READY PLAYER ONE: Fun Spielberg Is Back!

Opening tonight at a multiplex near everybody:

READY PLAYER ONE (Dir. Steven Spielberg. 2018) 

In a recent New York Times piece about maybe the most famous living filmmaker there is, Steven Spielberg, Brook Barnes wrote about how it’s been a while since the popular director’s movies have had the magic of his early work.

Barnes confronted Spielberg with the idea that the director’s later day output has lacked the fun of films like E.T., JURASSIC PARK, and the original Indiana Jones trilogy in the ‘80s. Spielberg countered Barnes’ thesis by saying he was “always moving really fast, and I don’t look back a lot.” 

But, by way of his adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 young adult novel, READY PLAYER ONE, Spielberg looks back quite a bit to the era in which his movies were mega grossing must sees while video games became a big thing, synthetic pop music was the norm, and the possibilities of globally networked virtual reality were just gleams in the eyes of tech nerds. 

You see, this movie is set in the future, but nearly all of its reference points are from three decades ago as that’s when one such tech nerd came of age.

That’s the Steve Jobs/Steve Wozniak mash-up that is James Halliday, played by a frizzy hair wigged Mark Rylance (now a Spielberg regular as he was in BRIDGE OF SPIES and THE BFG) who created the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), a virtual reality world that most of the earth’s impoverished population in 2045 uses to escape their doomed existences.

When Halliday died, five years previous, he left a video message saying that he created a an “Easter egg” that he’s hidden inside his elaborate creation, and the first person to find it will inherit half a trillion dollars, and ownership of the OASIS itself.

So the movie’s protagonist is gunter (a combination of egg and hunter) Wade Watts (MUDD’s Tye Sheridan), going by the name Parzival in the game, who, by studying Halliday’s ‘80s obsessions figures out the first challenge involving a New York car race in which Wade’s vehicle of choice is the Delorean from BACK TO THE FUTURE.

In the overwhelmingly eye-popping sequence, Parzival has to outmaneuver a Tyrannosaurus Rex (ostensibly from JURASSIC PARK) and King Kong (looking like the 2005 Peter Jackson version), and in the process meets the girl of his dreams, another gunter named Art3mis (Olivia Cooke).

Mind you, neither Parzival nor Art3mis knows what either looks like in the real world because they’re represented by self chosen avatars in the OASIS, but there’s immediately a cute connection between them and they team up with Wade’s longtime friend Aech (Lena Waithe), and two other fellow gunters, brothers Sho (Philip Zhao), and Daito (Win Morisaki), to take on the next challenge which lands them into a dead on recreation of the Overlook Hotel from THE SHINING (it was WAR GAMES in the book, but Stanley Kubrick’s classic has a much cooler production design).

Of course, there’s an evil corporation, the IOI (Innovative Online Industries), competing with them headed by CEO Nolan Sorrento (a scenery chewing Ben Mendelsohn doing a convincing American accent), who had once worked as an underling to Halliday and his then business partner Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg, also doing an American accent).

READY PLAYER ONE gets a bit bogged down in CGI-cluttered spectacle in its third act, but it’s such a swiftly paced, wild ride that so consistently pops through each of its shiny setpieces that that doesn’t mar it too much. Sheridan and Cooke’s budding romance gets a bit cheesy at times (a disco dance set to “Stayin’ Alive” I could’ve done without), but they still work as characters that audiences will want to root for.

Many cynics will no doubt decry this film as pop culture pandering, but if you don’t think about it too deeply, it’s a highly entertaining sci-fi fantasy pic that’s somehow post modern, and old fashioned feeling at the same time.

Sure, it’s a geekgasm-inducing orgy of Easter eggs like the appearances of Chucky, Batman, Robocop, Buckaroo Banzai, Sonic the Hedgehog, the Alien chestburster, and even Monty Python’s Holy Hand Grenade, but, by embracing how the kids of today look back at the once tacky, but now endearingly surreal aesthetics of the ‘80s, the 71-year old Spielberg successfully reminds us (and himself) of his fun side.

Since I, like many of my age (late 40s) grew up on the filmmaker’s crowd-pleasing, high grossing work when we were kids first learning what movie magic is, it’s great to have fun Spielberg back.

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STAR TREK Doesn’t Really Go BEYOND, But It Stays On Course

Now playing at every multiplex in Federation space:

STAR TREK BEYOND (Dir. Justin Lin, 2016)

Does anybody really care about new STAR TREK movies now that J.J. Abrams has so successfully resurrected STAR WARS?

Well, of course they do because there have been Trekkies since way before George Lucas even thought of that galaxy far, far away, the characters are so ingrained into pop culture that they feel like a lot of people’s family members, and, most importantly it’s a highly profitable property for Paramount.

So here’s the third film in the rebooted franchise, the 13th in the STAR TREK film series overall, in which FAST AND THE FURIOUS filmmaker Justin Lin takes the helm, but, with Abrams in the producer’s chair, it still stays true to the Bad Robot brand.

After a funny opening involving Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) trying to re-gift an artifact (that later turns out to be the movie’s McGuffin) to an intimidating yet tiny alien race right out of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, we learn that we’re now three years into the Enterprise’s five-year mission and that Kirk, via a classic Captain’s log voice-over, is feeling that things have become too “episodic.”

Pine’s Kirk, along with series regulars Spock (Zachary Quinto), McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhuru (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), and Scotty (Simon Pegg), all seem to be in a recognizable yet entertaining rut as we get to hang with them a little before the inevitable action spectacle begins.

The Enterprise docks at a space station named Yorktown that when McCoy remarks that it looks like a “snowglobe just waiting to break” we know that we will most likely be seeing that happen later on. Before you know it, a spaceship hurls towards the Yorktown and, yep, we again get the premise of a looming alien attack that our trusty crew must try to prevent.

The Enterprise yet again gets destroyed – torn into individual pieces mind you - by a swarm of killer bee-like spaceships, and Kirk and co. get stranded on the treacherous terrain of a planet called Altamid (I think). This is where there’s some nice interactions between the paired up combinations of Kirk and Chekov, Spock and McCoy (who may have the best back and forth as well as the best lines), and Uhuru and Sulu, who's gay now if you haven't heard.

There’s also the intro of Sofia Boutella as Jaylah, a badass white-skinned alien who gets Scotty out of a skirmish and alerts him to the fact that a downed starship hidden via hologram, the U.S.S. Franklin, could help them defeat the baddies.

Idris Elba, as Krall (such an ‘80s sci-fi villain name) is too hidden behind prosthetics to really have the necessary impact, and his back story is a bit too Khan-ish – i.e. fueled with revenge by being wronged by the Federation – but the stakes still feel appropriately high in the second half.

I got a bit lost in the mist of the disorienting CGI-ed chaos of a few sequences but the experience is so much more satisfying than the previous effort, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. With Pegg pulling double duty as Scotty and as screenwriter (with co-writer Doug Jung) you get the sense that this is the first of the recent wave of STAR TREK movies written by people who have more than STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN as their reference point.

The late, great Leonard Nimoy is paid proper tribute to with Quinto’s Spock learning that his older self from the alternate timeline established in the 2008 series restarter, Ambassador Spock, has died, and with a “In Loving Memory of…” credit. It’s also impossible to forget the recent tragic passing of Yelchin, who gets a “For Anton” dedication at the end, especially when Kirk raises a toast to “absent friends” with Chekov standing right behind him.

STAR TREK BEYOND still opts for the amped-up, sexy, and flashy trappings of Abrams’ version of Gene Roddenberry’s creation, though under Lin’s direction there is a lot less lens glare. Pine remarked in an interview earlier this summer that “You can’t make a cerebral ‘Star Trek’ in 2016 - it just wouldn’t work in today’s marketplace,” and, sigh, maybe he’s right. Still, I'd like to see them try.

So the latest entry doesn’t go where any sci-fi movie series hasn’t gone before - even the spoof GALAXY QUEST went to some of the same places as this does – but it’s a fun, fit series entry that most fans will dig. Hmm, maybe this time around the odd numbered STAR TREK movies will be the good ones.

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A Bunch Of Blu Ray Blurbs For February

It’s time once again to tackle the growing stack of new release Blu rays that are cluttering up my desk. With a few exceptions, these are mostly titles that had a limited theatrical release accompanying their availability on VOD. These are films that slipped through the cracks of 2015, and mostly for good reason, but I enjoyed a few of them. One of them I liked quite a bit. Read on to find out which.

First up, I saw Peter Sollett’s sincere piece of Oscar bait, FREEHELD, when it played briefly at the Rialto in Raleigh last fall. It didn’t make much of an impact on me or audiences apparently so it came and went pretty quickly. Maybe it was too soon after seeing Julianne Moore deteriorate from Alzheimers in STILL ALICE, which she deservedly won an Oscar for, to see her grapple with another disease – this time cancer.

Anyway, in this well meaning drama based on real events, Moore plays Laurel Hester, a New Jersey cop who fights the Ocean County Board of Freeholders to have her partner of five years, Stacie Andree (Ellen Page), inherit her pension after she dies. A no nonsense Michael Shannon plays Moore’s supportive longtime police-force partner, a flamboyant Steve Carrell joins in as a gay rights sctivist, and Josh Charles rounds out the cast as one of the conflicted board members.

FREEHELD isn’t a terrible movie, it’s just like a Lifetime TV movie but with big names. The cast is good (Shannon stands out but then he always does) and it’s certainly a noble effort, but it’s a bit bland and forgettable. However, what is notable is that Cynthia Wade’s 2007 Oscar-winning documentary short (also with the same name) that it was based on is included on the Blu ray/DVD edition of the film. In 38 minutes, the doc sums up everything much better than the full length feature and serves as a better tribute to Hester, who died in 2006.

Next up, horror meister Eli Roth brings us KNOCK KNOCK, which has been billed as a “erotic thriller,” concerning Keanu Reeves as a nice guy family man architect who makes a sexy mistake. That is, he is seduced then terrorized by a couple of young girls (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) who show up out of the blue when his wife and kids are out of town for the weekend. The film is a remake of a schlocky ‘70s exploitation flick called DEATH GAME, which had Seymour Cassell getting seduced then terrorized by Sandra Locke and Colleen Camp (Camp is one of the remake’s producers and puts in a cameo).

Roth’s take on the material is initially intriguing but becomes tiresome and as tortuous as the situation Reeves is enduring. Izzo and De Armas are more annoying than scary or sexy for that matter, and their moralizing motives for ruining Reeves’ life, and destroying his posh Hollywood house, are hardly convincing, particularly their taunts that he’s a one-percenter that needs to be taken down. I simply could not see the point of any of this ordeal. Also the movie gets major marks off for using the Pixies’ “Where is My Mind” for the climax. It’s such a lame steal as the song was so definitively used as the ending of FIGHT CLUB that when it started up in this I was expecting to see buildings fall down. Maybe this is the film that confirms what I’ve suspected before – Eli Roth’s films just aren’t for me.

Funnily enough, “Where is My Mind” is also used in the next film I’ll be babbling about, Ben Palmer’s MAN UP, but it’s a distinctly different version – a piano instrumental – so doesn’t take you out of the movie as much. MAN UP is an affable British rom com that pairs Lake Bell, doing a fairly decent English accent, up with Simon Pegg, for a blind date. The thing is, the date was supposed to be Pegg being set up by his friends with another woman (Ophelia Lovibond), but Bell, happening upon their meeting place at Waterloo Station, is mistaken by Pegg for Lovibond, and Bell decides in the moment to go along with it. The couple hit it off over beers and bowling, but a run in with one of Bell’s old schoolmates (Rory Kinnear) threatens to blow her cover. Bell agrees to kiss Kinnear so that he won’t tell her stolen date, but when Pegg catches them (in the ladie’s room no less), the gig is up and Bell comes clean.

That’s not as much of a spoiler as you would think because it comes shortly after the half hour mark. So whereas usually the leads in these type movies start out hating each other and then gradually fall in love, this has them bickering and getting all competitive after the setup of them actually liking one another. Bell and Pegg have ample chemistry and although you know after some wacky mishaps they are going to finally come together at Bell’s parents’ (Ken Stott and Harriet Walter) 40th anniversary party that the film has been not too slyly building towards, it doesn’t take anything away from the movie’s abundance of charm. Kinnear’s hammy shenanigans did grate on me a little, but overall this is the rare rom com keeper.

At my first glance at the Blu ray box, I was like, didn’t Robert De Niro already make a movie called HEIST? Turns out, I was thinking about THE SCORE, a heist movie that De Niro made back in 2001, the same year that Gene Hackman starred in a similar film that was also named HEIST that I would mix up back then. As I see on IMDb, there have been a lot of movies called HEIST or THE HEIST throughout the years and I guess it’s fitting that this one uses the title because it’s such a generic by-the-numbers exercise that it really doesn’t deserve anything more original.

Despite that De Niro is prominently featured on the front and the spine of the Blu ray cover, the real star of Scott Mann’s HEIST is Jeffrey Dean Morgan who plays a casino card dealer who takes part in the robbery of a riverboat casino run by De Niro as a tough mob boss. Morgan reluctantly joins in the heist with his co-worker partners, headed by Dave Bautista, because his daughter is sick and needs expensive surgery. The plan doesn’t go off very smoothly and the crew are forced to hijack a city bus and take the passengers hostage. It’s pretty routine formulaic stuff, but it’s watchable enough I suppose for a C grade thriller.

Fairing much better is the horror comedy COOTIES, the directorial debut of Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott, mainly because of its extremely capable comic cast. Elijah Wood heads the ensemble as a substitute teacher who on first day on the job at his hometown elementary school finds that the students are turning into zombies because of tainted cafeteria chicken nuggets. Wood took the position to get close to his old high school crush (Alison Pill), but she’s dating Rainn Wilson as the creepy PE teacher. 

The teachers, including Jack McBrayer, Nasim Pedrad, and Leigh Whannell (SAW co-creator who co-wrote this movie with Glee co-creator Ian Brennan, who also appears as the Vice Principal) are stranded inside the school and have to band together to fight the infected children. It’s a often violent and gory experience but it’s delivered with a goofball charm that’s pretty infectious (sorry). If you like the cast and have a thing for zombies, it’s a good bet. 

Elijah Wood also appears in Breck Eisner’s THE LAST WITCH HUNTER, a Vin Diesel vehicle that really bored me silly. Diesel potrays the immortal protagonist, who carries on his centuries old legacy of killing witches in modern day New York City, with the aid of Wood as the newest in a long line of Dolans (helper priests). Wood is replacing the retiring Dolan (Michael Caine, a welcome sight since I was unaware he was in the movie), but after Caine is mysteriously murdered the same day, Diesel and Wood, along with a friendly witch (Rosa Leslie) begin to unravel a plot by a squadron of supernatural witches to resurrect the Witch Queen or some such (my mind wandered). 

It’s a slickly made piece of horribly paced dreck, with no discernible spark to speak of. It also appears to take itself entirely too seriously in its misguided effort to form a franchise worthy mythology. Admittedly, Diesel isn’t my cup of tea (see my review of RIDDICK), but I’ll take another FAST AND FURIOUS sequel over this any day.

Finally, Jessie Nelson’s LOVE THE COOPERS, a Christmas ensemble comedy that made me cringe instead of crack up. It’s one of those all star dysfunctional family films, like the previous year’s THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU, that failed to make much of a splash in its theatrical release last November, and it’s not very far into it that you can see why. John Goodman and Diane Keaton play the parents whose Pittsburgh house the family, including Ed Helms, Olivia Wilde, June Squibb, Alan Arkin, and Marissa Tomei, gathers at on Christmas eve, but this year everybody has their own kooky issues that get in the way of the holiday cheer. 

It’s narrated by Steve Martin, in a sincere effort to add some zing but that sadly doesn’t help generate any laughs. Neither does any of the other dialogue which feels strained or cutesy (or both) throughout. So, yeah, I really didn’t LOVE THE COOPERS. It’s a mishmash of overly sentimental and tired rom com tropes, but since it was scripted by Steve Rogers responsible for such mush as HOPE FLOATS, KATE & LEOPOLD, and P.S. I LOVE YOU, that’s hardly a surprise.

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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION Soars As High As Cruise's Amazing Airplane Stunt

Now playing at a multiplex near all of us:

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION

(Dir. Christopher McQuarrie, 2015)

I thought it would've been impossible for Tom Cruise to top his death defying stunt in the last entry in this series (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL), which was scaling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, aka the tallest building in the world, without a stuntman for Chrissakes!

But obviously the man takes these missions very seriously so this time out, in the first five minutes no less, we see his Ethan Hunt hanging on to the side of an airplane as it takes off. Again, there was no stuntman. Is anybody going to be surprised if he actually gets killed doing another one of these crazy stunts on a future sequel?

Anyway, it’s a pretty thrilling opening to the fifth MISSION IMPOSSIBLE which re-unites Cruise with his IMF (Impossible Missions Force) team members Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, while Jeremy Renner watches via satellite back in Washington D.C.

Via his amazing airplane stunt, Cruise’s Hunt is able to stop terrorists’ shipment of missiles laced with nerve gas from reaching its destination and we’re off and running with Lalo Schifrin’s famous theme music blaring over the flashy credits sequence.

Then we’ve got Alec Baldwin as stuffy CIA director Alan Hunley who wants to dismantle the IMF because of their reckless disregard for rules and regulations, and recall all the operatives, especially Hunt, but nobody is giving up his location.

Months later, Hunt is captured by The Syndicate, the evil organization that he’s been unable to prove the existence of to his former superiors. With the help of a British agent (a badass Rebeccca Ferguson) Hunt is able to escape - after a torture room fight scene, that is. Hunt has a lead to pursue – the blonde, well-groomed but rat faced assassin who captured him played by Sean Harris, who’s a much better villain than Michael Nyqvist in the previous installment, 2011's GHOST PROTOCOL.

From there we get killer set piece after killer set piece. In one, Cruise and crew thwart an assassination attempt at the Vienna opera house involving more than one sniper. Another mighty sequence features a major motorcycle chase down Morocco’s winding R203 highway, and yet another has Cruise holding his breath for 6 and a ½ minutes in order to access a computer server that’s stored underwater. Yep, ROGUE NATION’s high ratio of kick ass set pieces puts every other action movie this year to shame. James Bond’s highly anticipated next adventure, SPECTRE, has its work cut out for it to top this.

The twists and turns in the plot involving a flash drive that contains all of the Syndicate’s secrets – the film’s MacGuffin - and how the British Prime Minister (Tom Hollander) and the head of MI6 (Simon McBurney) figure in the cover-up are fine, but it’s the beautifully bombastic barrage of stunts, fights, chases, and self aware humor (a lot of which comes from Simon Pegg who welcomely has a larger role than before) that audiences will most respond to.

Who knew that the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series would become one of the most solid and dependable movie franchises out there? It’s stunning and impressive how increasingly stunning and impressive each new entry has been. Christopher McQuarrie, who’s worked with Cruise in JACK REACHER, and co-wrote the Cruise vehicles VALKRIE and EDGE OF TOMORROW, joins Brian de Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, and Brad Bird in the exclusive club of hot shot film makers who’ve performed great genre exercises in the form of these M:I movies.

The bottom line on Cruise has been for a while that whatever you think of his off screen drama with the Scientology and all, the guy makes good movies. You look at his filmography and there’s a lot of quality there. Cruise’s performance as Ethan Hunt works so well because the guy projects an air of cocky arrogance but there’s a detectable level beneath that where you can sense real fear that he has to talk himself out of. In other words, there’s a believable, relatable human being behind the action star front.

I’m definitely down with Bilge Ebiri who posited on Vulture.com that “It’s Time to Start Liking Tom Cruise Again,” and seeing the excellent, intelligent, and genuinely exciting MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION is the best place to now put that into practice.

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Crammed With Killer Comedy, THE WORLD'S END Is A Funny As Hell Finale To The Cornetto Trilogy

Now playing at a theater near you:

THE WORLD'S END (Dir. Edgar Wright, 2013)

The third installment in Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy is finally here and it's fuckin' fantastic!

For those who don't know, the series, which includes the 2004 zombie rom com SHAWN OF THE DEAD, and the 2007 action movie satire HOT FUZZ is called such because of a connection to the Cornetto ice cream brand that appears in each film.

At first glance, this new entry may look a lot like a British version of this summer's THIS IS THE END, the raunchy apocalyptic Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg comedy.

But here, the cast, made up of Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Constadine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan, aren't playing themselves (that is, exaggerated caricatures of their personas), and the backdrop isn't that of Biblical rapture; it's an alien invasion that the blokes uncover while on a pub crawl in their home town of Newton Haven, England.

Pegg, as a 40something n'er-do-well alcoholic who never grew up (he still wears the same Sisters of Mercy t-shirt and black trenchcoat he wore as a teenager), rounds up his old gang to again attempt the “Gold Mile” crawl of 12 pubs that they never completed two decades ago.

Pegg's former pals have all moved on into responsible adulthood and roll their eyes at the idea, yet they still join in, mainly because Pegg plays the sympathy card of his mother's recent passing.

Many pints are consumed by the group, except by the teetotaling Frost who orders water to Pegg's chagrin (“A man of your legendary prowess drinking fucking rain! It's like a lion eating Hummus.”), as they make their way from pub to pub, but they find that Thomas Wolfe was right about not being able to go home again.

Pub culture has been devoured by chains making the establishments all look alike, the aging bartenders don't recognize “the return of the prodigal sons” (as Pegg puts it), and, oh yeah, it appears that many of the townfolk have been replaced with robots.

Another similarity to THIS IS THE END is that THE WORLD'S END (the title comes from the name of the last pub on the crawl) is crammed with killer comedy.

Ultra comical fight scenes, rapid fire one-liners, and sight gags all hit their marks, while the characters' individual dilemmas - Constadine pines for Freeman's sister Rosamund Pike, Frost reveals his wife has left him, Marsan deals with running into a former schoolmate who bullied him, while Pegg is only concerned with partying (no matter what danger surrounds the fellows, Pegg's always pouring himself another pint) - don't get short shrift in the mist of all the silly sci-fi-tinged chaos.

The second in the trilogy, HOT FUZZ, had a juicy extended cameo by former 007 Timothy Dalton, but this tops it by having a better known Bond on hand: Pierce Brosnan as the band of blokes' former professor.

I love how the film never let ups or drags. Director Wright and lead protagonist Pegg, who co-wrote the screenplay as they did for SHAWN and HOT FUZZ, provide an infectious energy, which the rest of the ensemble is entirely up to the task of. It had everything I wanted from it: tons of solid laughs, likable relatable characters, and satisfying story beats all wrapped up together in a package that's as witty as it is rowdy.

THE WORLD'S END is a fitting, funny as Hell, end to a what will surely come to be known as a classic comedy trilogy. A pint and a cone of Cornetto ice cream would be ideal to consume while viewing it for sure, but the movie is incredibly filling all by itself.

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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL: The Film Babble Blog Review

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL 
(Dir. Brad Bird, 2011)

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, you've heard about Tom Cruise's death defying stunt scaling the tallest building in the world (Dubai's Burj Khalifa) without a stuntman in the newest MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie. It's a pretty damn impressive feat indeed, especially as it was one of several key scenes filmed with IMAX cameras.

What's more impressive to me is that not only can Cruise can keep the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE franchise sucessfully afloat with this, the 4th in the series - GHOST PROTOCOL, he's also conquered the screen in what I believe is the strongest action movie of the year.

And Cruise does it looking like he's only aged a couple of minutes after the last one ended back in 2006.

Now, even though I'm not really an action genre guy, I re-acquainted myself with the other M:I movies (I hadn't seen the first or second one since they were released well over a decade ago, and I always put off seeing the third), and I have to admit that they are state of the art escapism. Sure, they are souped-up vanity projects on one level, but each, helmed by a different hot-shot director - in order, Brian de Palma, John Woo, and J.J. Abrams - is slick high speed fun, and great to exercise bike to, I've found.

With Brad Bird (Pixar's THE INCREDIBLES, RATATOUIE) making his live action directorial debut, and a sharp screenplay by André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum (Alias), Cruise's Ethan Hunt chooses to accept another globe-trotting adventure with a crew made up of Simon Pegg (reprising his role as tech agent Benji from M:I:III), Paula Patton, and Jeremy Renner.

There's no way to not make the plot sound convoluted, but trust me it flows better than this description: We catch up with Cruise doing time in a Moscow prison. Cruise's IMF (Impossible Missions Force, duh) helps him escape, and they are given the mission to infiltrate the Kremlin (that's right) to extract top secret files.

After exiting the scene, a bomb goes off (one of the first notable IMAX moments) blowing up the Kremlin, and the IMF is implicated. In an all-too-brief cameo, the always reliably stodgy Tom Wilkinson shows up the Secretary of State of IMF to tell them they have to go underground to clear their name.

This involves faking a trade for nuclear codes between a French assassin who works for diamonds (Léa Seydoux) and Samuli Edelmann, the right-hand-man of the movie's villain (Michael Nyqvist), who want to annihilate the world's population in order to begin again.

This is where Cruise's skyscraper stunt comes in, eye-poppingly shot by ace cinematographer Robert Elswit (THERE WILL BE BLOOD) which is genuinely breath-taking. Although Cruise's Hunt is a cocky bastard most of the time, he does show some believable fright in this and other heart pounding scenes, and that enhances the intensity greatly throughout.

And then, when you think they can't top that, Bird and co. serve up a chase through a sandstorm which is just as thrilling.

Also, just when you start wondering, hey - what about, Michelle Monaghan, Cruise's wife from M:i:III? Pegg, among his many amusing one-liners, mentions in vague terms that she ended the relationship, but, of course, we just know that there's more to it that that.

Sure, the plot is routine, Nyqvist (who was the protagonist in the original Swedish GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO films) isn't a very memorable villain, and the last third, mostly set in a palace in Mumbai, too resembles something out of 007 in OCTOPUSSY, in its excuse to have our hero in a tuxedo in an exotic location, yet M:i:4 is still worth an overpriced IMAX ticket for, not only the awesome Burj Khalifa sequence and several choice action set-pieces, but for the sheer entertainment value of a high fallutin' formula done right.

Renner, who does his hot-head shtick here to perfection, is rumored as a candidate to take over the series from Cruise, but you wouldn't know it here - Cruise sure doesn't look like he's pushing 50 in one pummeling set-piece after another; it is as if he's been outfitted with new bionic body parts just so he can make 3-4 more of these.

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PAUL: The Film Babble Blog Review

PAUL (Dir. Greg Mottola, 2011)

STARMAN meets SUPERBAD in this sci fi comedy that has Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the comic duo from SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, aiding and abetting an extraterrestrial fugitive voiced by Seth Rogen.

Pegg and Frost, who also co-wrote the screenplay, are a couple of British geeks on an American vacation that kicks off with a visit to Comic-Con in San Diego before making a road trip to alien landmarks from Area 51 in Nevada to Roswell, New Mexico.

There’s a FANBOYS vibe going on as the pair are starstruck at meeting fictional fantasy novelist Adam Shadowchild (Jeffrey Tambor), whose name is a running gag throughout the film – the joke being that only hardcore nerds know who he is.

Right after stereotypical rednecks (David Koechner and Jesse Plemons) harass Pegg and Frost at a U.F.O. themed diner, our protagonists meet Paul – the CGI crafted little green man from another planet.

“He looks too obvious!” Frost protests, but our snarky title character explains that it’s because pop culture has been inundated with his image in case an encounter occurs.

It turns out Paul, a pot-smoking heavy-drinking party animal of an alien, has escaped from his 60 year imprisonment at Area 51 and is on the run from a government agent (Jason Bateman playing it perfectly straight), so Pegg and Frost’s rented RV becomes his vehicle to an undisclosed location for a spaceship pick-up.

Kristen Wiig, in one of her better performances, jumps on board the RV as a half blind trailer park manager who gets converted from her crazy Christian mind set by the outspoken E.T. and is chased by her father (John Carroll Lynch). Also on the chase are SNL’s Bill Hader and the creepy Joe Lo Truglio as clueless FBI agents.

Every sci fi movie ever seems to be referenced in “Paul”. Lines are lifted from STAR WARS, locations from Star Trek to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS are visited, and then there’s the presence of Sigourney Weaver as “The Big Guy” – Bateman’s boss who will stop at nothing to recapture Paul.

It’s a film for sci fi nerds by sci fi nerds. It’s sloppy and choppy, but it has so many legitimate laughs in it that I didn’t care that it didn’t come close to the visually stylish Edgar Wright films that Pegg and Frost cut their teeth on.

PAUL is fast-paced foul-mouthed fun with an infectious silly tone that never lets up. Although you can see many of the gags coming, they’re still funny when they land thanks to the playful platform provided by Pegg, Frost, Rogen, and director Greg Mottola.

Though I don’t consider myself a STAR WARS fanatic, Trekkie, or sci-fi junkie to any extreme, my inner star-child was greatly amused by these alien antics.

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STAR TREK: The Film Babble Blog Review

STAR TREK (Dir. J.J. Abrams, 2009)


Sporting the most positive pre-release buzz since THE DARK KNIGHT, Gene Roddenberry's vigorous vision proves itself yet again in a dazzling spectacle of a sure to be Summer blockbuster.

This is extremely impressive after the diminishing returns of the last few films of the franchise featuring Patrick Stewart leading The Next Generation crew. It's boldly back to basics here with a prequel/reboot that re-introduces the original characters from the classic '60s TV series, now played by hot young actors and actresses just out of Starfleet Academy and entangled in an action packed series of (as Spock says) "universe ending paradoxes."

A friend joked a few weeks back that the trailer made it look like: "a Mountain Dew commercial...thought it may be Star Trek X: Treme." And yeah, that's a reasonable fear - that it would be a new fangled streamlined brainless affair - but somehow Abrams has presented intact an engaging re-imagining of the best elements of Star Trek with the immediately recognizable quirks of the protagonists, the strong chemistry of the relationships, and the overall humanity that was the core of the long loved series.

No dark dystopian future here, as we see young fit cadets of all races and alien species at Starfleet Academy in unusually sunny San Francisco after an opening that establishes the opposition in upbringing that defines the brash arrogant James T. Kirk, Chris Pine who doesn't ape William Shatner but still captures his ego, and the cold logical half human/half Vulcan Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto).

Singled out for his impulsive potential by Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood), Kirk quickly gets in trouble by cheating on the Kobayashi Maru training exercise (something Trekkies or Trekkers or whatever will appreciate) which gets under the skin of the test's designer: Spock, see what they did there? Kirk's hearing is rudely interrupted by a patented Trekkian threat, a gigantic evil electrical space cloud which, of course, may destroy the Earth, the Universe, and everything. 

Helming the Romulan ship at the heart of this insidious cloud is Captain Nero (Eric Bana) who is harboring a revenge vendetta because of the actions of future Spock. That's right, Spock as portrayed by as an elderly Leonard Nimoy, appears in a glorified cameo to mentor and advise Kirk and, most enjoyably, to inspire him to provoke young Spock's conflicted emotions at a crucial moment.


The original cast is wonderfully replicated with a nice mix of familiar affectations and fresh interpretation. Karl Urban and Simon Pegg lapse almost completely into impressions of DeForrest Kelly and James Doohan (if you live under a rock that's Dr. McCoy and Scotty the engineer, respectively) but they keep the characters amusingly in check even if they don't quite make them their own.

As Lieutenant Uhuru, Zoë Saldana brings a strong headed take on the iconic part even if most of it entails swooning over Spock - yep, one of the many details that makes this "not your Father's Star Trek". John Cho (Harold from HAROLD AND KUMAR) as the wet behind the ears Lieutenant Sulu and Anton Yelchin as earnest 17 year old Ensign Chekov convincingly take their posts on the Enterprise bridge.

Fittingly the movie in the franchise that this most resembles thematically and spiritually is STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. The revenge scenario of the obsessed villain, Kirk's rejecting of the no-win situation in the before mentioned Kobayashi Maru, the mind controlling slugs (in a sequence that may be a timely statement on torture techniques), and Spock's immortal "I have been and always shall be your friend" line, all recall that fan favorite film which many consider the best of the series.

This new entry won't change that consensus but Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's sharp screenplay still succeeds as it re-writes a lot of Star Trek history while at the same time upholding and paying glorious homage to it.

STAR TREK is fast flashy fun - it's colorfully gorgeous (see at an IMAX theater if you can - although none of it is filmed in IMAX), powerful, and as good as the ginormous, yet well earned, hype suggests.

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A Few New Release DVD Reviews Just for You

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE (Dir. Robert B. Weide, 2008)

Ah, the art of the snark. In his blog not long ago, Roger Ebert wrote a brilliant breakdown of the current over-proliferation of snarking in the press (“Hunt not the Snark but the Snarker” - February 25th, 2009). After calling it “cultural vandalism” he chided writers such as Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke and LATimes reporter Patrick Goldstein for their cheap shots at the Oscars and he concluded gracefully, as Ebert is known to do, by quoting a Lewis Carroll poem. If the protagonist of this film, celebrity journalist Sidney Young, was a real person there’s no doubt Ebert would’ve singled him out too. For despite that Young is the creation (and alter ego of) paparazzi pundit Toby Young (from his book of the same name), as played by an in-your-face Simon Pegg he would be likely be one of the most unavoidable media masters of snark today.

After upsetting a posh party with a pig he claims is Babe from BABE 2, Pegg is hired by the editor of Sharp’s magazine (Jeff Bridges again in very un-Dude territory). Pegg and the magazine, based on Vanity Fair, are an uneasy fit as he insults everybody in sight especially an extremely miscast Kirsten Dunst who bases her entire performance on constant eye-rolls (oh, was that too snarky?). Pegg has 2 goals – to get ahead at the magazine no matter what it takes and to bed a model/starlet played by Megan Fox. He has to contend with Fox’s powerful publicist (Gillian Anderson) and an asshole boss (Danny Houston) as we have to contend with his unlikable unctuousness while the predictable plot goes through the motions.

This is the kind of film that doles out such beaten to death comic clichés as a transsexual that fools the leading man and a small dog getting crushed (see A FISH CALLED WANDA for how to deal with this better). Pegg, who can lift even a lightweight rom com like RUN FATBOY RUN above total mediocrity, here is helpless to save this material. Bridges sums up Pegg’s character’s sense of humor in their first interview scene as: “snarky, bitter, and witless.” That sums up the movie as well; it mistakes snarky for funny over and over again. But if the joke that Pegg wore a bright red t-shirt that said “young, dumb and full of come” to the interview makes you laugh then this might be the movie for you. As for me, this film lost and alienated me, but I know I’m probably the millionth snarky movie

blogger to say that.

FLASH OF GENIUS (Dir. Mark Abraham, 2008)

“You’ll never look at a windshield wiper the same way again” could be the tagline for this biopic of frustrated inventor Robert Kearns. Kearns, played with pluck and aplomb by Greg Kinnear (in non smarmy mode happily), developed an intermittent windshield wiper in the 60’s and took his idea to the Ford Motor Company. After studying his work they pass on paying him but use the method anyway causing him to sacrifice his marriage and sanity to fight for the credit. His wife (Lauren Graham) tries to be supportive, as do his 5 kids, but he goes off the deep end and has to be institutionalized – a point the movie stresses by opening with a bath robed frazzled Kinnear on a bus claiming he’s going to Washington D.C. by request of the Vice President.

There’s a big heart here but the obsessed man alienates the world around him to plead his life’s case formula is adhered to way too strictly. I knew nothing of the real life story here but because I’ve been schooled in the scenario, from Jimmy Stewart in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON to Richard Dreyfuss in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, I knew exactly what to expect in terms of the plot-point highs and lows. But I bet most people would watch this and just know it's going to end in a climatic court scene, you know? Still, it is an interesting story told well with solid performances by Kinnear, Graham, Dermot Mulroney as a subtle backstabbing colleague, and most notably Alan Alda as a crusty but suave lawyer who advices our hero to settle. FLASH OF GENIUS is an earnest and straight forward effort that will surely fall in line with other inventor-done-wrong-by-the-system biopic ilk (TUCKER, anybody?) some night in the future on The History Channel. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know, but it’s the best I can do for this fair film.

BOTTLE SHOCK (Dir. Randall Miller, 2008)

As another period piece true story that I was unaware of, (hey, that’s why they makes these movies!), this film delivers a case study of how California became a contender in the worldwide wine wars. Alan Rickman, in his best comfortably cagey demeanor, plays sommelier Steven Spurrier, who in 1976, traveled to Napa Valley to sample wines for a blind taste test against French wine. At the same time, a grizzled Bill Pulliman with a winery named Chateau Montelena is struggling with massive debts while he labors to make chardonnay. He’s also struggling with his long haired freewheeling son Bo (Chris Pine) and foreman Gustavo (Six Feet Under’s Freddy Rodriquez), who grew grow up with soil underneath his nails and the smell of the grapes in the air that he breathes (his words) and so has wine plans of his own. For the obligatory sex subplot there’s a blonde UC Davis graduate student (Rachel Taylor) who sleeps with both Pine and Rodriquez because, uh, the movie needed a sex subplot.

The best thing about this film is its cinematography. The film makers were obviously in love with the Napa Valley with many sweeping shots of the orchards bathed in luscious crisp sunlight. It gives SIDEWAYS a run for its money in that department for sure. There is a nice sprinkling of wit mostly coming from Rickman’s snotty character: “You think I’m an asshole, and I’m not really -it’s just that I’m British and you’re not” but I wouldn’t say this movie is really that funny. It’s a likable lark with some wine fun facts about fermentation even if doesn’t give as much color to its characters as its scenery. BOTTLE SHOCK moves no mountains and shakes no new ground, but, to borrow wine jargon, it goes down smooth and finishes well. It would be the perfect complement to a wine tasting party, even (or especially) with the sound turned down.

MY NAME IS BRUCE (Dir. Bruce Campbell, 2007)

“Getting you laid is hard enough without having to explain the whole Bruce Campbell factor” says one scruffy teenager (Logan Martin) to another (Taylor Sharpe) at the beginning of this low budget “comedy horror” (as Campbell himself calls it) film. This sarcastic kid taunts his friend by going through a stack of DVDs (for some reason he has in his car) reeling off their titles – “Death Of The Dead”, “Maniac Cop”, “Moonwarp”, “Man With The Screaming Brain”, “Alien Apolcalypse”, and so on - I seriously don’t know which of these is real or fake but I’ll get around to IMDbing it. Not being able to take his buddy’s abuse anymore, Sharpe hits the brakes screeching his vehicle to a halt and exclaims “Bruce Campbell is the greatest actor of his generation!” Martin replies: “Dude, forget thumbs, Ebert wouldn’t wipe his crack with this trash!” He does however concede “I kinda liked BUBBA HO TEP.” Sharpe: “*Everyone* liked BUBBA HO-TEP!” This is a nice self mocking intro to an entire movie of self mockery but if you haven’t seen EVIL DEAD (or any of its sequels) and had no idea who that odd square jawed guy was in small but vital parts of all 3 SPIDERMAN movies, then this movie wasn’t made for you.

It’s a movie for Bruce Campbell fans exclusively, made by a Bruce Campbell fan – namely Bruce Campbell. Like the in-joke precedent set by Ricky Gervais’ Extras, Campbell plays an exaggerated version of himself. He’s a heavy drinker that bitches at gofers on the set of a sci-fi cheapie named “Cavealiens” when his lemon water isn’t cold enough (actually its one literally pissed off gofer’s urine) and, of course, he has an ex-wife who he calls at 3:00AM from the floor of his back woods trailer. Yes, these are all obvious joke clichés about a “big ass, self obsessed movie star” (as wooden love interest Grace Thorsen says) but that’s the point you see. The premise is that a small town named Gold Lick (that’s right) is tormented by a Chinese war diety called Guan Di and they call upon Campbell to bring his zombie/vampire/alien/whatever fighting skills to defeat this demon. Yep, ¡THREE AMIGOS!, GALAXY QUEST, and more recently TROPIC THUNDER have done likewise actors-must-become-what-they-portray plots much better but here it’s just an excuse to make fun of a career full of schlock and bombast. I mean, as stupid as the residents of Gold Lick are, they don’t seem to think he’s anything but Bruce Campbell and his thinking its a movie shoot is pretty poorly handled as well.

Campbell quips through every scene with his unique brand of big chinned charm but unfortunately very few of his one-liners are funny – “You don't know fear, kid. You've never worked with Sam Raimi” being one of the better ones if that says anything. As for the production, it’s about as cheap as one would expect with fades that give it a “made for TV” feel. To call this movie bad or even a turkey would surely be taken as a compliment by Campbell and crew because that’s what they were going for - a ‘so bad it’s good’ vibe, but as Enid in GHOST WORLD said: “it’s so bad it’s gone from good back to bad again.” Sure, it’s a straight to DVD for fanatics only throwaway and one that’s not without its charms but if you don’t appreciate Campbell or his oeuvre I doubt it’ll win you over. As the taunting kid quoted above said, BUBBA HO TEP is a better gateway to geekery * but the EVIL DEAD films are the most essential of Campbell’s filmography. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure indeed. Except here it’s the same man.

* With apologies to the Onion A.V. Club.

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STOP LOSS Lost Me But RUN FATBOY RUN Had Me Pegged

As good as TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE and 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, & 2 DAYS (reviewed last time out) were they failed to gain an audience (at my hometown theater at least) so it's on to a couple of the new Spring crop of movies: 

STOP LOSS (Dir. Kimberly Peirce, 2008)

The opening scene with mobile phone footage of soldiers in Iraq razzing each other with ethnic and whitebread stereotypes raging brought to mind unpleasant memories of REDACTED. 

For a short bit, this film appears to have a higher purpose than that base insufferable Brian DePalma cinematic bloodstain then it drastically drops to a lower level. 

With his trademark worried eyes, squad leader Ryan Phillippe serves what he thinks is his last combat mission (involving a particularly hellacious gunfight which kills 2 of his men) and comes home with his surviving men to his hometown. They are greeted with a parade full of applause and teary eyes but Phillippe is told shortly afterwards that he is being “Stop Lossed” - that is, his term of service is being involuntarily extended, and he is to be sent back to Iraq. 

Phillippe immediately responds in anger and escapes from the army installation becoming an AWOL fugitive. His plan is to appeal to a Senator who shook his hand and said “if you ever need anything...” back at the celebratory parade so he sets off for Washington D.C.

Phillippe's squad, who mostly remain back on the Stop Lossed sidelines, is quite the clichéd crew: there's the thick headed bully (Channing Tatum), the short-fused guitar-playing cut-up (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the religious square nicknamed “Preacher” (Terry Quay), the smooth Hispanic player (Victor Rasuk), and of course, the tough token black guy (Rob Brown). 

Try as they might neither the characters or the film rise above well worn cliches. Such can't be disguised by the quick-cutting MTV * technique of flashing hundreds of photographs in front of our eyes at supposedly key moments. 

Phillippe talking with an awful Texas accent and brooding squint-eyed as if the movie is a foggy shadowy stage has shown more layers previously like in last year's BREACH, but here seems to have retreated back to the wood board mode that he walked-through CRASH with. His co-star and somewhat love interest is Abbie Cornish - ex-girlfriend to Phillippe's fellow soldier friend (Tatum). 

Cornish travels with Phillippe across country in scenes that have an '80s road movie sensibility in the same sense that every element of this film feels borrowed. As for being Peirce's first film for nearly 9 years since BOYS DON'T CRY this is quite a let down filled to the brim with cringe-worthy acting and weak dialogue. 

For all its anti-war pro-troops posturing STOP LOSS, though based on a very real and hard to stomach government policy, has a extremely low percentage of plausibility. * The film is an MTV Films Production after all.

RUN FATBOY RUN (Dir. David Schwimmer, 2007)



An unlikely movie-star if there ever was one, Simon Pegg still seems to have nudged a notable niche into the world of hip pop culture. 

Bit by bit - the first bit being his little seen, but great British sitcom Spaced then his and director Edgar Wright's hilarious satires SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, and now a just revealed big bit is that he is tapped to play the iconic role of Scotty in the new STAR TREK reboot. 

In the present meantime though Pegg goes mainstream with this romantic comedy about marathon racing. How mainstream? Well, this is directed by David Schwimmer - Ross from Friends! So Pegg is a slacker sloth we gather right off as he abandons his pregnant fiancée (Thandie Newton) at the altar literally running down the street away. 

The movie cuts to 5 years later and Pegg's still running but this time running after shoplifters as a low level security guard for a women's clothing store. 

Pegg still pines for his ex and longs to be more of a hero to his son (Matthew Fenton) but that is increasingly difficult as Newton has taken up with Hank Azaria - a well-to-do muscular all too perfect suitor who runs marathons. 

“Why would you want to do a thing like that?” is Pegg's reaction to that last bit. He realizes though to gain his son's respect and possibly win back his ex he will have to take something seriously and see it through to the end and the Nike River-run in London may just be the ticket.

It's fitting that Pegg's shabby apartment has a poster of TEAM AMERICA up because as that film told us in song “you've got to have a montage!” and so a shaping up sequence of the sort is on. Pegg's SHAUN OF THE DEADSHAUN OF THE DEAD co-star Dylan Moran, who has some of the best lines, bets on his friend completing the 26 mile marathon as do his landlord's (Harish Patel) cunning daughter (India de Beaufort). 

Among the wacky physical humor in the training scenes and the underdog insults there are affecting face-offs with Azaria down to the starting line gunshot and beyond: “I can lose weight... but you'll always be an arsehole!” Pegg deliriously exclaims.

Though not in the same comedic league as and HOT FUZZ, RUN FATBOY RUN is extremely likable, as fluffy and predictable as it is. 

It's not a laugh a minute, it's more a mild chuckle per scene but its big heart and sunny nature made me smile often throughout its running time (no pun intended). 

Doubt this will make much of dent in the U.S. box office but like the folk that gather behind Pegg FORREST GUMP-style as his lovable louse stumbles through the miles of the marathon RUN FATBOY RUN will no doubt accumulate fans. Pegg may not have completely arrived Stateside yet but this is one cheeky bit closer.

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