Category: Movie Reviews

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Totally Delivers!

If we are judging movie franchises in general, the MI movies have to rate near the top. Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 is shaming the whole of Hollywood. While the rest of the industry stumbles along a self-destructive course, here is a 61 year old Tom Cruise gifting us with a 7th (and soon to be 8th) tasty helping of MI. Is it just me, or does it seem like Tom Cruise is the only dude in Hollywood that actually knows what we want to watch and is willing to give it to us? And has, in fact, been doing it with Mission Impossible for nearly 30 years!

It Doesn’t Take Scooby Doo to figure out this mystery…

That’s a rhetorical question. Hollywood knows perfectly well what we like. As recently as a decade ago we were still being treated to some awesome movies that pretty much omitted the ‘new age’ messages that they are trying to force-feed us. Maybe they were counting on us to just consume because there was nothing else to consume and we’ve become a nation of folks who just want to be distracted from the shite-storms that swirl all around us every day. Maybe they are so convinced of their self-deity that they no longer want to entertain us, but mold us.

Whatever their reasons, it’s clear that the movie-makers who stick to the mantra of ‘give them what they want’ will be making bank. Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning is totally going reward Paramount. And I think it’s safe to say that Cruise is the most bankable star in the world. Last year, he gave us Top Gun: Maverick. This year, it’s Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. Next summer, we get Part 2 (I can’t wait!) Three years running that Cruise will be the top grosser in Hollywood by bucking the system. Bravo and kudos, Mr. Cruise. You are the MAN.

Man plus Machine equals Mission…

Enough pontificating…What is there to like about Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning? Plenty. Per it’s formula, the action smacks you in the face from the very start. Only this time it comes in the form of telling the villain’s back-story. Fast-forward to the current-day, where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, and if you needed me to tell you that, you can see yourself out…) has been enlisted to find the MacGuffin(s) necessary to thwart the evil ‘machinations’ of the villain.

Along for the ride are the usual second bananas Luthor Stickle (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). Also returning are Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and Alanna Mitsopolis – the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). Halley Atwell is introduced as Grace, a highly competent and clever master thief who seems to be an equal to Ethan in at least that respect. I’m loving the chemistry of those two that reveals mutual respect but stops short of attraction (which would have been a gross writing mistake).

Nothing New Under the Sun

I’ve kept quiet about the villains of this movie for good reason. While there is pretty much no way for Hollywood to create any new types of villains – its all been done – the bad guys of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning do manage to put a newish twist on things we’ve seen before. And at all costs, I will not ruin that for you.

Likewise, the action sequences are pretty much as expected. Car chases are car chases. Train crashes are what they are (but even that was made a little bit special). And the scene where Hunt launches himself from the top of a mountain astride a motorcycle? Visual awesomeness made exponentially MORE awesome because Tom Cruise did that stunt himself. Six times. Clearly, Batman wants to be Cruise. Who could blame him? And now I’m adding that to my bucket list.

Are their klinks in this movie? Sure. I thought Luthor and Benji were under-utilized, and that’s a shame. There’s been some chatter that Ving Rhames might have some medical stuff going on. At 64, it’s bound to happen, I guess. The movie did feel a bit overlong. And this movie felt a little light on humor, given that there was so much situational opportunity for it, especially between Cruise and Atwell.

I’m also going to give it a slight knock for being yet another two-parter (what is the frickin’ deal with that trend?) I feel like this movie could have been done in one go. But it gives us at least ONE movie to look forward to next summer. And for that, I am grateful.

I’m giving Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 4.5 out of 5. You should all choose to accept it.

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Bad, Good and Important

This week’s review is for Sound of Freedom. There is so much to unpack here that I many need to split it into a couple of posts. I’ll do my best to keep it movie-focused. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been told that I have a habit of ‘over-thinking’ things. That’s fair, guilty as charged. But, in a world that has conditioned itself into self-distraction, I’ve come to believe that this is a net-positive thing. I sleep like a rock, if that is any indication.

It’s also fair to say that movies allow us all a very necessary escape from an increasingly troubling (and troubled) world. Sometimes the escape route leads to bad places (and if you think it can’t get worse than ‘Human Centipede 2’, you’re fooling yourself). Sometimes they remind us to be bold or of the personal growth that we can and should aspire to (most recently, Top Gun: Maverick). And sometimes they snap us out of ourselves and remind us that there is a world beyond our small circles of self. Those are movies that I deem important. There’s an irony there.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Jim Carrey…

I was already on-board with seeing Sound of Freedom because I’m a big fan of Jim Caviezel. Everyone touts Count of Monte Cristo (my favorite period piece) and Passion of the Christ (an important movie that still convicts me). Don’t overlook Frequency (time-travel done on a personal level co-starring Dennis Quaid). I like Caviezel not just because he chooses quality projects or that he is, by all accounts, a morally conscious Christian guy. His acting style is kind of the anti-Jim Carrey, understated and full of ethos. That’s really necessary, especially in a society that normalizes excesses.

Sound of Freedom is closely based on the real-life events of Tim Ballard, a former DHS special agent who works to battle child sex trafficking. Through Ballard’s experiences, he developed a soul-deep burden to do more for the meekest and most innocent among us than the US Government would allow. He eventually gave up everything (including a big chunk of his pension, a mere 10 months away) to embark on a quest to rescue the sister of a trafficked child that he also saved.

This movie deals with pretty much the weightiest topic you can imagine, and it does so in the most responsible way possible. It doesn’t graphically depict the absolute horrors that men (and women) inflict upon the innocent. It mostly takes the route of us watching their emotions as a human views the evil that exists in a ‘modern society’…think audience reaction videos from the ninth level of hell. Jim Caviezel gives us a tragically perfect portrayal that will (and should) haunt you.

This review falls utterly short of describing the depth of sorrow that this movie illicited from me. Likewise, I am certain that the movie itself falls utterly short of describing the torment endured by those least deserving of it. My heart breaks, and I am changed by this movie. Anyone who could see it and not be changed has a brokenness in them that desperately needs attention. Please don’t ignore that.

I have long maintained that some movies are bad, some movies are good, but very few movies are important. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one. I think the Adjustment Bureau is another. The aforementioned PotC. And Sound of Freedom is also, if only to call us to action.

I think you can guess by now that I am highly recommending this movie. It would be a great watch if it was fiction. The fact that it isn’t is beyond mesmerizing. I’m giving it 4.8/5. Don’t wait for it to stream. There is a quality you get in a theater experience that you can’t get from your couch, not the least of which is that there are no distractions. Sound of Freedom deserves your undivided attention.

And a special note- Austin Burke is a YouTube movie reviewer. He also gave Sound of Freedom high marks but said he could never watch this movie again. I implore everyone to do just the opposite. Rewatch this periodically. Let the selflessness of Tim Ballard (and everyone at Angel Studios, as I hear) infect you. Pushing this movie out of your mind, finding new things to distract you from the ugly truth of it, is not good for any of us. And certainly not for those that need us.

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I have to admit, I remembered almost nothing about Extraction the first, only that it didn’t suck. And so remembering, I charged headlong into Extraction 2 heedless of any danger. I still don’t remember anything of the first but as it turns out that wasn’t a prereq for enjoying the second. And boy howdy, I enjoyed it like a ten ticket thrill ride!
Extraction 2 again stars Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake, an emotionally scarred soldier of fortune who seems to be just living out his string until death decides to claim him. Extraction 2 literally picks up moments after the ending of the first, which found a mortally wounded Rake plumetting off of a bridge into the river. He is fished out by his partner Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) who gets him to safety and puts him on the mend.

Don’t call it a man-crush

Time passes. Rake is again back to existing in a hell of his own mind when he is approached by Alcott (played by Idris Elba, which was a really nice cameo), an enigmatic figure with another extraction mission. Queue the training montage as Rake begins the the painful process of getting his body back into killing machine form. Once honed to a razor’s edge, Rake rallies up with Nik and her brother Yaz. The band is back together, ready to extract.

Georgia on my mind

The team is off to the eastern European country of Georgia, a former Soviet republic state to rescue the wife and children of a Russian warlord. Pretty much from there, it’s a non-stop John Wick style bloodfest with actual body armor instead of fashionable tactical evening wear. Some assassins get all the love.

Extraction 2 has some of the best – and longest – action sequences I’ve ever seen. And since I’ve seen all the Wick movies multiple times, that’s a really high bar. One might think that prolonged chase scenes would become tiresome in their constant adrenaline push but there is just enough lull along the way to keeps us fully engaged. A fine line that the writers have walked deftly.

Refresh my memory

Since I didn’t remember a single thing about the first Extraction, I’m re-watching it at this very writing. I wanted to see if there was something I should have taken away from it…something I should have remembered. I didn’t even remember that David Harbour was in it. BTW, if you haven’t seen Violent Night, do yourself a favor and cycle that bad Santa into your holiday playlist. After the kids go to bed, that is.

Bottom line: Extraction 2 was better than the first, which was good but not memorable (and I’m just past the halfway mark). Two has some memorable moments (if you can call a 21 minute fight sequence a moment). The final killing stroke was awesome and subtly reminded me of a certain whip-slinging adventurer’s first adventure. A third Extraction is already green-lit and I’ll be happy to see Thor and Heimdall back together again. Extraction 2 gets 4/5 from me. As for Extraction the First…better put some ice on that, Santa. That’s gonna leave a mark.

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Indiana Jones crushes it, and not in a good way…

One does not have to dig very hard at all to find a review of the new Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny movie. And to be brutally honest, I haven’t found a single one that gives it a thumbs up (with the exception of Rotten Tomatoes, and I long ago realized that they had become a shill-site for the movie-makers and could not be trusted). Setting aside the theories and rumors from inside the studio, the simple facts foretold a dark future.

Just the facts, sir

Fact 1: The fifth Indiana Jones film first got greenlit in 2008, with an original release date of 2019 but experienced a ton of delays due to rejected scripts, directoral changes and the ‘rona.

Fact 2: Spielberg was supposed to direct but bailed in 2020. There were also multiple writers hired, quiting, rehired (I’ve lost track, tbh). Reports of how many rewrites there have been vary.

Fact 3: The budget for this movie ballooned to nearly $300 million due to delays, rewrites, reshoots etc.

Fact 4: Pre-release test screenings reviews were not complimentary.

Fact 5: Harrison Ford is 80 years old. It is totally fair to speculate on the quality of acting – let alone being an action movie star – that he is capable of turning in.

Fact 6: Early reviewers (other than paid shills like Rotten Tomatoes) have absolutely crushed this movie as a Phoebe Waller-Bridge movie rather than an Indiana Jones movie. They are saying that her character constantly demeans, upstages, controls and, at times, physically abuses Indiana Jones (the term ‘elder abuse’ has been bandied about).

Those are straight-up facts that are not up for interpretation. Opinion: I thought his portrayal of Han Solo in Force Awakens was not up to snuff. He definitely seemed old and slow (physically and mentally) and it made me really sad.

So, the facts themselves are ill omens, no doubt. The rumors are even dimmer.

If the rumors are to be believed…

Rumor 1: There is an internal power struggle at the House of Mouse and Kathleen Kennedy wanted to ‘rewrite’ the Indiana Jones legend to replace Indy with a female version, both in the past and going forward. The implications of that are staggering in their shite-ness.

Rumor 2: Kathleen Kennedy was ego-driven, wanting to replace Indiana Jones with an avatar for herself. Insiders are heavily pushing that rumor, citing multiple KK projects that seem to portray a very KK-like female heroine.

Rumor 3: Indy was originally supposed to be killed off but the backlash was so severe that they rewrote it. Kennedy fought back and the result is a hodgepodge of different stories.

There are other rumors but dropping them here would be overkill. Enough is enough. We get the point. Where there is smoke, and all that. So we expect it to be a pile o’shite. I am not above putting myself in harm’s way for you guys. Heck I walked into Fast X fully expecting to struggle through two hours of cringe (and am man enought to admit when I’m wrong). But I will not be going to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and I’ll tell you why…

My youngest daughter is amazing. Actually, all my kids are amazing, but my youngest is amazing AND fearless. I gave her the nickname of Indy when she was 8 years old. For more reasons that I can tell you, it is the most perfect nickname in the history of nicknames. She’s the only one who wants to jump out of a plane with me. Truth.

My Indy is in college now and the hours allotted to me are few and cherished. So, when she texted me and said ‘ We need to go see the new Indiana Jones movie!’ I was elated. But then, it occurred to me, if this movie is the steaming shite-show I expect it to be, there’s no way – NO WAY – I am going to tarnish my daughter’s nick by showing her an Indy that has become an old, weak, alkie-bum that now takes abuse instead of dishing it out. Never in this life.

I will at some point (probably soon) watch this tragedy on one of the streaming services when it costs me nothing but a couple of hours. I may drop a review at that time confirming or denying the rumors and expectations. And this weekend, my daughter and her boyfriend are coming over for pizza, popcorn and a double feature: Temple of Doom and Last Crusade. She hasn’t seen them and they are totally worthy of her name. It’s how we will honor one of the great, iconic heroes of any age of cinema. And it will remind her of how amazing I think she is. Geronimo!

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FUBAR is far from FUBAR

I tend to be fairly selective in the streaming shows I give my time to because I have so many things going on that TV time is at a premium. When I heard the basic premise for FUBAR was next door to that of True Lies (one of my favorite action movies all-time) I moved it to the top of the list. It was a good call.

 

FUBAR is the story of Luke Brunner (Schwarzenegger), a CIA agent who only works ops of the highest stakes. Not quite as clandestine as Omega Sector (the name of one of my Fantasy Football teams, if you doubted the authenticity of my favorites claim). He has been living the spylife behind the backs of his wife, Tally (now ex, for whom he still pines) and daughter Emma, played by a smoking hot Monica Barbaro (Phoenix of Top Gun: Maverick fame). Emma has a ton of daddy issues stemming from the fact that he was always away ‘with work’ , issues that manifest themselves by making her push herself to be perfect at everything. That drive for excellence eventually put her on a path to a successful career in…you guessed it…the CIA special ops division that just so happens to be the one Luke works for. Hilarious conflict ensues.

Teamwork makes the dreamwork

The mission that brings Emma and Luke together is fairly formulaic. Generic evildoer from Luke’s past must be stopped for reasons I have already forgotten. What are memorable is the amazing cast of characters on the side of the angels. The review of FUBAR would be super-long if I were to give them all the credit they so very much deserve. I could not in good conscience, however, complete my mission without mentioning two of them that added so much to the story as a whole. Alden and Roo, played by Travis Van Winkle and stand-up comedienne Fortune Feimster, are more brother and sister than co-workers. The chemistry between these two characters steals every scene effortlessly. I found myself rewinding to catch the plot narrative I missed while laughing. More than once.

All of this would have been enough for me to offer you FUBAR, should you choose to accept it. The deal clincher for this series are the impressively written Easter eggs that pop up along the way like little secret coded messages. I want so very much to tell all of them that I saw and would love to hear about any I missed. True to my promise I’m sworn to secrecy and shall reveal none of them, under pain of torture by a dagger-twirling Spencer Trilby.

And even though the story that put our heroes in harm’s way is nothing we haven’t seen before, the ending to this season is a nice twist and promises a second season that is not merely a repeat of the first. For that I am unabashedly optimistic. I am giving FUBAR 4/5 enthusiastically. And if you haven’t seen True Lies already, treat yourself to that beforehand. I live to serve. That’s it and that’s all.

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Luther the Fallen Sun

This week, the wife and I weren’t able to make it to our local moviehaus because we flew out to Dallas, TX to check another band off of our Band Bucket List (Duran Duran). Done. And I always want to give you the newest content I can, so I used our flight time to check out a movie on Netflix that I’ve had on my radar for some time: Luther the Fallen Sun.

I will tell you from the git-go that I have yet to see anything starring Idris Elba that I didn’t enjoy. (note- if you haven’t seen the movie Beast, it’s a hidden gem that the Average Dude recommends).

Currently the wife has had been obsessed with zombies. We have literally been watching Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead almost every night for months. With Walking Dead: Dead City coming soon – and I am psyched to see Negan again – and the Daryl Dixon spinnoff also in the wings, I am wondering just how long she can go here. I am working on a review of the Walking Deadworld shows and apparently need to hold onto it for now and see how these new shows factor in. And for crying out loud, can we find out what happened to Rick and Michone, please? Sorry. I digress…

My point is this: I knew that this was a movie spawned by the Luther series on Netflix, which I will definitely check out at some post-zombie point.

Idris Elba is top shelf on my star-list. Maybe because he has avoided the typecast pitfall. Whether he’s a driven, make the hard choice vigilante copper (Luther), the Black Superman (Hobbs and Shaw), the lone gunslinger (Dark Tower) or a dad facing the razor teeth and claws of nature gone insane (Beast) Elba has proven his versatility (RIP, Heimdall). He does it all and does it with excellence. Somehow, Elba takes the old trope of the grizzled, rogue cop who thumbs his nose at the red tape bureaucracy in order to get the job done and makes it feel fresh…or at least fresher than expected.

No, Mr Luther. I expect you to die!

Luther the Fallen Sun begins with our anti-hero being called in on a missing persons case that has befuddled London’s primo investigation squad. The villain of the show is known from the beginning so I’m giving you no spoilers here. Andy Serkis is David Robey, a brilliantly twisted mass-murder who turns his obsession into a very lucrative high-tech deathporn syndicate. Serkis turns in a fantastic performance as a Bond level villain – creepy, soul-less and full of evil intent. And man, when I say he was creepy, brother you best believe it. When a good story meets a great actor, it stays with you for a minute. Serkis’s villain did just that.

I wont go all Oscars and thank every above average supporting performance that went into making this move great. It’s enough to say that it only takes one performer phoning it in to bring down a movie. I found no such holes in Luther the Fallen Sun. Every piece, every bit part was delivered skillfully. Group hug everyone. Well done. I am giving Luther the Fallen Sun 4/5 stars. And don’t be afraid of this one if you haven’t seen any of the 5 seasons of the Luther series. I haven’t. It didn’t affect my enjoyment one bit. But that show has now jumped up the list of binge-ables for me. Looking forward to it, Luther.

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