Mission Impossible: Fallout is part six of the action/thriller franchise based on the 1960’s television show that producers Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner first adapted way back in 1996. Since that film, there has been a succession of great directors involved who have passed the torch down to one another with each new entry.

Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams (who remained a producer on the series after directing the third installment), Brad Bird, and Christopher McQuarrie all kept topping one another with insanely dangerous stunts (most of which, you’ve likely heard, were performed by star Crusie), intricate action sequences, and storylines that were increasingly coherent and emotionally involving. In other words, the franchise, for the most part, just kept getting better. This is in spite of the fact that all the films have derived from the same basic structure and formula since the 1990’s.

For the first time, a director returns to the series with Fallout. It was written and directed by McQuarrie, who performed the same duties on the previous installment, Rogue Nation, to which this newest outing is a direct sequel. While that effort was a small drop in quality from the previous two films, it was apparently only a warm-up for the filmmaker. Fallout isn’t only the best of the Mission: Impossible films, it’s also one of the most ambitiously and intensely executed action movies ever made.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his merry band of Impossible Mission Force members (Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg) are once again faced with the task of saving the world. The captured nemesis from Rogue Nation (played by Sean Harris with appropriate cerebral menace) is intertwined with the plutonium they’re currently trying to track down. Naturally, the IMF is forced to go undercover and help break him out of prison.

Henry Cavill (who wears the mustache that ruined Justice League quite well) is a new addition to the cast. He portrays a pesky and suspicious agent assigned by the powers that be (headed by an always-great Angela Bassett) to hover over Cruise’s shoulder, bully him, and annoy him endlessly throughout the film.

Got it? Good.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s address what really matters about Fallout: those life-risking stunts that Tom Cruise performs so we keep paying to see his movies. In today’s age of digital effects and green screen replacement shots, it adds so much to a movie like Fallout knowing how much of it was performed in-camera. The film is bound by an integrity that is present simply because it feels real, and Fallout is subsequently more titillating than most current action films are ever allowed to be.

McQuarrie’s work in Fallout is expert, nearly putting him in rank with the likes of James Cameron or John McTiernan when it comes to designing onscreen action. In spite of all the death-defying stunt work involving window jumping or helicopters, the most impressive bit of action in the film takes place in a bathroom. Due to the simple ingenuity of McQuarrie’s staging, the confined quarters only add to the scene’s thrillingly visceral impact, proving he is a director who doesn’t need the crutch of excess to excel.

Cruise, with his ability to keep churning out quality entertainment after decades in Hollywood, further earns his reputation as one of the smartest and most determined actor/producers around. His performance is as intensely committed as ever in Fallout. He also manages to make Ethan Hunt more likable and human than he ever has before. McQuarrie’s script puts emphasis on Ethan’s care for the individual, and Cruise effortlessly sells it. His selectively earnest screen presence carries the film’s dramatic weight as effectively as his adrenaline-fueled physicality carries the action.

The only real fault to the film is its storyline. While some twists and turns take us to new(ish) places, Fallout is essentially a retread of ground that was already covered in the five previous films: the team is assigned to a mission, the mission gets compromised, Ethan and whoever is left of his team have to find out who crossed them, a mysterious woman who can kick ass in high heels aids/flirts with/possibly betrays Ethan, then Ethan has to dangle from something that’s dangerously high and/or fast so he can save the world at the last second.

Did we really need another one? Do we need anymore after this?

If the action is going to continue to be this hypnotizing, if the stunts are going to be this heart-wrenching, and if the last ninety minutes of each movie is going to have my palms sweating, my legs bouncing, and my back arched so I can sit on the very edge of my seat throughout all of it…?   If I’m so involved that it doesn’t really matter how lame the story is…?

Then, yes. We did need Fallout and we do need at least one more Mission: Impossible entry. Though it might be wise for Cruise to leave the series on a high note and quit while he’s ahead- at least, before his ambition to top himself literally kills him.

GRADE: A-

 

Christopher Robin is a sweet movie and its concept is an adorable one: a grown-up Christopher Robin has lost sight of what’s important in life, but is revisited by his childhood pal, Winnie the Pooh, and given a new outlook.  Good-natured and well intentioned, the film should have been an emotionally moving powerhouse about the importance of retaining the most innocent parts of oneself while struggling to live as an adult.

That being said, it is mildly guilt inducing to state that the film never lives up to the potential its premise would suggest. Instead, it’s a rather bland and predictable representation of beloved characters from many childhoods that stalls after a promising set-up and never fully recovers.

I’m sorry, Pooh.

Ewan McGregor does a fine job as the adult Christopher Robin. His reactionary performance is comically skilled, expertly timed, and dramatically moving at the right moments. His early scenes of rediscovering Pooh and seeing him through adult eyes are appropriately humorous and sad. In fact, everything about these scenes work so well that it is all the more disappointing to think of how unimpressive the film becomes afterwards.

Christopher then returns with Pooh to his home at Hundred Acre Wood to help him find his long-lost friends (Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore chief amongst them). It is here the movie reaches a plateau, never rising to the creativity or emotion it needs to be great.

The time we spend at Hundred Acre Wood is too condensed, the supporting characters of the world are underexplored, and the movie forgets to make its audience feel the magic that Christopher Robin once felt in his childhood. Consequently, we never fully feel or understand Robin’s dilemma in being torn between his childhood ideals and adult responsibilities.

There are many routes Christopher Robin could have taken at this point in the film. Instead, it simply rushes back to reality and relies on a standard Disney formula to tell a tale about how growing up doesn’t have to equate with losing one’s soul. Great message, but we’ve all seen it before and it needed to be done with more imagination to justify its existence within a story that had so much creative potential otherwise.

Director Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, World War Z) is one of the most reliable and eclectic talents around, but he seems slightly dispassionate about the material. Or, perhaps, his Disney leash was too short to allow him to do his best. While he keeps the pacing tight and the tone pleasant, he never dives deep into the movie’s emotional core, and the film fails to properly soar as a result.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Christopher Robin, there’s just nothing particularly great about it, either. A movie like this should bring up nostalgic feelings and remind us to look at life the way we once did before the world got in the way. Instead, it simply falls flat with a pleasant, soft, and adorably forgettable thud.

Winnie the Pooh deserves a movie for adults and children alike that remind us all what we saw in that tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff in the first place.

I’m sorry, Pooh, but Christopher Robin just isn’t that movie.

GRADE: C+

Middle School is not for the meek of heart.  Participants agonize, parents wish it was over. The dramas that hourly twisted our hearts raw during those acne prone, riotously self-conscious, coming-of-curious-age days shaped our personas with brutal psychological chaos, but still with a certain OMG self-awareness of  (if not outright affection for) the weird humans we were.

Amazingly, we made it to adulthood anyway.  And while we are most likely hardwired to our true personalities by age 2 -honestly returning to that character once we hit our golden years (or so I have been told, heh)- middle school personas rule our middle lives for at least 30 years.

Eighth Grade is a slice of agonizing middle lives’ awkward, captivating magnificence.

The short journey is essentially told through the eyes and existence of an 8th Grade female, Kayla, firmly addicted to her cell phone and Internet that is her life line to selfie-induced, fantasy humanity, as she anxiously walks through the end days of her middle school years not so much bullied or beaten down,  but more invisible and purposefully solitary; aching to be a part of something. Anything.

Except she already glows with unrecognized maturity, courage and self-created celebrity while making self-help YouTube videos.  They are all posted with a simple ending plea for her contemporaries to “pleeease subscribe” and closes with a trademark tag line and hand gesture “Gucci”.  (My middle-school-teacher daughter gut laughed knowingly from the comfort of the Delux Lounger next to me at the intimate new cineplex experience).

Actor Elise Fisher effortlessly is Kayla.  Just absolute, flawed perfection.

Her film peers are highly recognizable as the very genuine cast of supporting characters that actually exists in life.  The shallow popular girls no one will actually keep as adult friends; the brooding bad boy, who isn’t brooding, just ultimately creepy; the nerds, the undiscovered cool; the hallway rabble.  All portrayed with believable simplicity.  No exaggeration.

Even the pedestal occupying, admired high school crowd exposes its own brand of “eek! grimmace” eye rolling, next-school-year angst riddled personas waiting to torture the graduating eighth graders.

But it isn’t all and only the kids. With subtle inclusion in the supportive story telling, the grown-ups around Kayla appear normally and quite humanely awkward as well.  Even the grayest-haired among us were originally young!  We came through 8th grade, too.  We are just older, world worn, sometimes wiser, sometimes not.  This speaks to us.

Writer/Director Bo Burnham has avoided portraying overblown stereotypes of clownish parent/adults (thank-you).  He manages to immediately draw the older among the theater audience into his celluloid experience, making everyone somewhat uncomfortably exposed as well as mindfully entertained.  No small feat.

Kayla’s single parent father ( a superbly subtle and quietly confused portrayal by Josh Hamilton) shares an amazingly gentle, soul reaching moment with his daughter that is easily the film’s best message.

The unquestionable specialness of this film gem is the non-special, everyday, ordinary growing pains happening to millions of us.  Then and now.

Instantly relatable to all genders and ages, Burnham has created a poignant portrait of normalcy and multi-generational angst that is painful as well as oddly comforting – we are OK and we will survive.

You remember, you think, you identify, you recognize, you squirm, you forgive, you understand, you smile.

Pretty impressive stuff!

(Rated R for some assumed adult content that would be quite common place for any eighth grader!)

GRADE: A

Sorry to Bother You is amongst the most daring, original, and biting American social satires produced in recent or long-term memory. It makes last year’s excellent racial satire/thriller, Get Out, seem downright simple in comparison. Reality television, the trappings of hidden modern-day slavery in the workplace, the lack of racial identify that results from succumbing to dominant white culture… Sorry to Bother You is filled to the brim with intelligent and critical observations of today’s America through a brilliant and exceedingly unique execution.

The film follows Cassius (portrayed by Lakeith Stanfield in a skilled performance that grounds the off-kilter chain of events), a down-on-his-luck African-American in desperate need of a job- any job. Cassius soon joins the ranks of RegalView, a telemarketing company only interested in compensating the employees who turn a profit. Cassius eviscerates his ideals, finds his inner “white voice”, and soon finds he is being groomed for promotion to the coveted and mysterious “Power Caller” position.

As Cassius rises in the ranks of RegalView, Sorry to Bother You simultaneously heightens in levels of absurdity.  The film eventually builds to a level of weirdness that would be off-putting if it didn’t serve as such an astute, intelligent method of driving its many messages home.

Like the best cinematic satires before it, from Dr. Strangelove to Fight Club, Sorry to Bother You uses its humor as a tool.   The comedic insanity of the film communicates the nightmare of American life for the under-privileged, along with its selective unawareness by those in power.  With his directorial debut, Boots Riley (former vocalist of the rap group, The Coup) exhibits skill, bravery, and creativity with an unapologetically aggressive style that is reminiscent of Spike Lee and Terry Gilliam, but also entirely his own.

An instant classic, Sorry to Bother You is a scathing and screaming statement about many of the things wrong with America today. It is concurrently one of the strangest, funniest, and most unpredictable movies you’ll ever see. It marvelously holds up to the standards that Annapurna Pictures has set for itself, as the studio continues providing wide releases to such cutting-edge films of relevance more than just about (A24 being the most notable exception) anyone else today.

GRADE: A

Distorted had promise. The idea of Christina Ricci and John Cusack pairing for a psychological thriller about twisted perspectives of reality is, indeed, an intriguing one.

The intrigue is also supported by its premise: Lauren (Ricci), a young woman mourning the loss of her infant daughter while struggling with bipolar depression, moves into an upscale and secure apartment complex. The idea is to give her some peace and time to heal – but there wouldn’t be much of a movie in it if that were the result. Lauren quickly starts believing she’s a guinea pig for a government-funded mind control experiment that all the neighbors in her complex are conspiring to execute.

Or it could just be in her head.

As good as this sounds, the intrigue unfortunately ends shortly after the film begins. Arnie Olsen’s script betrays its own potential by quickly becoming too convoluted and involved for its own good. Instead of focusing on the fascinating interior struggle of Ricci’s character, it creates less-interesting twists that distract us from them.

Distorted is also terribly flat in its presentation and timing. Director Rob W. King’s work is functionally solid, but he doesn’t take any of the experimental or creative risks the material would suggest. A story like this demands tension and atmosphere along the lines of Polanski or Lynch. Distorted, however, settles on a slick, bland, made-for-television style that only presents suspense and paranoia without actually creating them for its audience. Jackie Dzuba’s editing is too air tight, causing the film to be paced in a way that simply skims the surface of its events. The viewer is merely a spectator to Distorted, never enticed to become involved or really care about its story or characters.

Most disappointingly, Distorted’s performances are all rather lackluster. Ricci’s mental illness doesn’t feel examined or discussed. She’s just kind of lazily out of it for the entire movie.   Like everything else about the film, the performances feel under-directed and rushed. Most of the actors look as if they’re performing in half-speed rehearsals, completely uncommitted and misguided in their choices. Cusack is sadly designated to yet another in-the-shadows performance in a direct-to-VOD thriller, one that seemingly required no effort but the partial utilization of his trademark monotone and deadpan stare.

Distorted is a frustratingly missed opportunity. With such a strong premise and with actors of Cusack’s and Ricci’s talent involved, it should have strived for more depth, artistry, and innovation- both in its script and in its production value.   Instead, we’re left with another waste of talent in today’s VOD wasteland that is adeptly made but also highly forgettable and inexcusably average.

GRADE: C-

The secret to enjoying a movie like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is to have no expectations of it.  Considering it’s the sequel to a reboot/continuation of a trilogy that started in the nineties, that’s not too hard of a task. What should be worn out and dull by now is surprisingly engaging, however.  Fallen Kingdom fully owns what it is (a popcorn blockbuster featuring dinosaurs as the leads) and winds up working on a variety of levels.

The island hosting Jurassic World (a second attempt at a theme park featuring live dinosaurs that went predictably haywire in the previous film) is about to destruct due to a volcanic eruption.  The government publicly decides not to intervene, but that doesn’t stop secret military forces from transporting select creatures to the mainland.  Dinosaurs, of course, can be used as military weapons and are a potential industry worth billions of dollars.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles from the first Jurassic World.  They are now former employees of the park, teamed up in spite of a failed romance to save the dinosaurs, namely their beloved raptor friend, Blue.  As stupid as that last sentence sounds, the movie somehow manages to work in spite of itself.

While the first Jurassic World boasted some amazing effects/action sequences, it also suffered from contrived characters and relationships that made parts of the movie intolerable. Miraculously, Pratt’s and Dallas’s characters are much more enjoyable this time around.  They’re no longer clumsily directed to resemble a forced update of Hepburn and Tracy with no chemistry.  Their characters and performances are more relaxed, and their rapport is no longer so obnoxious that we actually want them to get devoured by a T-Rex.

While there are some sprinkles of social commentary and some short meditations on the ethics of scientific interference with evolution (if you want them), Fallen Kingdom succeeds because it is unabashedly a piece of spectacle entertainment.  Director J.A. Bayona delivers some great moments of suspense, keeps the pacing tight, and gives just the right amount of screen time to develop the movie’s human characters without stealing from its main attraction: dinosaurs wrecking stuff.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was one of the biggest surprise pleasures of the summer of 2018.  It won’t win any awards or gain any future accolades from critics, but it is successful in providing quality escapist entertainment.  It’s a startlingly well-made and intelligent continuation of a franchise that just won’t die…  Which might actually be a good thing, now.

GRADE: B+

Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem is, essentially, a “best of” compilation of his entire career. The 2014 film is yet another Gilliam ode to escaping the hell of reality through self-induced insanity, another piece of the mad, hallucinatory world he’s developed through films such as Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

The Zero Theorem, set in an unspecified future, centers around a socially inept computer programmer (the always-flawless Christoph Waltz) who is toiling his life away for a soulless corporation known as Mancom. His life hangs on the hope that he will one day receive the mysterious phone call of his dreams, one that tells him the meaning of his very existence. “Management” (played exclusively by a highly creepy Matt Damon) eventually brings on Waltz’s character to prove “The Zero Theorem”, a task which has eluded all those who have attempted it. Waltz’s character eventually succumbs to depression, paranoia, and, it goes without saying for a Gilliam film, madness.

The Zero Theorem best succeeds, like most of Gilliam’s work, when it is allowed to be at its most “Gilliamesque”.  Outside the confines of his workplace or apartment, Waltz’s character is assaulted and stalked by personalized video ads that target him and every other passerby. It’s a crowded, absurd world where Gilliam is able to translate his Mad Magazine-inspired “I’m going to get every idea I’ve ever had into every frame of this thing if it kills me!” style to beautiful effect.

Gilliam also lets his imagination run amok when the screenplay (written by Pat Rushin) starts exploring its own vision of virtual reality. Such scenes are overflowing with cloud-filled skies, saturated landscapes resembling oil paintings, and fantasy-laden designs- all of which could have just as easily existed in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen or Time Bandits.  

Another Gilliam touch present in The Zero Theorem is his tendency to drastically, and abruptly, shift tones throughout his films. The scenes between Waltz and Damon are chilly and nightmarish, offsetting the intentional silliness and whimsy found elsewhere. The inescapably schizophrenic tone that results is part of what makes the film so interesting at times, but also so obnoxiously overbearing at others.

If you’re a newcomer to Gilliam, there’s a good chance you’ll be turned off or overloaded by The Zero Theorem. If you’re a fan, there’s a very good chance of that, as well. At the very least, fans will happily recognize many of Gilliam’s favored aesthetics and themes sprinkled throughout the film- they just might not seem particularly new.

Ultimately, The Zero Theorem succeeds in telling a story about the loneliness created by society’s ever-increasing dependence on and desire to live through technology. And, of course, it’s also a film about Terry Gilliam’s favorite and most personal theme of all: madness is always just a hop, skip, and a jump away… And it’s waiting like a dark, beckoning void to save us all.

OPM GRADE: B

If Russ Meyer and Quentin Tarantino collaborated on a screenplay for Terrence Malick to direct, the resulting film would resemble something like 2013’s Spring Breakers. Believe it or not, that’s an over-simplification for one of the most challenging and daring films to be released in mainstream theatres since Oliver Stone’s 1994 media trash masterpiece, Natural Born Killers.

Three southern college girls (Rachel Korine, Ashley Benson, and Vanessa Hugdens), bored by their daily routine and strapped for cash, conspire to rob a local restaurant so they can fund the paradise getaway of their dreams: spring break in Florida. They drag their saintly church-going friend (Selena Gomz) along, get arrested for partying too hard, then are bailed out by a mysterious thug named Alien (James Franco). Alien then brings the girls into his “American Dream” world of mansions, drugs, guns, and every other possession one could imagine.   One by one, the girls slowly realize their limitations (or lack thereof) as reality (or, again, lack thereof) starts interrupting their candied, psychedelic daydream.

Spring Breakers, like most great movies, succeeds by turning all expectations against its viewer. These seemingly harmless little airheads- living in a shared fantasy land created by Youtube, cartoons, movies, and video games- are ultimately far more dangerous, corrupt, and sociopathic than Franco’s character could ever be. They are, in fact, a horrifyingly amusing mirror that reflects the dark side of today’s over stimulated youth culture: “Pretend it’s a movie, pretend it’s a video game.”

Like Natural Born Killers, Spring Breakers uses excess to comment upon it. The film opens with a two-minute montage of ultra-slow motion Spring Break Mayhem: topless girls, excessive drinking, rampant machismo, and overt misogyny. Korine’s point is hammered home from the get-go. It can also be misunderstand, as the film never lowers itself to announce its own irony.

I saw Spring Breakers three times in theatres (it only gets better with repeat viewings). Every single time, I heard college kids stumble out of the theatre afterwards while muttering things like, “That’s it? What even happened? That was stupid!”

The point being lost on them is, quite possibly, the point Spring Breakers is trying to make with its own, wondrously weird, existence.

GRADE: A