Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

 

An interesting thing happened last night at the Mission Impossible Fan Event we attended. After the two short promo reels that were part of the event, the wrong movie started running. "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is a joint Paramount/Disney production but when we saw the Disney Studio credit logo, we knew this was not Mission Impossible and that the wrong IMAX film was running. Two dozen people got up immediately to inform the management, but it still took nearly fifteen minutes of running the wrong movie before it was corrected. That accident allowed us to see the difference between a completely CGI train fight, which would later compare unfavorably to the practical train fight in the movie we came to see. This was an inadvertent reveal of how meticulous director/writer Christopher McQuarrie and star/producer Tom Cruise are about making their movies. They sure put in the extra effort to make it work for the audience.

"Dead Reckoning" has the kind of plot that could easily befuddle you the first time through. I know a lot of people had difficulty with the first of the Mission Impossible movie plots, and those folks may be happy to learn they are not the only ones who can get confused by the events in these movies. I've got a pretty good grasp on some of the elements but I will probably need a re-watch to clarify some other points of the story. I don't think audiences will be put off however. We know that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is the good guy, and that his team can be trusted, although uncertainty about Ilsa Faust is understandable. This is the third film in the series in which Rebecca Ferguson's disavowed MI-6 agent has been a part. After "Fallout" we are pretty confident she is on our side, and that's a good thing because she is incredibly competent and formidable. 

The other members of the team return and they continue to provide both humor and some grounding for the series. Simon Pegg is as always, a gas who can lighten up a situation with an ironic acknowledgement of the difficulty in front of the team at any time. Ving Rhames brings calm and gravitas to his scenes and makes the tech crew a lot more humanly relatable. The newest member of the team is Haley Atwell, who gets involved with the team and is completely unreliable from the start. Atwell has experience playing a spy so she will be a good fit, although it was jarring to see he character so quickly develop the combat level qualifications that make her equal to some others in the group. She is fit enough and fine, and when her character has to improvise, especially in the climax, she is terrific, but her character is supposed to have a different background and that difference gets ignored as the film moves on. 

All the Mission Impossible Films are anchored by great stunts and clever visual sequences. The opening of the film riffs on "The Hunt for Red October", with the same outcome for a Russian sub that was seen in that movie. This is where the confusion starts as well. Although we get an exposition scene from an under utilized Cary Elwes, that comes almost two hours after we have witnessed the opening and we are still trying to figure it out. Of course that is part of the intrigue, but the audience may be wary of everything after this. Elwes and the returning Henry Czerny as former IMF director Kittridge, are set up to be the partial villains of the bureaucracy, the real bad guy appears to be Esai Morales as Gabriel, working on behalf the the real big bad, "The Entity, a self aware A.I. that has taken control of the digital world and is using it to achieve an end that we are not yet sure of. Gabriel has a team, the Intelligence Community has a team, multiple local jurisdictions are involved, and there is a band of bounty hunters, and all of them are after Ethan and Atwell's Grace. At times this feels like one long continuous chase movie. The moments of tension are less about achieving an objective than giving us a bit of a break from the chase. But damn, those are some good chases.

Tom gets to do his patented running man routine at least three times during the film. There are two excellent motorcycle sequences and two equally great car chases. There is certainly a lot of action to go around. The shooting that takes place exhibits the usual poor marksmanship of the bad guys, and the hero team never seems to miss. That is boiler plate stuff. The real highlights come in the train sequence at the end of the film. There is a solid fight on the top of the train, and the Spielberg/Hitchcock inspired action after the train begins going off the edge is going to make your butt clench, even though we know it is just a movie. Once again, the stunt team and the practical effects, make this movie feel completely different from so many action films nowadays. The film ends on a cliff hanging moment, but since it it Part One of Two, no one should be too surprised by that. There is no teaser sequence during or after the titles, these film makers are keeping it real.

This was my most highly anticipated movie of the year with the possible exception of "Dune Part II". It lived up to my expectations and the audience I saw it with was quite responsive. Once more Lalo Schifrin should be getting a huge residual check, his theme is used in the right places and it provides the audience energy needed to propel us through the story. The release of this movie is one of the twisted tales that resulted from the Covis-19 shutdowns. This movie got held up in production by the Pandemic, and the studios juggled how to release this and last years Tom Cruise vehicle "Top Gun Maverick". And just like last year, there is a good chance that Tom Cruise will break the movie going doldrums and get folks out to the theater. Like last year, Cruise may save the summer and the cinema experience. Who says there are no movie stars left? 

Top Gun Maverick

 

The end of the movie star is inevitable, headed for extinction. Maybe so, but not Tom Cruise.

I have heard it a thousand times, the age of stars is over, and then Tom Cruise releases another film and everyone has to put an asterisk next to their statement. He may be the one star that still can open a movie, at least in the right vehicle. "American Made", "The Mummy" and "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" did not light up the box office numbers, but the Mission Impossible films still open the cash registers, and this sequel, coming in 36 years after the original and two years after it was supposed to be released, sure did the trick. This is clearly a Tom Cruise movie and he is clearly the reason that it opened so well. 

This movie has received near universal praise as an entertainment, with an audiences score on Rotten Tomatoes of 99% and a critic score of 96%, it won't be too hard to figure which direction this commentary will go.  I have no intention of bucking the trend. The Lambcast this last weekend had the one poor review of the film that I have encountered, and had I been on the show, I would have disputed some of the criticisms leveled at the film, but even from someone who was not a fan, they acknowledged that it was a handsomely mounted film that probably will entertain the masses. Count me in as one of the masses. I did not think there needed to be a sequel to the film, and when I first heard that it was in production, I thought Cruise might be getting a little desperate. Nope, this is the sequel that we needed and Cruise has his confident fingerprints all over the film. 

It was a little unnerving at first because the opening moments of the movie are lifted out of the original film. The shots of the planes on board the aircraft carrier, the tech crew who participate in the launch and recovery of the planes, even the establishing shots of the carrier, are note for note. I think the sequence is updated and new but I could be wrong. The same narrative scroll appears at the beginning of both films, so maybe it is the same footage. The motorcycle footage is new, because it is the current version of Tom Cruise on the bike, although he still looks relatively the same. It does not take too long however to get to something I know is fresh. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is now a test pilot for the military, checking out a new supersonic plane that is about to get canceled. The main reason we get this sequence is to remind us that Maverick skirts the rules, presses the limits and still manages to land on his feet. 

From the trailer of the film, it seemed like the focus would be on the tension between Maverick and the son of his dead RIO Goose. Miles Teller plays Rooster, but it is not really the death of his father that is the source of the division between the two leads. An artificial conflict has been managed for that. Speaking of conflicts, it was not clear to me why the mission in this film had to be carried out in the way it is designed, but it was extremely clear what the goal was and how it was supposed to get done. The problem that brings Maverick back to Top Gun is a logistics course, that he has to get the best pilots in the world to master. If there is one thing that feels right in the film, it is the prep and training that the pilots have to go through. The simulated conditions feel very real even when there is not a matching physical environment. All of the pilots should be able to comprehend the strategy if they have seen Star Wars because the obstacle in front of them is the same one that the X-Wing fighters were working against. When you add on top of this, the fact that the aerial shots are largely done in camera on actual planes with real g-forces, the technical excellence of what is being done is even more impressive. 

The actors work fine in their roles. Tom carries the charisma for the film, Jennifer Connelly adds an age appropriate love interest and when she smiles, the scenes warm up immensely. Teller is a doppelganger for the previously dead Goose, but he is not front and center until the last act of the film. When we get there, his interaction with Cruise is much stronger. Most of the other pilots have only minimal character, although they did seem more distinct to me than most of the secondary characters in the original film.  Although his screen time is limited, Val Kilmer gets a chance to act again and he is used in a manner that is completely in keeping with the character he played in the original. The connection between Kilmer's Iceman and Cruise's Maverick turns out to be the most enriching story arc in the movie, both because of the two characters but also because of the two actors. Maybe it is fan service but it is the kind of fan service that fans deserve and the actors earn.

Now the plot line is the main issue that might risk criticism from the naysayers. I heard it described as an act of war and something that NATO would not approve of. A preemptive strike on a rogue nations nuclear program is not unprecedented. Israel took out Iraq's early program and the U.S., Israel and others continue attacks on the programs that the Iranians are engaged in, although those have largely been clandestine rather than overtly military attacks. The U.S. has made extensive use of drone attacks on military targets, including personnel. The U.S. government has made open military attacks on Iraq, Syria, Kuwait and others in the context of terrorism, that has long been standard U.S. practice. The movie does not give us context on the mission, it only outlines the military strategy, not the diplomatic world in which the attack took place. It is quite possible that the U.S. led action in this film was authorized by a U.N. mandate, it just never comes up as part of the story. 

The truth is, that political element is superfluous to the story we are watching. This is about how a military unit prepares for a mission and carries it out. The characters are relevant to the emotional core of the story, and the ones that matter, Maverick, Iceman, Rooster and Penny, were given enough story arc to justify our caring about what happens to them. The music pumps us, the tension moments work, and the cathartic explosions, flying stunts and character ticks give us the go ahead to have a good time. So head on out to the danger zone and enjoy the need for speed. 

Mission Impossible: Fallout

When I mentioned at one point that this was the film I was most looking forward too this summer, I received some verbal shrugs of the shoulder from a few fellow bloggers. An attitude that I simply cannot fathom. This series has been consistently excellent in my point of view, and the fact that Tom Cruise is the driving force behind the production seems to irritate some people. The internet is full or terrible things but most of the film sites I visit have rational people offering reasons for their love or hate of a particular film. So it was a surprise to me to see this comment on one of the blog posts I visited this week,

 "  I have no interest in watching some aging dinosaur doing stupid stunts just to prove that he’s still got it. If he wants to impress me, why doesn’t he just jump off of a f#@king cliff and f#@king die?"

Does that seem a little harsh to you? It did to me. There is apparently a lot of Tom Cruise hate out there, not too far under the surface.

So before I begin my discussion of the film, let me make a brief defense of Mr. Cruise. Regardless of his personal life, he has always been a professional. He works hard at putting on screen, those things that he thinks will make a film better for the audience. To use the vernacular of the author of this note, I'd rather see an aging star who gives a damn about the quality of his film, perform a practical stunt, than watch a pretty boy flavor of the month, dangle in front of a green screen, trying to sell something that they look down on in the first place. 

As a producer on these films, Cruise has been responsible for employing thousands of behind the scenes technical crafts people. The creative types from cinematographers, writers, stunt coordinators and directors, have all been given an amazing canvas to work on. Maybe the results are not always pretty to everyone. That is your prerogative and taste. I do think however dismissing it as "stupid" and assuming that the star is trying to impress you may be off target a bit. What is completely off target however is wishing death to someone because of your petulant views. OK, end of rant.

"Fallout" is the sixth film in this franchise, and I think you will find that most objective viewers will say that since the second film, they have gotten steadily better. A couple of things that help make that true are the continuing inclusions of new characters that allow conflict, humor or more emotional spark in the film. Since Simon Pegg came on board in "MI:III ", he has become more than just the comic relief and his character is more integral to the teams mission. Jeremy Renner, who made two appearances in the series, but is sadly missing here, also added some gravitas to the proceedings while providing a completely different form of humor.

The two most recent additions from the previous film to this one are Rebecca Ferguson as MI:6 operative Ilsa Faust, who provides a counterpart to Cruise for  skill, action and wits. In addition, there is a nice hint of romance that is not oversold like it is a Bond film. In this movie she represents the B plotline that is at odds with Ethan Hunt's objective for the story. Because her character is capable, it makes the action and events seem more interesting and complicated. Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburne and Tom Wilkinson all made one off appearances in the series, so it was nice to get some payoff from having Alec Baldwin return for a second episode. As a reluctant and judgmental ally and Superior to Hunt's IMF group, Baldwin gets a chance to play both sides a bit and ultimately be played as well. I sort of enjoy the coincidence in Angela Bassett as the new C.I.A. chief, it's as if Tina Turner is stepping into Ike's shoes with Fishburne out of the picture. It is likely that if there are future installments in this franchise, she will return.

The plot is as complicated as these things usually get. A dangerous macguffin is out in the open and must be recovered by the team. Of course no path is straight and this plot develops an interesting twist by requiring that a previous villain be exchanged for the missing "dangerous item in a suitcase". This puts Ethan and the team in an awkward position that ultimately creates a very ironic twist to the story.

To get though all of this, we get several incredible action sequences. There is a terrific, over the top hand to hand combat fight in a glittering white bathroom. Ethan and his team have to improvise a heist in the middle of the picture, so that he can sleep at night. The screenwriter/director Christopher McQuarrie injects some morality issues into this spy shoot em up, through a couple of nightmare sequences that visualize for us the qualms Ethan has about the choices he makes. The Tom Cruise haters will point to several chase scenes as proof that it is all about Tom as he rides a motorcycle like a bat out of hell or jumps from one building to another while doing the traditional Tom Cruise running. Those actions are not just to make Cruise look good, every spy film has chases and acts of derring do which put us in with the hero.

Henry Cavill and his mustache, take a break from the D.C. Universe to play a mysterious C.I.A. enforcer, foisted on the mission by the new DCIA. He looks good in a fight and not much effort was made to hide the fact that he is substantially taller than the star. His addition to the team suggests that not all the competent field agents have the temper for some of the delicate work that has to be done. The helicopter chase and battle that are the climax of the picture go a long way in showing that no one here is really a Superman, they all are vulnerable to a lot more than kryptonite. Ethan Hunt may have tried to bury his weakness, but it does get exploited well at the climax of the film.

"Mission Impossible: Fallout" owes most of it's success to producer and star Tom Cruise. The film is not perfect, after all there are some plot-holes and lucky coincidences, but you never really care about that. This is a film that wants to keep you on the edge of your seat and it manages that nicely for all the two and a half hours of it's running time. OK, maybe Cruise should be sure to send part of his profit participation to Lalo Schifrin, who created the iconic theme that sells this movie in the trailer, the titles and the end credits. I'd be willing to defend a proposition that it is the single greatest piece of theme music ever.

American Made

Now that we have talked about the foreigners, let's discuss a home brewed concoction of history, baloney and Tom Cruise. "American Made" is the supposed true story of Barry Seal, who as a convicted drug smuggler negotiated a deal to assist the D.E.A. in in their investigations. The makers of this film, decide to splice the C.I.A., Iran-Contra and every president from Jimmy Carter up to George W. Bush into this story. I just hope that film goers recognize that Hollywood is a bad place to learn about history, even when it is a good place to make an engaging film.

All of the political material is nearly superfluous, since there is no real agenda in this movie other than to entertain us for a couple of hours.  The time line, characters and general insanity that take place are clearly the invention of creative minds rather than advocates with an agenda. In my opinion, this is the movie that "the Wolf of Wall Street" could have been if that film making crew had stuck to telling an interesting story instead of glorifying in excess and then pontificating at us. Director Doug Liman has the good fortune to have his personable con-man played by the personable Tom Cruise, who shakes off the unfortunate "Mummy" curse with a much more polished performance here.

The visions of excess here do not involve repeated episodes of drug use, sex and humiliation of other human beings. Rather, the situation attempts to lampoon the success of the drug trade by noting how problematic the issue of laundering the money would be. While there is one scene where Cruise as Seal gets covered in the imported product, he does not spend two thirds of the movie cranked up like Leonardo DiCapro. Instead, he is waist deep in cash and can't find a way to hide the money as fast as he is making it. The story plays out like a comedy version of a double episode of "Miami Vice". Seal and his wife argue over when he should rake up all the buried cash the dog has dug up. The town that he relocates to is flush with newly created financial institutions that seem to be serving a population of under 3000 with the kinds of banking services you'd find not too far off of Wall Street.

Domhnall Gleeson plays the imaginary C.I.A. recruiter who is supposed to have set Barry down the path to self destruction. He has a great American Accent, but not a very believable role. Sarah Wright plays the spouse of our gun running, drug smuggling, money laundering hero. I've not seen her before that I recall but she fits the part as written just fine. Caleb Landry Jones plays the misbegotten brother-in-law JB. Up to the point when his character exits the picture, the film plays like "Hogan's Heroes" set in Central America. The movie takes a nasty turn after that and you will find that the real life BarrySeal had real life consequences to his actions.

I was a little nonplussed at the inclusion of a sequence that seems to have been taken from last year's "Jack Reacher" film, also starring Cruise. I suppose the allure of Tom being so untouchable is just too much catnip to resist for film makers. I will however advise that they drop this soon to be Cruise Trope before the next "Mission Impossible". I don't think you want your Crown Jewel film franchise to be seen as cribbing from lesser works. Even if they are entertaining.

The Mummy (2017)

How is it we know that a movie is exceptional? One of the ways that we can reach such conclusions is by making comparisons to other films. A movie that is mundane will pale in comparison to something really strong. Excellence can therefore sometimes be measured by mediocrity. That's why we need films like "The Mummy", they show us how good films like "Wonder Woman" really are. I am not implying that this movie is bad, simply that it meets no standard for greatness except one, and that is the most obvious selling point for the film, it stars Tom Cruise.

I am probably a Cruise apologist. Of the forty plus movies he has made, only a handful have been clunkers. I would include his last film, "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"  in that handful of dismal efforts. This film is miles better than that weak sauce film from last year, but that does not make it great, it makes it average. Cruise as usual is winning in his role, in spite of the fact that his character is designed to be a thoughtless douche-bag who fails to follow orders as a soldier, steals from women and generally engages in the kind of archeological theft that Indiana Jones was accused of, without having any scholarly justifications for his actions. Tom just has charisma and it turns even vile characters into people we are willing to watch. As I said, this is the one big selling point of the movie. Cruise puts in as much effort as anyone can to try and bring this story to life.

The film is basically an action movie with a horror theme that needs to be a little more horrifying. There are a few creepy moments, like the camel spiders and rats that seem to be under the command of the villainess of the story. An ancient creature inadvertently raised from the dead and determined to bring the evil lord she made a pact with into the flesh, she has chosen Tom's character Nick, to be that vessel. So there is a monster and a curse but there are also stunning aerial stunts and chase sequences. With a half dozen jump scares that become progressively less effective, the film barely feels like a horror movie at all. Still it is mildly entertaining in creating a universe for these characters to exist in and providing a series of hoops for them to jump through.

A few of the things that make this movie passable include the two female leads. Sophia Boutella as the ancient princess returned to the world looks exotic enough and she grimaces well in conveying a sense of evil. Annabelle Wallis is sweet enough for us to sympathize with and hope the best for. Neither could carry the movie but they don't have to with Cruise in control and a scenery chewing middle aged matinee idol ready to turn into Mr. Hyde at any moment. Just like the pygmy zombies that were so fun in one of those Brendan Frasier Mummy movies, this update has something cool to sell it in the effects department. zombie crusaders. They are solid and they look especially creepy in the water.

A lot of people have been bad-mouthing the start of a new "Dark Universe" from Universal Studios, but everyone else in the film business has a steady supply of material to exploit and Universal is simply trying to keep up.  Their iconic monsters are laying around doing no one any good unless new stories are written for them, so the studio is following up. The paranormal team led by Dr. Jekyll, played by Russell Crowe may not be the Avengers, The Justice League or even Transformers, but hey can be entertaining if given a chance. I can't say this film is a bright start to that future of serialized stories, but it is not the failure that others would have you believe. This a a popcorn picture, disposable as any other fast food product of our consumer society. There is a place for romance novels in literature, hamburgers in dining circles and Fords in the car business. "The Mummy" reminds me of one of those mid-range sedans from Ford, it will get you where you are going but nobody will be bragging about the cool ride you showed up in.  You may look over at that Lincoln in the next theater, but if you have already driven it and know what a nice ride it is, watch this film. It will fill your two hours and remind you that it is just a car, and there is luxury out there that you can still aspire to.

Steven Spielberg Blogathon: Directing Actors

Steven Spielberg is rightly credited with being the most effective visualizer of stories working in the last forty years. He took a liability like a non-functioning mechanical shark and managed to create an extremely visceral film out of it. That "Jaws" works is largely a function of his ability to feel how a movie will play to an audience. He took the extra step when making that film, of shooting additional material in the pool of one of his collaborators, to get the audience reaction right. The opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a litany of visual and emotional elements from the Saturday serialized films of the Golden Age, but updated and intensified as only Spielberg has been able to manage. The brutality and honesty of the first half hour of "Saving Private Ryan" is a testament to being able to connect with an audience's emotions in the strongest possible ways. Plenty of horror films have been as graphic and disturbing, but none have carried the power of those horrifying images the way that this World War II film managed to do.

Many have criticized his sentimentality in visual language. "Warhorse" although successful has been savaged by some for the Spielberg palate of color, lighting and cinematography. Had the film been made by someone other than Spielberg, it would be seen as a piece of artistic achievement rather than a three handkerchief cash grab. Some pretty picky elements of "War of the Worlds" earned that film scorn from some, even as it delivers the kind of frenzied panic and fear that audiences had not experienced since "Jaws" thirty years before it. He was hammered again for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" for letting CGI and Shia LeBeof come between the fans of the series and the story being told. The same creative elements in "Minority Report", at least the visual ones, become a source of strife in other pictures. Like all artists, he cannot please every audience every time. There is one skill that he has managed to use consistently, without the same kind of criticism his visualization of a story sometimes gets. That talent is the directing of actors to excellence on the screen. Some of the finest performances over the last four decades have come from actors working with Steven Spielberg.

It is true that a talented actor can pull the weight of a movie on their shoulders and carry it for the audience, but they can only do that with a supportive director who knows what the story counts on. With young actors or inexperienced film actors, the role of the director is even more important. George Lucas has a great instinct for what looks good on screen. He can tell a story that will pull the audience in most of the time, but he does not seem to have the right touch with actors in the same way that Spielberg does. Martin Scorsese develops a troop of actors to work with and as they tune into him, they become more and more reflective of his sensibility. Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DeCaprio have worked with Scorsese on multiple projects. Spielberg has only one actor that he has featured in more than three films (Unless you are pretending that Crystal Skull does not exist). People may not realize it but Tom Hanks has only been directed by Spielberg three times in a starring part. To get a great performance out of a great actor is still difficult. There are plenty of pairings that did not pan out, but Spielberg manages to get actors in the right frame of mind, to give them the space to do their best work or maybe he just exerts enough control to stifle the actors excesses.

Casting and script are part of the process as well. I don't mean to suggest that Spielberg can magically turn a marginal performer into an Olivier, but he can make sure that the right actor is in the part and that their strengths are played to. A good example is Christopher Walken.

Walken is an actor loved for his eccentricities and quirks in delivery. He may be the most imitated actor around because his voice and mannerisms are so distinctive and therefore more easy to imitate. In "Catch Me If You Can" he gives an Academy Award nominated performance that is largely successful because the usual quirks are held to a minimum. Instead of being a cartoon, which is how he is usually used in movies, Walken is given a chance to be a real human being. His flaws are not overplayed and the natural way in which he interacts with the other performers is far different than, oh let's say, his three minutes in "Pulp Fiction". Spielberg knows what he wants from his actors and it appears from the product that he knows how to get it.

He is perhaps best known as a director of actors for his work with children. The main child performances in "E.T." are the source of this reputation. Henry Thomas is the lead, and he carries the movie, but he could not have done it without the help of a patient director. I recently watched Thomas's next film, "Cloak and Dagger" and while he is a good screen presence, he lacks the depth and naturalness that came from working with a knowledgeable actors director. It had to have helped the kids immensely to have shot the film in continuity so the kids always knew where they were in the story for their performances.  Christian Bale delivers an amazing child performance in "Empire of the Sun". Both of these young men are talented performers but it took Bale almost twenty more years to break thorough as a widely recognized acting powerhouse. Both of these films depend on the child performer to carry the picture. Unless you are cast because you are cute, hot or a well known commodity, it is hard to imagine a kid without a strong director being able to hold an audience in their hands.  

His one obvious failure in this area was with "Hook" which was filled with so many kids that most of them don't get a chance to have personality and those that do are burdened with the broadest kinds of direction possible. Maybe Charlie Korsmo was adequate in his role but the other kids ran over Spielberg with their quirks. On the other hand, the kids in "Jurassic Park" are excellent, and you will believe Haley Joel Osment is an android.


Spielberg has had the advantage of working with many established stars but it is the first time or novice performers that he has been able to get the most out of. First time stars Oprah Winfrey, Whoopie Goldberg, and journeyman actress Margaret Avery were nominated for the Academy Award in their first major roles. Directors get credit for so many things on the set that they may have little input on but the one thing they have the most control over is the casting and performance of the actors. Sometimes the director does get lucky. In the movie "Lincoln", Spielberg had had his heart set on Liam Neeson for the title role at first, but as time went on, minor differences emerged in how the two saw the character being portrayed. After the project was repeatedly put on hold Nesson bowed out. I have no doubt that he would have given a towering performance but when Daniel Day-Lewis is your fallback casting, and he is driven to make the character come to life, fortune has smiled on you.

I've not read enough to know how important Spielberg was to Day-Lewis' performance, but I do know they kept late hours and shared information and inspiration even in the middle of the night. It is an interesting piece of trivia to note that of the dozen actors Spielberg directed to Academy nominations, Daniel Day-Lewis is the only one to have actually won.

Tom Cruise made two appearances in Spielberg films as distraught fathers. He has to sell the characters demons and weaknesses in both films while also handling an incredibly physical performance in front of green screens and doing stunt work. If you compare his performances in "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds" to other roles in action films, there is a level of quality to those performances that certainly was enhanced by working with Spielberg. Nothing in "Oblivion" comes close to the anguish that Cruise displays when confronting the pre-crime scenario that John Anderson goes through as he confronts the man he believes took his child. Because this performance is buried in an action film it is easy to overlook the quality of work that the two of them achieved here.

 While all three leads in the movie "Jaws" were excellent, there are two performances that stand out. The flashy role and the greatest match of actor to part I can think of is the pairing of Robert Shaw with the character Quint. At least four sets of hands were on the script for the famous monologue, Spielberg knew what words mattered and enhanced the performance with camera work and sound design that makes that moment one of the essential film scenes ever.  The second performance is one that is often overlooked, Roy Scheider as Chief Brody is subtle and sometimes heartbreaking. Spielberg knows how long to let some of those moments linger in time. The dinner table scene is a wonderful example of the creativity that can come out when the director and the actor work together.

"...as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.”--Steven Spielberg

Edge of Tomorrow

There are haters out there who have it in for Tom Cruse. Something about his personal life, or his good looks, or his incredible career just sets people on edge for some reason. Well if you are in that class of people get ready for more reason to hate, because Tom Cruise has a new film that will piss you off because he is good in it and it is a big success. I don't know what the financial return will be but the accomplishment of the film is something to admire and the performance of Cruise will remind everyone that he is talented and as charismatic as all heck, despite the whatever personal baggage the haters want to make him carry.

In anticipation of the summer season, I heard people ho hum this movie. "Another Tom Cruise Action film" big whoop. I just looked at his list of recent films, of the last five which arrived since 2010, four were very solid and only one was a turkey. That's an .800 batting average. In the major leagues that puts you in the Hall of Fame. True, only one, the fourth Mission Impossible, will be a home run, but all of the others were solid singles or doubles. The guy has proven himself time and again and waiting for him to fail is a pastime that people should give up. I've heard the names of several actors who are up and coming, or were at one point, as the next Tom Cruise type. All of them are good actors with quality parts under their belts, but none is even close to the consistency and quality of Mr. Cruise.

Having outed myself as a Tom Cruise fan, let's talk about the movie. "Edge of Tomorrow" is a science fiction action flick. It's already sitting in my breadbasket with that description. It is also intelligent, fresh, and extremely well made. One thing it has going for it is that it is not a sequel and it does not lend itself well to serialization. It is a stand alone film that tries to do something somewhat original. Maybe that sounds strange since the movie has been described as "Groundhog Day" meets "Halo", but it sure feels original despite those comparisons. The science fiction gimmick that provides for the plot twist is original. The relationship between the two main characters is original. The performance of the star is original as well. Cruise plays craven rather than bold. He is cocksure but out of his depths and he makes some strong choices to show that. He starts off in what he sees as a position of power and quickly discovers his powerlessness. The terror in his eyes is real as his character Cage, is required to become something he has never been, a sincere and dedicated soldier. He overplays his P.R. creating hand and ends up on the front-line of an invasion of Europe, very similar to D-Day, on the 70th anniversary of that undertaking. He is the incompetent version of Tom Hanks in "Saving Private Ryan". It is only through an accident of battle that he acquires the ability to reset the day and live it over, hopefully changing things for the better.

Unlike "Groundhog Day", this repeated experience has nothing to do with his journey as a better man. That does happen but it is a by product rather than the purpose of the technique. Cage's real journey is one of victory over an invading force that threatens the planet. His "gift" is a stolen secret of the invaders that allows them to anticipate every action of the Earth forces because they have already experienced them before. Of course, if you start pulling too hard at the treads of any time travel story, you will start to find imperfections, the most successful of these stories work because you are too busy enjoying the events that worrying about timelines, logic and means becomes unimportant. "Edge of Tomorrow" manages to do that by surrounding the character with state of the art special effects, effective action sequences, and enough colorful characters to distract but not pull you away from the central plot. Rita Vrataski is the heroine of the Earth forces. She is known for leading them to their only victory in the war. Emily Blunt, in a departure from the characters she has played in a dozen movies I've seen, is a hardnosed battle weary figure, who does not suffer fools gladly, and Bill Cage is a fool at first. She turns out to be one of only two people in the world who know what is happening to Bill. She becomes his focus and his bane. The reset button on the time travel concept being his death. She sometimes seems to be a little too happy to hit that reset button. These two actors build a believable relationship in unbelievable circumstances.

The other soldiers in Cage's squad get just enough character to be distinctive and to give us some reason to care when they become part of the plot and not just background. Bill Paxton plays against type as the humorless tough Sargent that every military based film has ever had. Usually he is the craven soldier, faking bravado for his brothers in arms. Clearly he knows how to become a hard ass and in spite of his tough demeanor, his reactions create some of the humor in the film. Brendon Gleeson is equally without humor, and it is easy to see how men like Sgt. Farrell and General Brigham would despise Major Cage and are all to happy to see him put on the front lines, knowing he will die almost immediately. The Major Sargent and the General are military professionals engaged in a serious endeavor, Cage is play acting at being an officer and undermines the cause. They become obstacles themselves to winning the war because they have been exposed to the creature that Cage was once. Only Rita sees a new man every time she encounters him. It is a strange relationship that the two have to navigate as they become close and understand one another, only to be forced to start over again and again.

When the film first came on my radar, it was known by the title of the manga book that it is based on, "All You Need is Kill". That is a great title and I thought that changing it reflected a lack of confidence in the material and the audience. "Edge of Tomorrow" sound nondescript by comparison. As I watched the film however, I realized that the title really does reflect the theme of the movie more that the original. It is a clever recognition of the time element in the story and the dangerous situation the characters face. Sometimes the marketing department has a good idea, and when that happens they should get credit. I also love the tagline on the publicity material. The shampoo like directions "Live. Die. Repeat." contains enough of the concept to make it intriguing and the movie does that really well. You wo't feel the repeat sections with discomfort because they are subtlety changed at first then they are truncated and finally they become mere punctuation points to the story.

The action sequences looked amazing and they might be even better in the 3D format that the movie is being pushed in. We saw a regular screening and the shaky cam during the battle could be vomit inducing so in 3D it is probably more so. I liked that this is an alien invasion movie that is not all about showing us the destruction of buildings and mass deaths. Those are implied by some of the scenery and backgrounds, but the movie, while having some dramatic battle scenes is not really focused on destruction as much as it is focused on a pretty creative idea. The stars do a good job portraying their characters, and the big star, fills the screen with his presence and shows that Tom Cruise is still a force to be reckoned with.