"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.

"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.

"The Accountant" sure adds up for me

While The Accountant may be a movie of the sort of formula we’ve seen done before (I first think of George Clooney’s The American or Clive Owen’s The International, but there are others), it’s sure nice when one of these “international web of intrigue” flicks that we think will be so predictable turns out to be so enjoyable.  Sure, The Accountant’s plot is all but paper-thin and the major points of the third act are visible coming down the road from a mile away, but darn it, it’s just done so well that I enjoyed the crap out of this one.

This time around, Ben Affleck plays Christian Wolff (one of many aliases the character utilizes), a seemingly anti-social bean counter with a knack for bluntness.  In truth, he has a high-functioning form of autism with a “Beautiful-Mind”-like talent for numbers, apparently living a quiet life as an accountant, operating out of a non-descript strip mall office and helping struggling locals with their taxes.  On the side, however, he also investigates the money problems of dangerous clients and powerful corporations and “settling accounts” by any means necessary.  Having this sort of clientele is not without its risks, however, and thankfully Wolff was raised by his Army SpecOps father to hone and channel his disability, and is now an expert marksman and ass-kicker, should any such complications arise.  In an attempt to find some more legitimate business, his unseen secretary/handler/confidante (I know, it’s getting goofy-sounding, but just roll with it for now) steers him towards a freelance job investigating the books of a robotics company headed by Lamar Black (John Lithgow), where a low-level employee (Anna Kendrick) has discovered some accounting discrepancies.  

While there are three sets of characters to follow through the movie, and all of the supporting actors are terrific (maybe with the exception of Lithgow and Kendrick, but admittedly, neither had much screen time to work with), it’s obvious that this is Affleck’s movie, and he carried it with ease upon his now Rock-like shoulders.  Embracing the tics and maddening intensity of a true autistic, Affleck demonstrates once again how he has honed his acting skills into a much more restrained, nuanced performance than I believe he could have delivered a decade ago.  This is an actor who no longer accepts being a weak link in any of his films, and has worked his way to deserving leading-man status.

Director Gavin O’Connor (Miracle, Pride and Glory) brings to life a script that has been floating around Hollywood for several years (and even landed on the 2011 “Black List” of best unproduced screenplays), using flashbacks and changes in character perspective to deftly juggle the film’s numerous narrative threads. Admittedly, the movie occasionally drifts into territory that borders on farcical, but it always manages to rein itself in at just the right moment before straining the limits of credulity to the breaking point.  He succeeds at striking a balance between action and solemnity that will feel instantly familiar to fans of his well-received MMA drama Warrior.

The tone O’Connor sets is probably what I enjoyed about most about the movie.  With so many Bourne-esque thrillers of the last twenty years remaining so dour and serious throughout their runtime, The Accountant has just a handful of winks or dry-humor moments to break the tension for just a second without coming across as silly.  The result is a thriller that’s been tossed into a blender with a gleefully silly action flick and has come out far more compelling than either of those ideas would have been on their own, and also comes as a welcome reminder that even though the box office these days tends to be overrun with sequels, remakes, reboots and “re-imaginings,” it might be possible that Hollywood hasn’t quite run out of great ideas just yet.

The "Spectre" of Bond films Gone By...

I said in my review of Skyfall that I’ve never viewed the Daniel Craig Bond films as a strict continuation of the Bond franchise.  Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson stated that Casino Royale was a reboot of the property, and I’ve always taken them at their word and mentally separated these movies from their predecessors.  It took a while for me to find a place in my consciousness for the Craig-era films, though, as they most certainly don’t take place in the same world as the first twenty movies.  The now-four films of this series occupy a different place for me than do the six Connery films, the seven Moores or the four Brosnans (I sorta tack on the one Lazenby flick with the Connerys, though - it was that good).

While I have thoroughly enjoyed the Craig films (yes, even Quantum of Solace - it’s grown on me over the years), none of the first three has quite felt like a “Bond Movie” to me, although Casino Royale came pretty dang close.  Spectre, however, has the “feel” of a Bond movie for me.  It has the patterns we expect of a Bond movie - the pace, the rhythm.  The gun-barrel opening is here, for the first time in the Craig era.  There’s a journey by train (and one hell of a fight), a la From Russia, With Love; a mountaintop health retreat, a la On Her Majesty’s Secret Service; a 1948 Rolls Royce appears out of the desert, a la Goldfinger. All of these winks to Bond’s past (and a few others) pop in and out of the plot, but director Sam Mendes and his screenwriters, all back from Skyfall, wisely don’t shove them in our faces.  

The pre-title sequence is a seemingly one-take, Touch of Evil-ish scene through the streets of Mexico City during the Day of the Dead festivities, leading to a three-way fistfight in a helicopter above a crowded city square.  It seems there’s yet another shady criminal organization trying to take control of the world’s intelligence services, one with which Bond has been unwittingly crossing paths for three movies now, and this ring carved with an octopus is the clue Bond has been needing all this time. Through real-world Snowden-like dealings in the British government, the 00-programme is on the verge of being shut down, so Bond is once again on his own, off to Italy to infiltrate what seems to be the secret society’s annual shareholders meeting and have a fantastic car chase. Then off to Austria to collect the required female adventuring companion, one Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), and ultimately to Tangiers in pursuit of the everyone-says-he’s-dead Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz, looking quite like Charles Gray and dressed remarkably like Donald Pleasence… hmmm...) in his secret desert hideout.  Now if all that doesn’t sound like a Bond flick, just what the heck would?

Spectre’s almost two-and-a-half hour running time didn’t phase me, but despite all of that screen time, there are characters that are sadly underdeveloped or underutilized.  Monica Bellucci, whose casting was much ballyhooed by the press as being novel, in that there was finally an age-appropriate actress as a “Bond Girl,” is in-and-out of the movie fairly quickly, and the sequence with her character almost so unnecessary to the plot that one might forget about her once it’s over. While M and Q (Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw, both fantastic) are involved in this story better and more entertainingly than any incarnation of those characters ever has been before, Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny is sadly underused, a disappointment after the potential for growing her and Bond’s relationship at the end of Skyfall.  Even the almost-obligatory scene where the primary baddie has Bond in his clutches falls prey to the spy-thriller trope of the monologue-ing villain, leading me to hear Seth Green in the back of my mind, screaming to Dr. Evil in the first Austin Powers movie to just pop the hero in the head so we could get on with things.

Spectre is not a letdown after Skyfall by any means, but it is a different movie, and one should keep that in my when buying his ticket. It is not as in-depth as Skyfall, but it is more fun, with Bond exhibiting a bit more of the dry humor we’ve loved from the character these last fifty years. Craig actually seems to be enjoying the character more than he ever has before, although you’d never suspect that from all the public griping about being Bond he’s doing to the press these days.  I once complained that his portrayal of the character was more James Bourne than James Bond, but the part has evolved in these last two movies, and he in the role, turning it into something more familiar, yet all his own at the same time.

If you go to this movie basing your expectations on your experience with Skyfall, you may be disappointed, so don’t fall into that line of thought. Spectre seems to be more about the tone of Bond’s world than the particulars of any story set in it.  It has a different pace than Skyfall because it tells a different story, about a character in a different place in his life, and yet it’s still exactly what you should expect of your Bond flicks - an extraordinarily entertaining action/fantasy thriller, and one you’d be glad you saw in a theater.

The (Gorgeous, but Empty-headed) Man From U.N.C.L.E.

There are times when I go to a movie knowing it will be something akin to dating a supermodel - it’ll look fantastic, but there really won’t be all that much beneath the surface.  Sure, we all want things in which we invest time and money to have deeper qualities than mere beauty, but who in his (or her) right mind would turn down the chance to look at Kate Upton for a couple of hours? It’s not like you’re committing your life to her, and Hell, there might even be a few laughs involved.
That allegory can more often than not be used to try to describe Guy Ritchie’s movies.  None of his films will ever take a place alongside other landmark pieces of cinema, but they’re pretty much all lovely to look at, and (with the exception of Swept Away, of course) can be pretty darn entertaining.  His Sherlock Holmes reboots from a few years back may have been rather soulless, but they sure looked good, and thankfully had two leading actors with great chemistry to provide witty banter that provided enough entertainment to gloss over the story’s flaws.  The Man From U.N.C.L.E. follows this trend to the letter.
The movie (it really should be “MEN From U.N.C.L.E., shouldn’t it?) is, of course, a retread of the television series from the 1960s, and regrettably one that I have never-not-once had the opportunity to see.  It capitalized on the James Bond/Cold War-spy genre that was duplicated and ripped off by so many movie and television productions of the day, and made stars of Robert Vaughan and David McCallum.  Thankfully, this reincarnation avoids the trope of "updating" the source material and leaves the story set in the Cold War-60s and follows the joint CIA/KGB team of Napoleon Solo (Man of Steel’s Henry Cavill) and Illya Kuryakin (The Lone Ranger’s Armie Hammer) as they meet, team up, and attempt to prevent a criminal organization from producing an atomic bomb. They romp around East Berlin.  They romp around Rome.  They romp around the evil super-villain’s island lair.  They save the world.  Simple.  How complicated a plot do you really need? 
What makes Man From U.N.C.L.E. enjoyable is Ritchie’s obvious love for the style and look of early-60s cinema, which is glaringly obvious throughout the movie.  First and foremost, the muted colors and rainbow lens-flares, evoking the beginnings of the time when the majority of movies, not just the occasional spectacle picture, would be made in color.  The clipped dialogue spoken by the characters, the location shooting, and those oversized, yellow subtitles all harken back to the heyday of Fellini and Antonioni.  The music he uses throughout, the European pop of the day and Daniel Pemberton’s score, are great undertones to both the action and the scenes bridging the action. Ritchie’s editing pace is something of a trademark of his, as well, and he keeps this movie moving along at almost breakneck speed, never allowing the audience to linger on anything long enough to realize it may be missing something. Ritchie’s technical skills make this movie pleasant to watch, despite its shortcomings, which sadly are primarily found in the two things for which people primarily watch movies - the story and the actors.
Ritchie and his producer Lionel Wigram wrote the screenplay, and it oh-so-very much could’ve used another pass or two from a more competent screenwriter. Sure, the plot doesn’t NEED to be overly complicated, but I kept waiting for something that wasn’t stereotypical Our Man Flint-type stuff to happen, and it never did.  Even the villain’s ultimate fate was so underwhelming that I found myself expecting her to pop back up before the credits rolled, but no, that was actually her end…
Cavill plays Napoleon Solo as Chris Parnell played James Bond in Saturday Night Live skits, with all the lower jaw-jutting, smug smile-wearing, lady-killer strutting arrogance you would expect from someone making light of Sean Connery in his glory days.  Hammer doesn’t do all that much better, spitting out his something-akin-to-Russian accent with a bit more “Moose and Squirrel” than one can forgive, and the supposed sparks he shares with Gaby (Alicia Vikander), the East German defector they have along for the ride, cannot be taken seriously.  Vikander is the trio’s saving grace, being the only one seemingly having a real experience, and not one right out of a “Bullwinkle” cartoon.  Hugh Grant, as the British Intelligence operative who will become the team’s supervisor, is also great in his limited screen time, but when is Hugh Grant NOT fun to watch?
The overall effect of all this is to leave one with the impression Guy Ritchie merely staged a spy-themed GQ photo shoot, which is not in and of itself a bad thing.  As stated earlier, looking at pretty things can be entertaining.  Seeing The Man From U.N.C.L.E. may even leave you with the same feeling you might have if you were ever so fortunate as to have that chance to date a supermodel - you may very well come to the end of it knowing you enjoyed it, and that it was beautiful, but you sure can’t remember a thing it had to say.

You want more Denzel? "The Equalizer" is at least good enough for that...

Viewing the film incarnation of The Equalizer, I found myself watching Denzel Washington dominate the screen, as he always does, and thinking of John Wayne.  Many film historians have debated how much of an “actor” John Wayne actually was, but there is almost universal agreement that he was first and foremost a “movie star” - a screen presence that demanded and drew in an audience’s attention, regardless of what character he may be portraying in any particular film, or how good a job of it he may be doing.  While I sincerely doubt anyone of sound mind would question Denzel Washington’s acting ability, I submit to you that he possesses that John Wayne-ish quality of the “movie star.”  Much like John Wayne once played something as ludicrous (for him) as Genghis Khan and audiences would still accept it out of their affection for his general screen presence, Washington can portray such extremely unlikely character types as spies/assassins at the ripe old age of 59 and pull it off, primarily because audiences love seeing him in anything he does.  No, Denzel would (probably) never wear a cowboy hat and ride a horse in a Western, but if he did, he’d make you want to watch him.   

This movie gives us one Robert McCall, an obviously-educated middle-aged gentleman who exudes kindness and compassion for those in his life, who yearns for a more quiet, Spartan life after some unexplained past in which he apparently was some sort of intelligence operative/assassin.  He even seems to have a touch of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, arranging silverware on tables in a just-so manner and mentally calculating to the second the path he will weave through imminent episodes of conflict (I know the concept of an OCD-riddled Law-Enforcement type has been explored in the TV series Monk, but let’s face it - that was a comedy; at least here, the notion is taken fairly seriously).  He works in a Boston hardware megastore during the day, assuming something of a Favorite-Uncle role to his younger coworkers, all the while keeping them guessing about his mysterious past.  He seems to find sleep all but impossible, however, and spends his nights sipping tea and reading classic literature in an all-night diner.  

A young call girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) who frequents the diner between clients becomes friendly with McCall, and when the Russian mobsters who control her put her in the hospital after she offends a client, McCall cannot maintain his self-imposed retirement any longer and decides to mete out some justice, primarily because, as he explains at one point, he is the one able to do so.  The resulting violence leads the Mob to send in an ex-Spetsnaz “cleaner” (Marton Csokas) to eliminate this do-gooder troublemaker and get all the illegal business money flowing again, and the intimate little war these two men wage on one another culminates in a Home-Depot-as-Hogan’s-Alley confrontation that will show you just how many ways one can use home improvement products to kill a man.

McCall displays almost superhuman calm in violent situations, a character trait perfectly suited for Washington’s screen presence.  The checking of his watch before and after a conflict - his grimacing silence while he treats his own wounds - his sitting at a table and holding the eyes of this film’s primary baddie - we see a gleam in his eye or feel a vibe from his body language in all these things that we’ve seen in numerous other performances he’s given through the years (Man on Fire and 2 Guns jump to mind), yet is always appropriate to the character and moment in which he’s giving it, and audiences always love it.  

The movie moves along at a deliberate pace, almost to the point of qualifying as “slow,” but the screenplay dribbles out just enough tidbits of information about McCall with just enough frequency to hold our attention.  There is much in Richard Wenk’s screenplay that is never explicitly stated or explained, namely just how McCall obtained his skills in infiltration and assassination, and precisely who the seemingly-former government-type (Melissa Leo) who aids and shelters McCall at one point is.  Strangely, I found this an interesting approach to telling the story.  Director Antoine Fuqua, who directed Washington to his Best Actor Oscar in Training Day, seems to understand his lead actor’s skills and wisely chooses to make this film a typical Denzel action picture, trusting Washington’s screen presence to hold our attention through a story formula that we’ve seen a few times before.

What I don’t understand is why we are to even call this movie The Equalizer, as A) it has so little in common with the late-1980s television series upon which it is (supposedly) based and B) the title is never uttered/mentioned throughout the movie, therefore having no meaning to anything in it.  Washington’s character sharing the name of Edward Woodward’s character from the TV show is about the extent of the similarities.  We don’t even get a snippet of the show’s oh-so-cool theme music, damn it!.  I’m not aware of any Star Trek-like following of the original TV show that might lead Sony/Columbia to believe using this title would result in a stampede at the box office larger than would just billing it as the latest Denzel Washington movie, but I must assume their marketing people are much smarter about such things than I am (insert sarcasm here).

The Equalizer is by no means a great film.  It’s a bit of a cliche’ movie, nothing we haven’t seen in countless thrillers, revenge yarns and vigilante flicks before it, but it’s done serviceably enough to be entertaining, and it also has the supreme benefit of having Denzel Washington in it.  He ain’t John Wayne, but he IS Denzel, after all, and he’s always worth watching.

"Skyfall." Best. Bond. Ever.

That's right, I'll say it again in case you misunderstood me - Best.  Bond.  Ever.  I could just quit writing right there, because it really doesn’t get any simpler than that.  Don’t get me wrong – Goldeneye was great.  I still love Thunderball and Goldfinger.  Even Live and Let Die was pretty good, but if we are to take the word “reboot” literally, then I have to consider the Daniel Craig era as a separate entity from the rest of the Bond series, and as such, Skyfall is simply the best of the bunch.  One of the greatest sensations I can hope to experience as a moviegoer is when a movie lives up to my high hopes for it.  This one most certainly does.

After an intense pursuit of a stolen hard drive that contains vital information through the streets of Istanbul, Bond is wounded during a desperate fight atop a moving train, flung to a river below and left for dead.  MI-6 continues on without him, but when the complex plot of a cyber-terrorist to discredit and disgrace “M” (Judi Dench) begins to take shape, he reappears from the dead, only to be told that he’s possibly too old and out-of-shape to continue serving.  Not that he or “M” would allow silly things like physical evaluations and psychological profiles to keep 007 out of action for long, so rules are bent and superiors are ignored, and Bond then jet-sets halfway across the globe in pursuit of those who seek to make use of the information on that stolen hard drive.

That information turns out to be the identities of every covert operative currently undercover in terrorist organizations all over the world, and it’s being used by some evil mastermind to wreak havoc on MI-6 in general, and on “M” in particular.  The villain turns out to be a former MI-6 operative named Silva (played by a wonderously-creepy Javier Bardem, who can do Creepy Bad Guy better than most, as proved by No Country for Old Men), whose plans turn out to be much more complex, and much more personal, than mere cyber-terrorism.  His first meeting with Bond must be the grandest entry of any Bond villain into a film, and his ensuing conversation with him must also rank as the strangest.

Of course, it’s amazing what an Oscar-winning director can do for a franchise-formula movie (pay close attention to that statement, Walt Disney company, when deciding who will helm the next Star Wars flick…).  I have wondered what sort of “action movie” Sam Mendes could make from the moment I heard of his hiring to direct this film.  I mean, let’s face it – American Beauty and Revolutionary Road were wonderful movies, but they don’t exactly make one think he could just as easily have made Die Hard or something like that.  That said, I’ve had a gut feeling all along that he’d pleasantly surprise us and would make Skyfall something special…  and he sure as Hell did.

Mendes has given us the most visually gripping Bond film I can remember.  As exotic settings have always been a staple of the Bond series, Mendes makes fantastic use of the nighttime settings of Shanghai and Macau, with a skyscraper’s glass and a city’s neon lights apparently being the new trees and foliage in which snipers ply their trade these days.  The gloom of Scotland, the light bulbs of the London underground, and the harsh sunlight of an abandoned island in the South China Sea are all important parts of Mendes’ lovely finished product.

I can’t rave enough about this script, either.  Skyfall is certainly the most character-invested film of the entire Bond series.  We see Bond have doubt about the world changing around him.  We see “M” face her mortality.  We see other, younger operatives suffer the consequences for actions demanded of them.  We see the people to whom they answer question their very necessity in the modern world and the wars we might fight.  We also, for the first time in the fifty-year history of the cinematic version of the character, see that Bond actually did exist before he was granted his Double-O status. Screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan apparently took advantage of the extra two years provided by MGM’s financial problems to hone this script to near-perfection, and given the sorta-flat previous film in this series (that would be Quantum of Solace, which actually began filming without a completed script), it’s easy to forgive being made to wait longer for this movie.

We’re even given the pleasure of being reintroduced to some of the characters and details we used to love about the series that went away after Casino Royale, in ways that are entirely appropriate to the new style and tone of the series.  There were just enough winks to Bond’s past to be appreciated, but none of them so over-the-top as to make one’s eyes roll at the cheesiness of doing so.  I am so tempted to give away some of these nuggets, but oh, how I don’t want to deprive you of the pleasure of learning these things for yourself (I will blab that it’s great to see that Bond made sure the Aston Martin he won from Demetrios in Casino Royale got shipped over from the Bahamas after that mission was completed, and that it has a few specs that harken back to other Bond movies…).

If you’ve avoided the movie’s Wikipedia entry so far (damn those European moviegoers who’ve had an extra two weeks to see it and spoil the surprises for us over here…), then you’re in for one heck of a time.  The pre-title action sequence alone is worth the price of admission, so consider getting a completely fantastic experience the rest of the way as a bonus.  In other words, Skyfall kicks ass.  Maybe I should’ve just left it at that.