriend while they’re frolicking on a beach in Spain.  Wouldn’t ya know it, that’s the exact moment a bunch of Islamic terrorists shoot up the beach, leading to some excessively melodramatic moments in which the girlfriend practically dies in Mitch’s embrace.  Eighteen months later, Rapp has become consumed with vengeance against those responsible for her death, and dedicates every waking moment to finding them, infiltrating them, and killing them.  The tragedy changes him from a guy who looks like he just walked off the set of "Teen Wolf" to a guy who looks like he's been living in the woods feeding off grubs and tree bark. Just as he's about to do everything he's been training himself to do, the CIA, led by Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) intervenes and takes him away.  Although he’s a loose cannon who can't take orders well or work with a team at all, Rapp is placed into a Black Ops program run by prickly Cold War vet Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton), who is prepared to chew up and spit out the new kid.

Though this setup is considerably generic stuff, eventually revealing a scheme to sell some enriched plutonium lifted from an abandoned Russian facility to the highest bidder, as if straight from the playbook of James Bond, it’s the initial character development for Rapp that provides the biggest letdown.  He’s unhinged and out of control, losing his temper and hurting a fellow sparrer at a gym, before negligently wandering in front of bullets at a shooting range.  He’s so focused on his personal vendetta that his own well-being is of no concern; Rapp is the kind of unappealing, unlikely anti-hero who would be dead or behind bars before the film even starts. This is something of a conundrum for a project that tries earnestly to appear serious and severe.

Yet that feigned sincerity is another problem with such a storyline. There’s little levity, virtually no comic relief, and lots of brooding and self-pity.  At times, the film devolves into a mindless actioner, which is perhaps where it is most comfortable, but even when it arranges a bit of commendable suspense, there are other faults that develop.  Most notable is the main villain, who remains a few steps ahead of the protagonists, simply because he’s supposed to.  Then it’s up to Rapp to accidentally save the day – not through impressive investigatory skills or level-headedness, but with the help of pure luck. No one uses intelligence to outmaneuver the opposition; everyone happens upon fortunate scenarios or are given specific opportunities to overcome calamities. “You let emotion cloud your judgment; never ever let it get personal,” orders Michael Keaton’s character, but then Mitch proceeds to conduct himself solely through uncontrollable emotions and deeply personal motivations, for which he realizes haphazard victory after victory.

All that having been said, I found the movie watchable primarily because of O’Brien’s and Keaton’s performances.  In his first truly adult role, O'Brien is very watchable, and is even believable at times, but still not TOTALLY believable as a guy who can whup an entire room of trained killers.  But hey, Matt Damon got better as Bourne went along, and O'Brien has the same potential.  Awesome right off the bat is Keaton, of course, going full-on Nicolas Cage-style bonkers as Hurley, who puts Rapp through Hell, takes torture like a man on vacation, and isn't afraid to take a literal bite out of terrorism.  Keaton is having way too much fun for the oh-so serious American Assassin, but his over-the-top portrayal is a welcome breath of fresh air into this stale script.

I can’t tell you American Assassin is a good film, but I won’t tell you it’s an awful one, either.  As the ending credits rolled, I told myself that I found it “okay.”  It could certainly have been made better with more time and more money, but ain’t that true of most movies? The excellent writer/ director Ed Zwick left this project early on in development, and I wonder how much better if would’ve been if he’d stayed on.  The film manages to rise above its modest $33 million budget for the most part, but the lack of true tentpole-feature funding starts to show about the time third act begins, as the necessary computer-generated imagery to depict what we’re shown during the climax is very, very below par.  

American Assassin has a title befitting of a movie made in the 1990s. Visualize it with an older cast - Steven Seagal starring as the guy taking on some of the worst the world has to offer.  Jon Voight as the CIA director. Ted Levine as the older recruit gone rogue. American Assassin is essentially a 1990s action movie, but devoid of the adrenaline and overall fun factor some of those films carried. Casting the oh-so-young O’Brien in so “serious” a role is meant to accurately portray the character as just-starting-out, and the sequels of which Lionsgate Studios dreams would show him aging and progressing through his career.  Logical thinking, in my opinion - I also hope they find better screenwriters for those sequels, too.

A Missing Element Returns in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"

Spider-Man is as important a character to the Marvel (comic-book) Universe as Superman and Batman are to the "Distinguished Competition."  It’s almost been a Lack-of-the-Room’s-Elephant situation that Marvel Studios has cranked out all these films over the last decade, forming a moving-pictures comic book series, and Spider-Man WASN’T a part of it (yeah, I know the deal about him and the X-Men - don’t lecture me). Whatever failure Sony may have imagined their last two Spider-Man movie attempts to be, the positive of them not making more than a billion and a half dollars off of them was that it led Sony to team up with Marvel Studios to produce new Spider-Man movies for them and allow Marvel to include them in their Cinematic continuity.  Everybody’s happy now… right…?

Look, Spider-Man: Homecoming is pretty darn good.  Let me get that on the page at the outset.  I really enjoyed it… for the most part… and I think the overwhelming majority of fans of the modern comic-book movie genre will lap it up and beg for more just like it.  I have a quibble or three, but I openly acknowledge those quibbles most likely won’t affect ninety percent of the audience that will see it, and I DO recommend you see it.  Allow me to cover the Good before I get to the very tiny amount of Bad.

Advancing to a future landscape while turning back our hero’s biological clock, Spider-Man: Homecoming counts as a clean slate for Peter Parker’s web-slinger. Now nestled into the established Marvel Cinematic Universe after an outstanding debut in Captain America: Civil War, Tom Holland is a true teenaged Spider-Man, one that was never successfully conveyed by two previous franchises and their over-aged actors.  Aiming to please and bursting with youthful energy at every turn, director Jon Watts succeeds at making a movie that serves as a brand-new jumping-off point for a character that badly needed course-correction.  To give credit to the SIX (yeah, count 'em!) credited screenwriters on this movie, the oodles of rather convoluted plot detail are relatively clear, even if you’re not super-paying-attention.

The brightest quality of Spider-Man: Homecoming is certainly the lead actor. Tom Holland’s likeability in Captain America: Civil War wasn’t a fluke, and he has ample opportunity to continue to prove himself here.  He’s a fantastic young talent with excellent comic timing, and his Peter Parker is an incredibly well-written showcase for that.  He eases into the levity, the emotional heft and general fanboy excitement that comes with Tony Stark becoming his mentor.  Peter is a fully-realized character and is infinitely watchable.

Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is here as Tony Stark, and even Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan is here, anchoring the story in the Marvel Universe, but there are new faces, too.  Notably, Michael Keaton excelling as a formidable and indignant nemesis that fits this film’s urban confines and plays off the adult vs. kid dynamic.  For goodness sake, it’s Michael "Batman/Beetlejuice" Keaton!  After a lengthy cold streak of embarrassingly one-dimensional rage villains (until Kurt Russell’s Ego in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2), Marvel has now put forth two vivid antagonists with edge and complexity in a row.  Credit goes to the filmmakers for casting solid actors like Keaton and Holland, and more importantly, improving their material.   

However, Marissa Tomei as Peter’s Aunt May feels almost extraneous.  The relationship between Peter and May is a lot of fun to watch, and there are some entertaining moments between them, but she largely seems to be there just because Peter needs someone from whom to hide his identity.  She also seems to exist so that people can comment on how attractive she is.  This character definitely needed work.

Tidbits of Spidey’s comic history pepper the landscape of the movie, possibly serving as “Fan Service,” something of which I’m rarely a fan, but I found them to be suitable here, and they inject energy and flair to every corner of the film.  The emotive Steve Ditko-inspired eyes on Spider-Man’s mask are used to great effect (sorry, Deadpool, Spidey came before you and does it better).  Elder viewers (yes, like me) with an ear for classic cartoons will be overjoyed by the opening measures of Michael Giacchino’s robust orchestral take on Spidey’s cartoon theme replacing the Marvel Studios “fanfare” (at least for this picture - we’ll see if future Spidey movies retain this distinction).  There are others, but I’ll leave them for you to discover.

Now for the Bad… well, what little of it there is.  I’ve been reading Spider-Man comics on-and-off for forty years, and watching movies featuring the character for getting on twenty (...and keep the “Man-Child” wisecracks to yourself for now).  This version of Peter Parker is less cocky than the prior incarnations of recent years.  He is also rather whiny a lot of the time.  The Peter Parker I grew up with was certainly socially awkward in his high-school years, but he didn’t hunch over like a weasel whenever he had to get out of a social situation to go fight crime.  While Holland hunches over with sincerity and skill, I have to admit I am not enthralled by this variation on the teen superhero’s alter-ego.  Peter Parker as a nerd, I can roll with; Peter Parker as a dork, not so much.

Peter Parker was also special to me because he did it all himself - he made his own costume, he made his own equipment, he made his own excuses.  His now depending on Tony Stark for all of his toys and alibis was a bit hard for me to swallow.  I understand this is a new version of the character, aimed at a generation of which I’m not a part.  Fine.  I’ll get over it, but it’ll take some time.  We who believe in Rugged Individualism seem to be a dying breed in our “progressive” society, anyway.

The film also somewhat falls just a smidge flat in the action department.  None of the action set-pieces are especially bad, but they also don’t stand out as particularly memorable.  A sequence involving the Staten Island Ferry should be a definite standout, but even that is missing something.  This character has immense scope for impressive action sequences on which this film doesn’t quite deliver, but it is good that the stakes are scaled down appropriately for the character with the struggle being a far more personal one than we’re used to in the summer world-threatening blockbusters of recent years.

I understand my impressions here are probably going to be out of step with those of the masses of people who are going to attend this movie and have a good time with it.  This is a picture designed to provide bright, vivid thrills and breezy bits of amusement.  As someone who’s kind of wired to notice such things, I might say “This movie really wastes the talents of Hannibal Buress and Martin Starr,” whereas a less-concerned person will see these performers and say, “Oh, yeah, those guys are funny.”  Marvel movies are not concerned with altering your world-view or broadening your appreciation of the filmmaking process. They have done as they always do, produce a slightly better-than-average example of the genre, and it is totally worth seeing as such.  Being exposed to Spider-Man for a decade or two less than I happen to have been may help your enjoyment of it, though.

"Baby Driver" is what Fast, Furious fun REALLY looks like!

Who doesn’t love a good car-chase movie?  Those Vin Diesel/Dwayne Johnson flicks sure do seem to make a lot of money, but we could debate about whether those are actually car “chase” movies or car “wrecked” movies.  Anyway, there are a number of cinemaphiles who preach the gospel of such flicks as Bullitt, To Live and Die in L.A. and (in a way) the Mad Max movies.  I start this piece with mention of the style of those films, but I am already wondering if I’m going down the wrong path, as Edgar Wright’s latest, Baby Driver, is something altogether similar, yet wonderously unique among them.

Our driver is Baby (Ansel Elgort), an orphaned, insular kid who walks to his own beat, orchestrated by the buds in his ears, belting out one of hundreds of playlists that help to subdue the tinnitus he has suffered since a childhood tragedy, but more appealingly to Kevin Spacey’s Doc, the head of a bank-busting crime syndicate, it makes him the best getaway driver in the business.  He’s so good that he’s the only constant member of crew that rotates it’s criminals between characters such as Griff (Jon Bernthal), Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eiza Gonzalez), and Bats (Jamie Foxx), among others.  Baby owes Doc a large debt, and now that it’s almost paid off, he wants nothing more than to be done with a life of crime, and to just drive off into the sunset with Deborah (Lily James), the good-hearted waitress who sings her way into his life ("Baby - your name’s “Baby?” You get all of the good songs," she says to him during one of their breezy encounters).

So what makes this movie any different from the 70s influences (The Driver and Vanishing Point) that it wears on its sleeves as Go-Faster stripes?  Well, aside from swapping the usual concrete jungles of Los Angeles or New York for the refreshing setting of Atlanta, Georgia, this movie is also kinda-sorta a musical.  The opening sequence, a rip-roaring, white-knuckle chase set to "Bellbottoms" by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, shows masterful editing and spatial choreography. It also shows that Wright has his own ideas about what makes a good car chase - speed, sound, fury and locale, but not necessarily the smash-'em-up approach where a dozen cop cars have flipped over before the first left turn.

Then the opening title sequence immediately follows, and we begin to get the feel for the rhythm changes Wright will use throughout - a one-take tracking shot which follows Elgort as he picks up coffee, swings on lampposts, shadow-mimics graffiti, and awkwardly mimes to lyrics in the same way that we all do once submerged in our own in-ear soundtrack to our lives. All of the musical cues and ticks are so perfectly aligned to the on-screen action that the whole thing feels organic, part of one fluid machine.

The soundtrack is immense, sure to influence your life in the same way that it does Baby’s, with The Commodores “Easy (Like Sunday Morning)” a recurring motif that accompanies joy, revelation, and sadness. There’s also the lesser-known Queen track “Brighton Rock,” and the brilliance of Young MC’s “Know How.”  These are just three from a litany of carefully-selected choices, from a director who wants his film to be informed by the same music that pieces together the fabric of Baby’s emotional arc. It’s an audio/visual jigsaw puzzle that pieces together almost perfectly.

It’s only when the brilliance of scenes such as a laundromat headphone waltz between James and Elgort, or the wonderfully-played exchanges with his deaf foster-father, give way to more straightforward action mechanics that the movie slows, but it never stalls.  These speed-up/slow-downs in the movie’s pace also feel musical, a cadence of storytelling to match the feel of the soundtrack.  Lines of dialogue are layered upon the rhythm of the action,and gunfire matches drumbeats in such a way that by then, you’re so attuned to the DNA of Wright’s film that you almost don’t notice them. Like all of the best albums, re-watches/listens will be a must.

The cast are uniformly great.  Elgort was in line to play the young Han Solo, but here he has the chance to shoot first with a role that sets the bar for cool, as well as ensuring Baby has a vulnerable awkwardness, making his fate worth rooting for. Lily James compliments him perfectly in the hip-to-be-cool stakes, with whip sharp quips and Tarantino-style wordplay. Any worries that she’s simply on-board to be rescued by Baby go out the window by the time the satisfying coda plays out. Jamie Foxx plays the intimidation card to perfection, Kevin Spacey brings his Swimming-with-Sharks persona to the heist table, revelling in the chance to chew on Wright’s dialogue, and Jon Hamm gets an unpredictable arc, which doesn’t entirely work, but as always, he’s very watchable.

I thought a couple of characters began to behave out-of-character in the film’s climax, but by that time, the movie had generated so much goodwill with me that I was willing to forgive these imperfections.  If Edgar Wright leaving the Ant-Man movie three years ago is the reason this movie got made, then I am definitely glad he and Marvel parted ways.  Baby Driver is a pulse-pounding thriller, a film-noir, a heist movie, and also, of course, a musical, a love story, and a tale of tragedy buried underneath.  It belongs in a discussion alongside those great heist/chase movies mentioned above, but it is so original that it will never be mistaken for any of them.

The DC Movie Universe course-corrects with "Wonder Woman"

There are large segments of the movie-going public who are hyper-excited about a superhero movie being centered on a female character, and that one has actually been directed by a female, and how this is oh-so long overdue and oh-so important in the annals of human history… blah, blah, blah...   All of that may or may not be true, but I don’t really give a fig about any of it.  Male, female, dog, cat, horse… who/whatever makes up a movie is irrelevant to me, as long as it’s good, and this one definitely is.  Wonder Woman is an excellent example of the “superhero” film genre, and I will explain why this is so, if you are kind enough to read on.

The story borrows aspects of Wonder Woman’s rich comic history while relying heavy on modern interpretations such as the character’s much-ballyhooed reboot by writer/artist George Perez in the 1980s.  After a short prelude, we’re introduced to a young Diana and her home of Themyscira.  In an island paradise inhabited only by the Amazons, Diana is raised by her mother Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) and trained by the Amazon General Antiope (Robin Wright, in a great performance considering her limited screen time).  Although it lacks a Loki, I felt we learned far more about Themyscira than we did about Asgard in the first Thor film, and the setting is put to good use to explore who Diana is and where she comes from before sending her out into the world.

Years later, with Diana grown into adulthood (now played by Gal Gadot) and starting to fully come into her powers, the Amazons’ solitude is intruded upon by an American spy named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and pursuing German soldiers who accidentally come across the island hidden from the world by the gods.  Believing the god of war Ares to be behind this “war to end all wars,” Diana chooses to leave her home and journey into man’s world to put an end to the villain’s schemes by re-assuming the Amazons true purpose in helping man reach his full potential and strive above the pettiness and violence caused by Ares’ influence.  Whew!  Simple, right…?

Credit goes to director Patty Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg for taking the best aspects of Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor and merging them into a film that might just be a tad better than either of those two.  Jenkins creates a lush, visual representation of a place steeped in Greek mythology, and balances that with History Channel-realistic depictions of the horror of the First World War, tossing some nice fish-out-of-water humor along the way.

What Wonder Woman gets so very right is its choice of stars and, for the first time in this DC Movie Universe since Man of Steel, a willingness to give the central character a bit of heart.  While fan reaction to the casting of Gadot was mixed, the choice has turned out to be a savvy one.  No, she’s not going to challenge Meryl Streep anytime soon, but she does what is asked of her in this role very, very well.  There is a moment in which Diana, lost in the midst of a war she doesn’t really understand, but knowing that the fighting is harming innocents all around, races across no man’s land and, with the help of a ragtag group, turns the tide of the stalemate.  It’s here, in Diana’s humanity, and in her need to put herself between others and danger, that the film so successfully sells us on the character, and I found Gadot’s eyes and her body language essential in doing so.

Pine and Gadot’s chemistry is wonderful, as each of them have moments of strength, wit and vulnerability with the other, without ever having one character dominate the relationship.  The interplay between all the characters is so entertaining that you shouldn’t find yourself waiting for the next mandatory action set-piece.  Even Trevor’s band of mercenary misfits, while obviously the sort of characters who merely serve as some screenplay motivation-providers, are played by actors (Saïd Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock, and Ewen Bremner) who each manage to imbue their characters with enough to make us actually like them a bit.

I also found the choice to put the character in World War I to be brilliant, in that it distances this story from the other DC movies, allowing it to be told totally on its own, without any reference to the rest of DC’s “cinematic universe.”  That being said, I do find it a bit curious that this character has now been in one-and-a-third movies and the phrase “Wonder Woman” has yet to be uttered by anyone.  I wonder if the upcoming Justice League film will finally allow someone to speak that name.

While acclaim for Wonder Woman seems to be widespread, there are some poor, jaded souls out there who believe it necessary to find fault with the movie’s final act including a major action set-piece battle, full of explosions and destruction on a grand scale.  To complain seeing characters bash Hell out of each other amidst pyrotechnics and massive-scale property damage in a superhero movie is akin to complaining that all love stories inevitably result in two people kissing.  Dogs bark, cats meow and superheroes have landscape-destroying fights - it’s what they do, people.

Wonder Woman is a visually-lush, entertaining summer movie that is loads of fun. It injects a breath of fresh(er) air into the DC cinematic universe and provides some promise for the upcoming movies DC/Warner Bros. has in store. If you are growing tired of seeing costumed characters destroying each other and landscapes, however, then take heart, because Woody Allen is still making movies you might like.

"The Fate of the Furious" - Running Out of Gas, but Will Probably Get You Where You Wanna Go

The Fast/Furious franchise has come a looooong way since its 2001 debut.  What started out as a sorta-cool B-movie-type crime thriller about fast cars, loud music and tough guys in Los Angeles has become a globe-trotting, Bond/Bourne-type spy/heist franchise with a growing group of guys (and girls) working with shadowy government agencies to battle international criminals.  Well, I’m a guy, and I like cars, girls, explosions and heist movies, so while I’ve never been a HUGE fan of this series, for a variety of reasons and circumstances, I’ve seen all of them in a theater, save for the last one.  Whatta ya know, another Friday night rolls around, and it’s this or the Beauty and the Beast remake, so the Big-and-Noisy option wins.  Here we go...

The Fate of the Furious catches up with Dom and Letty (Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez) on their honeymoon in Havana, but their getaway is cut short when a mysteroius woman (Charlize Theron) tracks down Dom and makes him an offer than her can't (or is unable to) refuse. When Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) calls all the old crew in to help with a top secret government operation in Berlin, Dom is forced to turn his back on his team as he gets caught up in the world of cyber-terrorism. Hobbs goes to jail. Letty snaps defiantly at everyone. Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson keep talking lots of smack to each other. More car chases, more property damage, more complete disregard for the laws of physics, a Russian nuclear attack sub, and two hours and fifteen minutes later, our multi-ethnic band is back at the dinner table, dropping hints about a ninth movie that is already scheduled for April of 2019.

There is a pact action movies (and action sequels in particular) make with their audience: accept the rules being bent now and again, and in exchange, you’ll receive elevated payoff that will at least FEEL logical.  What sets The Fate of the Furious apart from most other action movies is that it doesn’t bend the rules at the climax; rather, it breaks them immediately in the opening sequence.  Right from the start, we know that absolutely anything goes, and it just gets more ridiculous from there.  There is only one law of physics in this world: our heroes must succeed.  If Vin Diesel must win a race, a car will go faster in reverse than in Drive after doing a 180-degree spin, and throwing one’s self from that moving, flaming vehicle will result in no more personal injury than smudged slacks.  If a submarine must leave a completely-empty dry dock into open sea within ninety seconds, then so be it.  If we require a fleet of driverless vehicles to be operated from a single remote point of control, then cross-software platform compatibility problems be damned.  Okay, maybe that last one is getting a little picky, but you get my point...

The film is at its best when stripping out emotion altogether and just gearing up for fun, but even that aspect of the movie falls short of its predecessors - Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham are an entertaining duo, incessantly attempting to one-up one another as they’re forced to work together, but I didn’t buy the speed of their enemy-turned-buddy relationship.  Kurt Russell is also back as shady government spook Mr. Nobody (in what is basically an extended cameo), and we’ve added Scott Eastwood to operate as his apprentice.  Eastwood hasn’t exactly had a spectacular career to date (probably best known for being the movie hunk in Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” video three years ago), and his character here is pretty much a waste of space and dialogue, really only serving as the butt of two or three of Tyrese Gibson’s one-liners.

The Fate of the Furious may prove that the franchise is at least in fighting form financially at an inconceivable number eight despite the storytelling shortcomings, but that being said, what was innovative and daringly off-the-wall in Fast Five and Furious 6 – and even Furious 7 with its skyscraper-destroying antics – feels a little more pedestrian this time around.  It’s not so much a case of the returns diminishing, but that the series feels so sure of itself at this point that the nutty luster of the last few instalments just doesn’t feel quite so fresh.  Perhaps The Rock soccer-kicking a torpedo into a moving vehicle was supposed to be the newest “wow” moment, but by the time we got to that particular physically-impossible moment, I was sorta past the point of being “wowed.”

The Fate of the Furious is exactly what it aims to be, no more and no less, and I give the filmmakers credit for that.  This movie was never going to reach the emotional heights of Furious 7, and it was never going to bring something fresh to the genre.  It is a relatively-fun experience, but ultimately it’s a flashy, forgettable movie that’s best experienced with the largest tub o' popcorn and tallest Coke Icee the concession stand will sell you.

No Country for Old Man "Logan"

Hmmm… so what would happen if The Coen Brothers, John Ford, Werner Herzog and … oh, let’s say... Clint Eastwood all got together in a room and decided to create a “superhero” movie?  I’ll grant you a moment to recover from the cluster-mash of images that have certainly just exploded into your movie-loving imagination… Better now?  I had never actually contemplated such a question myself, but after seeing Logan, I wonder if the result of that dream collaboration would not have looked something like this.

Hugh Jackman has spent almost eighteen years playing this character across nine movies, and doing it so effectively that the original comic-book version of the character as a five-foot, five-inch tall Canadian has been almost entirely forgotten. Some of the movies he’s been in have been less than stellar, but no one has ever accused Jackman of giving less than one hundred percent of himself every time he’s strapped on those CGI-created claws.  You may not believe him when he says this is the last time he’ll play the character (speaking for myself, I am not completely convinced), but if this is to be his last outing as Wolverine, then we should all be glad that he saved the best for last.

The time is 2029, and director James Mangold (who also directed The Wolverine) shows us a time in which mutants have all but vanished from the face of the earth and no new ones are being born.  Logan has outlasted all his friends save for a now-Alzheimer’s ridden Charles Xavier (once again played by Sir Patrick Stewart), and is now a limousine driver in El Paso.  When Logan is not caring for the former Professor in their sorta-hideout across the border in Mexico, he often finds himself at the bottom of a bottle, a sad broken shell of a former hero.

That all must quickly fall by the wayside when Logan comes across Laura (played superbly by young newcomer Dafne Keen), a seemingly mute child on the run with her nurse and caretaker, Gabriella (Elizabeth Rodriguez).  Gabriella explains that corporate mercenaries known as the "Reavers" are hunting Laura, and gives Logan a sizeable sum of money to ferry them to "Eden," a safe haven near the Canadian border.  Logan reluctantly agrees, but it doesn’t go according to plan, and he ends up with a surprise stowaway when he returns home.

Charles reveals he’s been communicating with Laura telepathically for some time, and that she is, in fact, a mutant.  The Reavers, led by the cyborg Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), descend upon Logan and Charles' hideout to take Laura, and here the reason for her being hunted is revealed. What ensues is a film that is equal parts road trip and western, as our three heroes set out for “Eden,” and along the way, the truth of what has happened to mutants, the X-Men, and why Laura is on the run is revealed.  

While the plot has some incredible revelations about the X-Men Movie “universe,” what drives this movie is character.  Carrying the physical and emotional weight of a 200-something year-old man, Logan limps his way across the country, coughing and exhausted, slowly grinding into nothing.  If not for the charges in his care, one would think Logan would like nothing else but to lie down in front of an oncoming train, but what Laura is (a human molded into weapon, not unlike Logan himself), and maybe more importantly WHO she is, gives the Wolverine one last purpose.

Of course, Jackman is once again iconic in this role, but let it be known that Dafne Keen is a showstealer here. Even in silence, she carries her character’s tragic history with her, eyes conveying years of horror and torture. When she finally does speak, it is powerful, yet incredibly charming.  If you thought Arya Stark was a little Toughie, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet (even to the point Laura has her own list of names to recite, though in an entirely different context).

The rest of the cast is exceptional, too.  Stewart is heartbreakingly good in the film, as dementia makes him both vulnerable and dangerous (his brain, which has the power to release psionic blasts paralyzing those anywhere near him, has been labeled a Weapon of Mass Destruction).  Stephen Merchant is endearing as Caliban, an albino mutant who helps Logan care for the professor, and while none of the villains are given a robust characterization, they are all given enough moments to shine in their roles that they are not mere mustache-twirling caricatures.

Logan is a visceral tale of what happens when a man given too much time finally starts running out of it.  It is an inspired, ambitious, and violent Neo-Western/ Superhero Chase film, leading me to think of David Mackenzie’s recent film Hell or High Water afterwards, with a couple of mutants thrown in there for good measure.  Mangold’s story takes time to allow a few key sequences to really stretch out and breathe, which may lead some viewers to feel the movie to seem "long" at times, but I did not see it that way. On the contrary, the film’s two-hour, twenty-minute length gives us an opportunity to see so much more of these characters, their surroundings, and how they respond to them, and makes the violence that ends some of those moments all the more shocking.

The best mutant stories, both in the comics and on film, give insight into the nature of humanity, and Logan does this in spades.  Time, mortality and legacy are all at the heart of this film, making it what I believe to be the strongest X-Men film to date.  Surely Messrs. Coen, Ford, Herzog and/or Eastwood could not have done any better.