Brad
Bird leaves Pixar (temporarily I imagine) to film the next live
action Mission Impossible spectacle. Tom Cruise returns as
agent Ethan Hunt, although his is in something of a predicament at
the start of the film, prisoner in a Russian penitentiary. The rest
of the IMF team (Simon Pegg and Paula Patton) help him evade and are
afterwards immediately tasked with infiltrating the Kremlin to
retrieve some valuable missile launch codes which might be the apple
of a terrorist's (Michael Nyqvist) eye. The mission is an utter
disaster (see trailer), leaving IMF, now including Jeremy Renner, to
go out on their own to stop the terrorist before, well, uses the
codes to blow cities up. Crazy stuff in Mumbai and Dubai ensue.
Between
the Seats shall never tell a lie: the Mission Impossible
series, while absolutely blessed with moments of brilliance in each
of its entries, is not a franchise we really love. It feels
like James Bond but with the filmmakers adamant that everything has
to be even more outrageous than in the world of 007, thus somehow
proving that their series is better. Sorry, we're not biting. I think
what the series lacks, with the exception of the very first film, are
great villains. Michael Nyqvist (of Swedish Girl With the Dragon
Tattoo fame) is a solid actor who knows how to have some fun
with his role as the terrorist Cobalt, but honestly, stolen Russian
nuclear missiles? Are we not past that sort of plot line? Wasn't that
the sort of event that propelled early 1990s action movies when the
current Russian era was young and terrorists were taking advantage of
the new, uncertain geopolitical status? This is 2011...We also don't
see much of Cobalt, so for the most part he feels like an after
thought. In fact, the whole plot feels like an afterthought for the
truth of the matter is, a mere 4 days after seeing this movie, I
don't remember why the IMF team went to the various exotic locations
their mission took them. Maybe it wasn't even important, I don't
know.
All
that being said, the film still manages to go a good action movie, if
mostly for, a) the action, and b) the cast playing the protagonists.
Director Bird utilizes the IMAX format to the fullest extent
possible. There are moments that inspire awe for how impressively
massive they are. It isn't just a matter of the picture being larger
than in regular cinema, it is what Bird chooses to put into the frame
and how he moves his camera that makes the moments fantastic. The
sequence that makes the trailer so cool, the one when Hunt has to
climb a building in Dubai from the outside? It lives up to
expectations. The second aspect is the cast of heroes, which is good.
Cruise can say whatever batshit crazy things he wants to in
interviews, he has incredible charisma on screen. Pegg provides some
welcome comedic moments, Paula Patton, an actress I wasn't at all
familiar with, gives a nice performance (her character is given an
okay back story) and Jeremy Renner is as good as he usual is, which
is very. The film goes for some emotional moments near the end, and
unfortunately they don't mesh well with the tone of everything that
precedes them, but all in all Ghost Protocol is a fun time.
Just don't expect to remember much a few days afterwards.
Groundhog
Day (1993, Harold Ramis)
This
was playing on MPIX HD (yes, there was an upgrade at my home
recently) on Saturday morning and, having not seen the film in some
years, I decided to sit through most of it. Bill Murray plays Phil,
terribly grumpy, self aggrandizing weather man for a Pittsburgh news
station who is sent out with his small crew to cover the groundhog
day festivals in a small town outside of the big city. Neither his
camera man (Chris Elliot) or editor (Andie MacDowell) find their star
to be least bit pleasant. In fact, they are often the target of his
snide remarks. However, Phil is about to receive a lesson in humility
when, for unexplained reasons, he keeps living the same groundhog day
over, and over, and over, and over...
There
are at least a few great things about this Harold Ramis and Bill
Murray 90s classic. The most obvious one is the actor at the center
of it all. There was a time when Bill Murray could carry a comedy
with an uncanny effortlessness, almost in a literal sense. There is a
relaxed nature to his vintage performances that have never been
replicated since. What's more, his character were often sarcastic and
snarky, which made the performance all the better, because of playing
it up, he'd actually play it down. It is as if he is not
putting that much effort into it, and that is exactly why he is such
a memorable comedic actor. It also makes the moments when he does
play things up even funnier (such as the second time he engages in
the snowball fight with the local kids and yells out how much he
wants to be a dad and adopt them) The other terrific aspect to
Groundhog Day is of course the structure of the story. While
it might appear clear as daylight to anyone why Phil is condemned to
relive the same day over and over again, there is something to be
said about the fact that the director never explicitly provides the
answer. In essence, it is up to both Bill Murray and the viewer to
find out what's going on and how he can how he can escape his fate,
which is a very smart move on the part of the filmmakers. The journey
itself is plenty of fun, filled with the right touches of comedy but
also heartfelt moments. After a while, Phil does begin to change his
ways in a genuine manner, but not enough to escape this bizarre
vortex, which leads to a really, really touching scene with Andie
MacDowell. Definitely a must for Murray fans who might have overlooked this one.
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