Action

Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation: Keep Hold of That Plane, and Your Breath

Jeremy BeckReviews
Tom Cruise keeps on trucking in "Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation"

Just what is the Rogue Nation, anyway? Is it the Syndicate, a group of presumed-dead spies working covertly to kill or corrupt fellow agents across the globe? Is it the IMF (that’s “Impossible Mission Force”, not “International Monetary Fund”), a disgraced organization that operates without oversight and that has come under legislative fire for its “wanton brinksmanship”? Or could it be the Mission: Impossible franchise itself, a series of supremely entertaining smashes that exhibit no interest in playing by industry rules? In an era of world-building and synthesis—of movies meshing with TV and of Batman battling Superman—these films are largely self-contained, eschewing continuity in favor of methodical reinvention and authorial vision. (Each installment has been helmed by a new director.) Models of energy, style, and craft, the Mission: Impossible movies don’t care about building a world; they just want to astonish an audience.

And does Rogue Nation ever do that. The fifth and flashiest entry in the Mission: Impossible series, Rogue Nation is a fleet and exhilarating affair, dazzling viewers with gripping stunt work and expertly conceived set pieces. To complain that it elevates action over story is to miss the point. Here, the action is the story. Each crackerjack chase sequence, each audacious stunt, each close-quarters combat scene—all are executed with the rigor and thoughtfulness typically reserved for screenwriting. When two men in this movie trade blows while cartwheeling along a rafter beam hundreds of feet in the air, you aren’t just taking in an obligatory fight scene. You’re watching art. Read More

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Jurassic World: Fleeing from the Past, All Over Again

Jeremy BeckReviews
Chris Pratt attempts to tame velociraptors in "Jurassic World"

A giant looms over the tourists of Jurassic World, a towering figure that casts a long, dark shadow. But it is not a dinosaur. It is, rather, the specter of Steven Spielberg and the lingering greatness of the original Jurassic Park. One score and two years ago, our forefather of blockbuster filmmaking brought forth into multiplexes a new species of movie, a thrilling adventure of CGI-assisted wonder. But as striking and terrifying as certain moments of Jurassic Park were—the sight of water rippling from a faraway impact, the reveal that a reassuring hand is attached to a severed arm, that iconic warning that “objects in mirror are closer than they appear”—what made it truly special was its intimacy. Spielberg makes movies about fantastical creatures and aliens with an inimitably human touch, and in Jurassic Park, he made us care about the people he was terrorizing, from Sam Neill’s wary paleontologist to Richard Attenborough’s hubristic businessman to (most memorably) Jeff Goldblum’s cynical mathematician. It is not hyperbole to suggest that every effects-laden studio production released since 1993 has measured itself, at least in part, against the staggering triumph of Jurassic Park.

Jurassic World, the fourth and not-at-all-bad installment in the dino franchise, never entirely evades the yawning shadow cast by its primogenitor. But this is less a failure of imagination than a consequence of evolution. The world has changed. We now demand increasingly bigger amazements from our summer blockbusters, to the point where it’s difficult to cram emotional texture or narrative depth into a product already bulging with action and spectacle. Or, as one character puts it: “No one’s impressed by a dinosaur anymore.” I beg to differ, and as evidence, I need look no further than Jurassic World. This movie, which was directed by Colin Trevorrow from a screenplay he wrote with three others, may lack certain filmmaking fundamentals—plotting, character development, halfway-decent dialogue—but it is damn impressive. Read More

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Mad Max: Fury Road: On the Dusty Road, with Revved-up Engines

Jeremy BeckReviews
Tom Hardy stars in George Miller's explosive "Mad Max: Fury Road"

At various points in Mad Max: Fury Road—George Miller’s outlandish, unpretentious, frequently glorious action epic—an electric guitar suddenly reverberates on the soundtrack. It’s a playful sonic touch, but the musicality of the riff is beside the point; the real story is that the composer, Tom Holkenborg (credited here as Junkie XL), seems to be taking his cues from an actual character in the film, a red-clad, masked musician armed with the biggest double-neck six-string you’ve ever seen. Credited as Coma-Doof Warrior or the Doof Warrior (and played by the Australian instrumentalist iOTA), whenever he slashes his right arm across the strings, not only do bolts of noise blare on the soundtrack, but giant flames shoot out of the guitar’s headstock. And if that isn’t enough, the Doof Warrior spends his entire time riding on the roof of a massive 18-wheeler (the Doof Wagon, naturally) that’s barreling at top speed through the Australian Outback.

The Doof Warrior, the movie's grandest flourish

The Doof Warrior is the most memorable thing about Mad Max: Fury Road, but he is also the embodiment of its zany, carefree spirit. This is, after all, a movie that features a host of pursuing ATVs adorned with bristling spikes, resembling a motorized prickle of mutant porcupines. When bald, emaciated underlings aren’t sailing through the air on tall pieces of wood like demented pole-vaulters, they’re scrambling onto the hoods of speeding cars and spitting gasoline into open engines. Big rigs crash into one another, characters leap from vehicle to vehicle, and everything always seems to be on fire. (It’s hardly surprising that Verdi’s iconic “Requiem” figures prominently on the soundtrack.) Yet as crazed as Fury Road is, it is also lovingly intimate, the work of a director who cares deeply about his fictional dystopia. Miller may paint on an enormous, chaotic canvas, but he’s still an artist. Read More

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Jupiter Ascending: Mila Kunis Is a Queen, Channing Tatum Has Cool Boots

Jeremy BeckReviews
Mila Kunis heads off to space in the Wachowskis' "Jupiter Ascending"

You have to hand it to Andy and Lana Wachowski: They don’t do things halfway. The Matrix was a heroic work of maniacal vision, but even their lesser movies, like the vibrantly colorful Speed Racer and the cockamamie, sporadically delightful Cloud Atlas (which they co-directed with Tom Tykwer) felt like products of artistic aspiration rather than dutiful commercialism. Now they return with Jupiter Ascending, a grandiloquent space opera that attempts to fuse the galaxy-trotting mythology of Star Wars with the familial treachery of Shakespeare. It is a labor of love, with emphasis on the labor. Like all of the Wachowskis’ films (with the exception of their first feature, the taut, terrific crime thriller Bound), this one strains for greatness; unlike their early catalog, it is ultimately weighed down by its own leaden seriousness. An enormously ambitious undertaking, Jupiter Ascending glistens with flop sweat, and you can sense the frantic desperation of its creators. It’s a valiant effort, which is another way of calling it a noble failure.

Not a typical one, though. There is far too much visual splendor and painstaking world-building on display here to dismiss Jupiter Ascending as yet another trifling, noisy, wannabe franchise-starter. After a ludicrous prologue set in Russia, we begin on a faraway planet, where Kalique and Titus Abrasax (Tuppence Middleton and Douglas Booth), two royal siblings dressed in finery, talk idly about the colonization of distant worlds. They are interrupted by their elder brother, Balem (a campy, scenery-munching Eddie Redmayne), who appears suddenly by stepping through a shimmering void in the air. The three speak in the thin politeness that masks bitter jealousy, and their social hierarchy is made clear when Titus casually asks Balem if he might consider parting with one of his more valuable properties. “What’s it called? Earth?” Read More

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Kingsman: The Secret Service—Making Violence and Stupidity Look Cool

Jeremy BeckReviews
Colin Firth tutors Taron Egerton in "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

The centerpiece of Kingsman: The Secret Service, a happily idiotic action comedy from Matthew Vaughn, takes place in a Kentucky church. As a bigoted preacher spouts fiery rhetoric to his eagerly racist flock—including an undercover spy played by Colin Firth—an invisible toxin is released, infecting everyone in the pews with a bloodthirsty savagery. For the next five minutes, the church turns into a carnival of death, with the parishioners murdering one another with any and all weapons available (guns, knives, grenades, organ pipes), until only Firth’s impeccably dressed secret agent is left standing. It’s a sequence that sounds nightmarish, but it plays almost like a musical number, with limber choreography and a rollicking tempo. All that’s missing is the “applause” button.

Welcome to the world of comic-book writer Mark Millar, an execrable place of severed limbs, exploding heads, and casual misogyny. It’s the kind of cinematic universe where the hero saves the world, then rewards himself by having anal sex with a Scandinavian princess. Cool, right? OK, maybe not. Yet as loathsome as Millar’s worldview may be, adaptations of his work can at least carry a certain charge, even if it’s not the provocative kind that Millar would wish. That’s especially true when the man doing the adapting is Vaughn, a nimble and fast-moving filmmaker whose fleetness allows him to faithfully recreate Millar’s orgies of revulsion without lingering over their repellent implications. Take that scene in the church. From any sane perspective, it is thoroughly grotesque. But Vaughn stages the horrific spectacle with such alacrity and flair that, as the camera swoops and soars and the blood spurts everywhere, you may find yourself tapping your foot to the rhythmic slashing of arms and the symphonic spray of bullets. Read More

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