Category: Marc’s Reviews

THE KING’S SPEECH

By Marc S. Sanders

A man can carry the title of Duke Of York, but that doesn’t make him a super man.  After all, he is just a man like any other, and he can possess annoying hinderances like a stammer for example.  However, when you are part of the Royal Family with a historical lineage of thousands and thousands of years, celebrated and honored in majestic paintings and medals, the inconvenience is never acceptable. 

Colin Firth is Prince Albert George (and forgive me but he has assumed two or three other first names as his birthright that I can not recall.  Phillip, as well I think).  The King’s Speech opens when Albert has been tasked by his father, the King of England, to deliver a speech at Wembley Stadium.  Director Tom Hooper never made a small staircase, a microphone or an audience appear so fearful.  As Albert addresses the crowd, the words do not come out and the only one who can lovingly empathize with him is his devoted wife Elizabeth (Helana Bonham Carter).  The archbishop (Derek Jacobi) puts his head down in disappointment along with all the other formally attired spectators.  It’s a heartbreaking beginning of a story for a well-dressed crippled hero.

Following advisors and doctors who offer ridiculous remedies that allow no alleviation, Elizabeth finally finds an Australian speech therapist who just might be the best last resort for her husband.  Albert is stubbornly reluctant to visit with Dr. Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) who insists that their sessions occur in his office.  Albert does not like that he will also not be addressed formally by Dr. Logue.  Lionel will call him Bertie. 

An unorthodox approach, at least for royalty, is what Lionel insists will aid Bertie.  It is certainly better than his doctor’s recommendation of smoking cigarettes directly into his lungs.  Bertie will lie and roll on the floor.  He’ll hum and bellow unusual noises.  He’ll have to loosen up his physique and even allow Elizabeth to sit on his belly to help him with breathing exercises while working his diaphragm.  The art of swearing is especially helpful.

An interesting fact that Lionel shares with Bertie is that no infant is born with a stammer.  It develops from another source.  Perhaps it is abuse or neglect as a child.  When you are a child of royalty you are not necessarily loved directly by your parents.  A nanny is likely closer to you; maybe even more abusive. 

The King (Michael Gambon) is respected by Bertie, but he is fearful of the future of his monarchy.  The older son, David (Guy Pearce) is next in line to assume the throne, but he is an immature bedhopping playboy, and the threats of Hitler and Stalin are becoming more prominent.  The King begins prepping his Albert by insisting he deliver radio addresses.  The father is not the encouraging type, though.  His disdainful demands are not the cure for Albert’s debilitation.

The King’s Speech advances a couple years during the 1930’s towards the precursors ahead of World War II.  The King has died.  David is behaving just as expected and Albert still suffers with his ability to speak, but Lionel has therapeutically made advances with his student and friend.  He just can’t lose his student.  Otherwise, Bertie will not overcome.

The film’s strength relies on a solid friendship that develops between a common civilian and a man of Royalty.  Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth work marvelously together.  They are very different personalities with backgrounds that could not be more apart from each other.  The chemistry is a beautiful duet of dialogue from an Oscar winning script from David Seidler. This was Seidler’s first script he ever wrote at the age of eighty. 

The entirety of the picture has a set design from Eve Stuart and Judy Farr that is absolutely grand.  Every room of the palace has the most beautiful furnishings and wallpaper designs.  Tom Hooper uses wide distant lens’ that show the enormities of each room of the castle as well as Prince Albert’s home.  Sometimes he shoots from the floor above, pointing his camera at Albert and Elizabeth.  The majesty of royalty looks down upon the Prince and his speech impediment.  It’s an absorbing setting for the film.  Exterior shots also look authentic with the cars and the dreary coldness of the country and London cobblestones.  I love the hardwood floors that the characters walk upon in the picture, particularly in Lionel’s office.  The resonances of their dress shoes speak more clearly than the Prince. It all seems to echo the overwhelming conflict that our protagonist must overcome, and Colin Firth is terrific at demonstrating his frustrated insecurities.  It’s an Oscar winning performance not only earned for the well-timed stammer but also the mournful facial expressions that are caught in close ups.

The triumphant moment at the end of the film occurs after Albert has succeeded the throne from his incapable brother. He is obligated to address his country in a world-famous speech that eventually brought a defiant England into the second world war to fight off Hitler’s undoubted tyranny.  Tom Hooper’s camera follows a strong hearted, yet nervous Colin Firth walk from one room of the palace to the next until he finally reaches the small makeshift studio where his friend Lionel accompanies him to offer assurance as he speaks to his people and allies across the seas.  I don’t simply see a coach or one who lends confidence.  I see a friend working with another friend.  Again, Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth make a wonderful pair in a long line of cinematic mentors and their students.

As history has taught us, the King’s speech was simply the beginning of a very dark and bloody experience.  The speech itself became a success, but the real challenge was yet to come.  However, confidence is what allowed a generation to survive.  The irony of The King’s Speech is that the hero a people needed lacked confidence in himself.  By the end of this picture, he is sending his faith, his trust, and his own assurance over to his constituents, who needed it the most in spite of a hindering stammer.  It’s a doubly blessed occasion that a lifelong friendship formed out of a troubling time.

FIELD OF DREAMS

By Marc S. Sanders

Fantasy can be a real challenge.  The audience must convincingly accept what could never possibly be real.  The Wizard Of Oz from 1939 will always be the best of all fantasy films.  The most visually significant element was bookending the film in black and white, with illuminating color in the center for the Land of Oz to come to life.  You feel transported.

Phil Alden Robinson’s screen adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s novel, Shoeless Joe, had a big challenge.  The film became known as Field Of Dreams.  How would any of us believe that an Iowa corn crop farmer hears voices and gets the inspiration to throw all common sense out the window and build a baseball field in the middle of his property?  It’s absurd.  Maybe only Kevin Costner, a modern-day innocent Jimmy Stewart of the time in the late 1980s, would convince any of us that this is something that needs to be accomplished.  Robinson’s script offers no logic that any of this should be done.  Re-watching the film, I was still skeptical of accepting the outrageousness.  Then again this is Kevin Costner in his mid-thirties with a toothy grin on his face, chestnut hair, beat up jeans, and an adorable 8-year-old Gaby Hoffman for a daughter and a spitfire Amy Madigan for a wife.  I can’t explain it any more than Ray can explain to his wife why he needs to tear down acres and acres of valuable crops for a baseball field that’ll run him into enormous debt. You just gotta roll with it, I guess, even if your suspension of disbelief isn’t there. 

Thankfully, the authenticity of the fantasy welcomes itself as Field Of Dreams moves on. 

Costner plays Ray Kinsella who had a very estranged relationship with his father who only briefly played in the minor leagues before aging quickly and working himself towards a premature death.  Ray went on to Berkeley in the ‘60s and got caught up in the hippie movement leaving his father’s baseball heroes of Ty Cobb, Rusty Miller and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson behind. 

After Ray builds the beautiful field and waits months and months for something, anything, to happen, the ghost of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, (Ray Liotta) donned in his White Sox uniform, appears.  Jackson was part of the infamous Black Sox scandal and was denied of ever playing professional baseball again, following being caught accepting bribes to fix games with seven other teammates.  Ray spends the evening with Joe pitching and fielding together.  Now, whatever hasn’t made sense to the viewer suddenly presents some light on this outrageous feat we’ve been witnessing.  Dorothy has met the Scarecrow.

Ray has dreams to find a recluse author named Terance Mann (a superb James Earl Jones who should’ve gotten an Oscar nomination; just an astonishing actor).  Later, he meets a ball player who only played one inning in the major leagues, Archie “Moonlight” Graham – portrayed charmingly by an elderly Burt Lancaster and a spry Frank Whaley.  How they both play the role is a surprise I’ll withhold from this write up.

I share this summary because Field Of Dreams improves itself as it progresses.  The ghosts, the fantasy, and the sheer nerve that Robinson (director and writer) grants to Costner and the cast send you into the imaginary.  You’ll be twenty minutes into the picture and ready to give up.  Thankfully, the storyteller who made the film introduces something unworldly that encourages us to learn more and more.  That’s what happens every time you watch The Wizard Of Oz.  Not just the color, but the décor and strangely adorable munchkins draw you in with curiosity and you want to discover more about this place you’ve never visited before. 

With Field Of Dreams, you don’t have to know anything about baseball.  What you need to understand is that people of a past enter Ray’s life when he never expected them. Now, he’s destined to aid them in fulfilling what they were denied of during a time gone by. 

We all wish to take advantage of our dreams gone by.  Fantasy makes that possible.

Perhaps Ray Kinsella was denied an experience, as well.  You’ll have to watch Field Of Dreams to find out.

THE ROAD WARRIOR

By Marc S. Sanders

An Australian post-apocalyptic desert wasteland is the setting of George Miller’s B movie classic The Road Warrior.  It’s a film deliberately short on depth, but big on mash ‘em up, bash ‘em up high-speed hot rods, muscle cars, motorcycles and one big rig truck.

Mel Gibson returns as Mad Max, the leather wearing drifter driver who patrols the endless roads.  A brief narrative at the beginning recaps some of the events of Miller’s first film in this series, Mad Max, explaining that the governments worked against one another, riots ensued, and a nuclear holocaust left little of the population to survive with a shortage on the most precious commodity, fuel.  Max was a policeman whose wife and child were slaughtered by the way, but that’s not relevant here.

The center of the film focuses on a small community of people dwelling in maybe the last known functioning oil refinery.  However, barbarians led by The Humungous (Kjell Nillson) who wears a hockey mask and S & M straps over his bare body are intent on taking over the precious area.  The Humungous’ second in command is a red mohawked freak named Wez (Vernon Wells).  Everyone else in the gang is dressed in the same thematic sex play costume wear with their ass cheeks on display. 

Following some episodes of havoc, Max, along with his dog named Dog, form a contract with the oil refinery dwellers to get the big rig, fuel it up and attach it to a tanker for a journey across the wasteland towards a paradise of ocean blue oasis.

Max has sixteen lines in the whole film.  I’ve expounded on this movie more than he ever could.  In fact, Dog has more dialogue. George Miller knew he wasn’t writing anything of multi dimension or fleshed out characterizations.  You can hardly understand anything that The Humongous has to say or bellow.  It doesn’t matter.

What’s important is the demolition derby footage contained in The Road Warrior.  It’s thrilling.  Bodies get bashed by metal and caught in barbed wire.  Explosions go off in huge fireballs against a scorching sun.  Max fires his sawed-off shotgun at these gonzo gangsters.  They fire crossbow arrows in return.  Some of them use inventive gladiator kinds of weapons with sharp blades and spikes. 

Miller’s frames per second accelerate the various chases.  Multiple collisions end up in a sand dune or turning someone’s ugly sunburned face into hamburger.  The editing of these scenes is magnificent.  Every crash is pieced together cohesively.  Zoom in close ups are spectacularly orchestrated and the cinematography holds up for welcome daylight action where you can easily make out who is who and what is where. 

The inventions of these junk machine jalopies are quite fun too.  Syd from Toy Story must have taken inspiration from this movie when he assembled his freakazoid toys that tormented poor Woody.  Other than Max’s black muscle car and some motorbikes, everything else looks drilled and fused together for relentless mayhem.  Sedans, SUVs, and station wagons would never survive.

George Miller’s world may seem a little prophetic these days.  It’s not that there’s such a rarity of gas, but the need among the masses to hoard fuel is there considering the inevitable price hikes spread around the globe.  Oil will always be a precious dependent.  Environmentalists, I feel for your crusade but be damned. Oil powers so much in and out of this planet.  Electric cars and the few power-up stations are not the dominant alternative yet and won’t be for a while.  Their longevity has not been proven.  Even the disposal of their expired parts has not yet been considered.  So don’t hate me Elon Musk.  I’ll happily eat my words one day, though, I’m sure.

As thin as the storyline may be, George Miller created this dystopian era for Mad Max to drift through and I commend the imagination of the MacGuffin.  Oil is what we rely on, and the setting of The Road Warrior may not be so far-fetched if it ever came to be that we were short on it.  However, I’m not running out to get my masochistic leather body armor just yet.

Wez, The Humungous and their bandit barbarian warlords may be fearless nut jobs, but I get their motivation.  You never know when rush hour may rear its ugly head in a post-apocalyptic age.  So, you better fuel up your Harley, BMW and Toyota because the boss is still gonna want you sitting at your desk by nine.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974)

By Marc S. Sanders

When considering Sidney Lumet’s admirable body of work, many would likely connect him with covering corruption within police precincts and the legal jargon of courtrooms.  Fortunately, on occasion, he experimented outside of those genres, and we are all the better cinematic viewers because we were treated to an all-star cast, devouring up the scenery in an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s celebrated mystery Murder On The Orient Express.

Lumet abandons his penchant for the metropolitan jungles of conflicted souls and high stakes drama to offer up a deliciously fun who done it, with Albert Finney gleefully playing the oddball, mustached Belgian (not French) detective, Hercule Poirot.  Despite a cast that features Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Jacqueline Bisset, Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Balsam, Richard Widmark, Michael York, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, and an Oscar winning performance from Ingrid Bergman, it is Albert Finney who makes the film wonderfully delightful.  His stature that seemingly hides his neck within his stout torso, along with a shoe polished, flattened hairstyle and a thick, echoing dialect tempo are an absolute combination of pleasure.  He makes the glossary of Tim Burton’s bizarre characters seem rather straightlaced.

He’s strange, but funny.  Before the expected murder gets underway, we observe an unrecognizable Finney performing Poirot’s nightly routines, including applying cream to his hands and unique mustache, as well as donning a kind of strap beneath his nose to keep his signature trait in its proper shape.  Batman maintains care of his cowl.  This crime fighter must preserve his facial hair.  It’s completely normal for Hercule.  While these mundane tasks of his are executed, the great inspector is also alert to several rumblings and bustles going on in the nearby cabins aboard the famous train in the title. Lumet ensures we see how smart and observant Mr. Finney chooses to portray Poirot; unique, and instinctively wise without limits.

An impolite and bossy man named Ratchett (Widmark) is discovered dead with multiple stab wounds to the chest.  It doesn’t make much sense considering the other passengers should all be complete strangers to one another.  Or are they?  Each one has an alibi, and their respective personalities couldn’t be more different.  Who would have the motive to kill a stranger aboard a moving train?

There appear to be twelve suspects for Poirot to consider.  That’s quite a list.  The standouts for me include Bergman, Bacall, and Perkins, but Lumet allows at least a scene or two for each celebrated actor to shine.

Ingrid Bergman dresses down to portray a shy, nervous, homely Swedish woman.  Sidney Lumet knows to back off on directing inventions when working with talent of such magnitude.  In one uncut take, Bergman controls an interrogation scene with Poirot and the camera stays fixed on her never diverting away and very subtly tracking behind Finney to stay with the actress’ nervous portrayal and expression.  The question is, should we trust this person? If Ingrid Bergman is putting on a façade, she’s awfully good at it.

Lauren Bacall carries such a strength on screen.  She walks with square shoulders and utter confidence that makes it seem like she’ll be impenetrable to Poirot’s inquiries.  Bacall’s booming signature voice would make me back down at any given moment.  She commands the supporting cast and appears to defy intimidation.

This film was made fourteen years after Psycho and yet Anthony Perkins portrays Mr. McQueen, a secretary of the murder victim, with youthful naïveté.  His stutter is perfectly timed and authentic, and he’s got body language that flails from one direction to the next when put to the test, not just by scenes he shares with Albert Finney, but anyone else in the cast as well.  His character is clearly unrelaxed.

I decided to watch this picture for reference.  In September of this year, I will be portraying Hercule Poirot in a stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s story, written by Ken Ludwig.  My colleague Miguel Rodriguez is in the production as well, occupying Martin Balsam’s role.  They’re brilliant with magnificent energy by the way; Balsam and Rodriguez.  I had to watch Lumet’s film twice to appreciate the gleeful nuances he offers with this celebrated cast, including the actual train which serves as not only a claustrophobic setting but a character as well, stuck in a snowdrift, trapping the guilty party with no means to escape.  The dialogue flies fast and many of the various accents (Belgian, Russian, Scottish, Italian, Swedish, Hungarian) are challenging to decipher on a first watch, particularly Finney’s performance.

On a second watch, I was more wide-eyed to the detective’s behavior and how he breaks down a suspect during an interrogation.  No two interviews of suspects are even remotely similar.  Finney alters his way of approaching a scene partner each time.  I’ll credit the screenplay’s dialogue from Paul Dehn for that achievement as well. 

When a cabin door is opened to reveal the deceased victim, Finney’s odd mannerisms drastically change as he enters the room knowing what to say and look for immediately.  Sidney Lumet characteristically will position his camera pointing up at his actors, so the audience is the perspective of the subject being looked upon.  Albert Finney is gifted a wide scope within a narrow quarter to react as the famed detective.  This filming technique was an inspired choice by the director. Hercule Poirot is built up to be the foremost detective and now we see him demonstrating his specialty for examining a crime scene, and thus where to begin with his examination.  Albert Finney received an Oscar nomination for this role and it’s because of the skills he orchestrates under a guise of heavy makeup with a thick incomprehensible dialect.  All are meant to be taken as winning compliments from me.

The art design of the train is breathtaking.  The exteriors are magnificent too, particularly the train station located in Istanbul where the Turkish merchants crowd each cast member as they enter the film for the first time ready to board the Orient Express.  In one spot, a steward is inspecting the food cargo.  Another area has a merchant spilling over a carriage of oranges.  Locals crowd Bacall, Bissett and York with trinkets to buy.  Lumet captures the whole exotic tapestry.

Richard Rodney Bennett’s musical score is unforgettable.  A sweeping, romantically uplifting waltz accompanies the locomotive’s ongoing trajectory.  Then it gets more brooding when the journey comes to an unexpected halt in a chilling snowdrift, with the thought of a dangerous killer nearby.

Sidney Lumet is to be applauded for stepping back to allow his who’s who of legendary cast members play with Agatha Christie’s famous mystery.  He’s done this on other occasions including his outstanding cast in Network and Paul Newman’s career best performance in The Verdict. 

Those who are not familiar with the Agatha Christie’s tale are fortunate to experience the wonderfully twisted ending that serves the story’s continued appreciation.  Lumet deserves credit for the final touch though.  It’s not often that a film boasts such a collected caliber of talent together.  So, the best way to cap it off is with a charmingly giddy champagne toast.  It’s Sidney Lumet’s perfect little garnish to wrap one of greatest literary mysteries to ever be published and adapted for the stage and screen.

OPPENHEIMER

By Marc S. Sanders

Christopher Nolan is one of the modern-day directors that you can rely on for brainy science fiction whether they are in embedded in dream subconsciousness, intergalactic space travel, transcendences of time, or even putting a fresh polish on a favorite superhero.  With Oppenheimer, he triumphs with exploring the actual prophets of science in the twentieth century, particularly its title character J Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist played convincingly well by Cillian Murphy.  Nolan doesn’t just stop at the assembly and discovery of science though.  He uncovers the consequences of Oppenheimer’s innovation and genius insight.  Dr. Oppenheimer might have been the man who knew too much and arguably that cost him quite a bit, personally.  Additionally, the so-called lab rat of his atomic bomb, namely the planet Earth, suffered the expense of a, at the time, troubling present day, and a still ongoing future. 

This movie seems to start right in the middle of its story and as a viewer you need to claw your way through the dense foliage to find its beginnings and what comes afterwards.  The first two scenes of the movie are titled “Fission” and “Fusion.”  There are no time periods specified by a font caption, however.  The differences in various points in history are distinguished by where J Robert Oppenheimer is located during select points in his life.  For seconds at a time, the film will change its photography from vibrant color to black and white, for example.  The characters will either look more aged with grey hair and some wrinkles or during more youthful time in their lives.  At one point Oppenheimer is being recruited by Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr) to head the department of a new kind of weapon development.  Work the science to make a difference.  There’s another time period where he’s being interrogated in a small room by a governmental suit and tie committee.  Oppenheimer is also in his classroom or debating and working with colleagues.  Another story observes his progress with building the atomic bomb among a collection of other engineers and scientists in a desert town, Los Alamos, specifically built at his own request, under the order of the nothing but militant Colonel Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), to conduct his work and research while hiding in plain sight. 

The film also covers Oppenheimer’s association with possible suspects of the Communist Party during the stressful pre-cold war era of McCarthyism.  Questions arise if his reliable brother Frank (Dylan Arnold) is a communist or even his mistress (Florence Pugh).  Does that in turn make Oppenheimer a communist as well?  If that is the case is J Robert Oppenheimer, the man tasked with ultimately ending World War II in favor of the Allies, sharing secrets with Russia and/or the Communist Party?

Nolan’s film gets easier to watch as it moves along, but you must get used to his pattern of filmmaking.  If you have never seen a Christopher Nolan film, I do not recommend you start with Oppenheimer.  His work is recognized for fast paced edits of different time periods and conversations.  There is much information to decipher. As well, there’s a very large collection of welcome characters to sort through, who worked with or against Oppenheimer.  Having only seen it once, I was captivated with the picture, but I know that I need to see it again.  The quick edits, working beautifully against the soundtrack orchestrations of Ludwig Göransson (nominate him for an Oscar, please), happen a mile a minute.  I appreciated this method because it enhanced the urgency of Dr. Oppenheimer in the eyes of the world, first as the savior of the united Allies against the last remaining superpower of the Axis countries, Japan. Then later focus is on whether it is in the United States’ best interests for the regarded physicist to have security access to the country’s most secret weapons and technological progress in a post war age.

People have been cajoling about how they know the ending to Oppenheimer.  They drop the bomb, of course!  (Twice actually.)  However, they do not know the entire story adaptation that Christopher Nolan as director and screenwriter presents. 

Cillian Murphy is perfectly cast. Give him an Oscar nomination.  He serves the confident, assured scientific leader who becomes envious of competing powers who achieve the impossible, like splitting the atom, while also admiring peers and mentors like Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein (Kenneth Branagh, Tom Conti).  All these men are interested only in what can be accomplished.  The superpowers that fight in war, though, are interested in how these accomplishments of modern science can be used to their advantage at a cost of collateral damage.  It is these conflicts of interests that Nolan admirably demonstrates over the course of the film. 

A telling scene for me, that I won’t forget, is when Robert Oppenheimer meets Harry Truman (Gary Oldman, doing an unforgettable cameo).  As the physicist exits the Oval Office, having shared his concerns and scruples with the Commander in Chief, Nolan includes a throwaway line delivered by the President, that I won’t soon forget.  It will not be spoiled, here.  Yet, the dialogue speaks volumes of what the United States held important regarding the servants who did the country’s bidding.  The scene closes like a stab in the heart, and suddenly science is no longer just facts within our planet.  Science is now questioned on whether it should ever be acted upon. Those questions certainly have remained as long as I’ve been alive to read about our never-ending world climate.  These inquiries will be here for many generations after I’m gone as well; that is if men and women’s recklessness with science doesn’t destroy the Earth before then.  At one point, Oppenheimer shares a small fraction of possibility for the end of the world when they activate and test their first atomic bomb. Matt Damon’s Colonel Groves’ asks for a reiteration of that observation.  Is this finding worth even the smallest, most minute risk?

Emily Blunt portrays Kitty Oppenheimer.  She’s marvelous as a lonely alcoholic wife to Robert, and a mother minding a home built in the desert while her husband serves an important purpose.  I didn’t take to her presence in the film until her grand moment arrives during an interrogation scene.  As the character gives her testimony regarding Oppenheimer’s communist ties, Blunt locks herself in for a wealth of awards in late 2023/early 2024.  Once you’ve watched the movie, you’ll likely know which scene I’m referring to and you can bet it’ll be that sample clip shown on all the awards programs.  This might not be Blunt’s best role, because it is rather limited within crux of the film, but I’d argue it is her greatest scene on film that I can remember.

Oppenheimer is a three-hour film, and it demands its running time.  There are so many angles to the man that few really know about.  Many know it was he who instrumentally built the atomic bomb that to date has only been used twice within a period of four days.  Thankfully never since.  Nolan emphasizes how unaware we are of how carefree the doctor’s government supervisors performed with the weapon he agreed to build.  Don’t just drop the bomb once.  Send a message to Japan by dropping it twice so they know to no longer engage in this ongoing war.  Choose the area where an army/government official didn’t honeymoon though.  It’s too beautiful a region.  Tens of thousands of men, women and child civilians perished immediately following the strikes.  Many others died weeks later following exposure to the nuclear effects that followed.  All issued as a horrifying cost to end a war that was already being won now that Hitler was dead.

Mechanically, Christopher Nolan does not disappoint either.  I watched Oppenheimer in a Dolby theater and I highly recommend it over a traditional one.  However, beware of the sound.  It is a LOUD!!!!!  Your seat will rattle early in the film when Cillian Murphy is shown in close up imagining the collision of atoms, protons, and neutrons.  How a star naturally dies in space runs through Oppenheimer’s consciousness as well, and then we see how a black hole forms.  Nolan offers a Cliff’s Notes edit of science doing its job.  Murphy performs so well when he’s not speaking and cut against the quick edits of Nolan’s visual and sound effects of science at play.  It shows how an educated scientist thinks beyond what is documented on a chalkboard or in a textbook.  J Robert Oppenheimer used to teach about the building blocks and natural destruction that occurs within the universe.  Regrettably, what he learned about natural function soon becomes manufactured capability when the professor accepts the task of building scientific destruction with his bare hands. Man stole fire from the Gods.

Oppenheimer is so dense in the scope of science and the scientist behind it.  That’s a huge compliment.  It’s an engaging film with much to tell, and a lot more to think about afterwards.  It accomplishes what the best movies do.  It leaves you thinking long after the film has ended.  More importantly, it’ll leave you frightened for the future based on the behavior of this planet’s past. 

Oppenheimer is one of the best films of the year.

BARBIE

By Marc S. Sanders

Having just returned from donning my pink t-shirt to watch Greta Gerwig’s box office smash Barbie, I am certainly relieved that I watched the film with my wife.  Just when I thought I understood everything I was watching in the movie, my better half explained to me that my perception was wrong.  Yet, I still believe Barbie was a magnificent experience that allowed me to reminisce about my pre-teen years occupied with my favorite toys (Kenner’s Star Wars figures and playsets).  I applaud this film for going even deeper than that though.  Barbie reflects on the patterns between men and women primarily in the fields of career, objectivity, and social stature.  As pink as the film is, and it is pinker than a truck load of Pepto Bismol, it is also observant and telling.

Someone commented on a Facebook post when I announced that I was seeing the film that Barbie is a “woke” movie.  I am so sick of that term, honestly, and it has nothing to do with which side of the political aisle I sit on, because I no longer sit on any side.  While watching Margot Robbie as the main “Barbie” of a whole community of “Barbies” in Barbie Land, I never recognized said “wokeness.”  Only afterwards did my wife have to explain where it likely exists within the film.  I still don’t think it’s a fair observation though.  Barbie and Ken dolls, Skipper and even the pregnant Midge doll and the lonely Allan doll and all their accessories are marketed by Mattel to a demographic for young girls.  Greta Gerwig’s script though questions what could threaten a Barbie Land.  Frankly, the only thing imaginable (besides opening the film on the same day as a biographical film about the man who invented the atomic bomb), is if the world of Barbie was no longer Barbie & Ken, but rather Ken & Barbie and a male dominated finish conquered Barbie Land following Ken (Ryan Gosling) reading up on some books about horses and machoism.  Very inventive, as well as comedically endearing to watch how Barbie and all the other Barbies undo what’s been done by Ken and all the other Ken variations.

A second storyline is really what rang true to me.  America Ferrara portrays Gloria, a mother in the Real World who has lost a bond with her daughter Sasha played by Arianna Greenblatt. Sasha has long outgrown spending time with Gloria and playing with Barbies together.  Sasha is a typical moody teenager.  This is crushing to Gloria and real-world thoughts enter the mother’s mind by the will of nature, including the uncertainty of death and even worse…cellulite.  Barbie (Margot Robbie) realizes the effect it has on her and with guidance from Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) embarks on a journey to the Real World to right what is wrong with the girl who plays with her.  Barbie is in for a surprise though. 

One day I will weave into one of my original plays about the time I showed my father my brand-new Star Wars TIE Fighter ship.  I demonstrated for him how the wings pop off.  His response was an artificial “Oh wow!” and then a return to his dinner with further discussion about his workday.  At six years old, I could even identify how uninterested he was.  This moment from so many years ago came back to me as I observed Ferrara’s emptiness.  The mother has lost her daughter, the same way my young self lost my father. 

Toys can draw out nurturing emotions of happiness, and perhaps disappointments, when we are young and imaginative.  As adults, a desire for a recapture of youth can blossom.  My generation yearns for the toys they played with and are even willing to pay enormous amounts of money for that tangible memory with what are now considered antiques.  Toys have always been a part of my life.  I was never an athlete.  I got much more pleasure out of playing with my action figures and my made-up car chases and shootouts in my bedroom. 

Gerwig’s script, co-written with Noah Baumbach, is quite intuitive.  Barbie and Ken (Robbie, along with wonderfully sweet and naïve Ryan Gosling) try to perfect what is imperfect about themselves and end up making things drastically worse for their respective existence within the Barbie World.  Barbie may fear bad breath and try to escape death, but how will that affect the pink, plastic world she stems from?  Ken tries to learn more from the Real World to enhance his noticeability with Barbie and deal with his insecurities against the other theatrical Kens he exists with. Does learning change Ken into a better version of himself, though?  Experience and exposure to foreign situations are necessary to enhance oneself but go a little too far and it might become a reminder to be careful what you wish for.

Mattel is even spoofed by means of Will Farrell and his posse of dark suit executives and the office’s grey cubicles representing white collar corporate America.  What Barbie and Ken have unleashed could have drastic consequences on the commodity of their bestselling dolls and playsets.  Honestly, I was waiting for an appearance by He-Man to enter the fold.  How would this carry over to the Masters Of The Universe??????

Barbie is more complex than the cheerful advertisements, the toy brand or even the bubbly appearances from Robbie, Gosling, McKinnon and the rest of the cast may appear to be. I’ve already heard it described as strange, and definitely not a movie for kids.  There’s a reason it is PG-13.  Mature themes are at play amid the sunniness of President Barbie, Astronaut Barbie, Supreme Court Justice Barbie, Mermaid Ken and Beach Ken.  Greta Gerwig didn’t want to settle for a just a happy go lucky fantasy.  The Barbie doll has existed for over fifty years and by now, nearly a quarter of the way into a new century, she better serve more purpose than a perfect smile, arched feet, and cheerful shades of pinks and yellows.  Gerwig sought to uncover the role Barbie has for girls and women at age 5, 8, 15, 30, 50 and on and on. 

I must recognize some of the attractions contained in the picture.  An inspired opening of the film had me rolling as Barbie answered the call of Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.  (Makes me sad that I was the only one laughing in a full theater.)  Gerwig also took wise advantage of the multitalented Gosling with a collection of musical song and dance numbers.  I never really cared for the song “Push” by Matchbox Twenty, until Ryan Gosling and his Ken mates applied it as a substitute to Robbie’s Barbie and her Barbie gals’ adoration for “Closer To Fine” by the Indigo Girls.  Gosling puts such energy into his performance.  He’s certainly the go-to actor for musical films like Barbie and La La Land.  Those days on The Mickey Mouse Club truly paid off.

Barbie is a vibrant and very smart film.  I’m just not sure everyone will respond to it like I did.  It is no surprise that moviegoers resent that it is not catered for young children or that there’s an oddness to some of the stories.  You may not care for it.  Who knows?  Maybe you’ll find it to be “woke,” but I hope you’d look deeper than that.  I appreciate it on a personal level however, remembering back to my time as a kid with a toy or two that were more than just pieces of molded plastic.  Rather, my Boba Fett and Han Solo figures were often the best friends to spend time with and it’s only sad that dad may have missed out on what was truly special for his son. Still, even Barbie reminds me that none of us are perfect and that’s okay.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT

By Marc S. Sanders

Mission: Impossible Fallout is the best of the so far seven films in the series.  It is carried not only by the stunts that Tom Cruise insists on risking his middle-aged self to perform, for the sake of his fans. As well, the film’s casting and the puzzle twisting script from Christopher McQuarrie, writing with inspiration from his famed Oscar winning screenplay for The Usual Suspects is a treat for the eyes and mind.  If this were a novel, I’d quickly be turning each page to see what comes next.  Like McQuarrie’s well-known invention of Keyser Soze, this movie questions Who is John Lark?  Is Ethan Hunt (Cruise) John Lark? 

Hunt chooses to accept the mission of locating this unidentified Lark who is interested in purchasing enough plutonium to wipe one third of the world population, likely in and around Pakistan and China.  However, the CIA doesn’t trust Hunt’s cavalier instincts and insists he partners up with a hulking Henry Cavill playing an agent named Walker.  Benji and Luther (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) are back for hacking, field work and some clever mask trickery.  Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), the dubious British MI6 agent from the prior film (Rogue Nation) is a welcome surprise and just as perplexing with her actions.  The big bad, Solomon Lane (a snake like Sean Harris), also returns.

Like all the M:I films, Fallout operates with the same kind of formula.  We have to accept the promise that there’s a world ending MacGuffin.  Ethan and the team are assigned to find who has it and who wants to buy it and can use it.  All of this is written outside of the lines of planning out the action scenes these pictures are recognized for.  It’s as if Cruise, with his producer hat on, sketches stunts with skydives, cars, motorcycles, trucks and helicopters and then assigns his writer/director to apply words for the donut filling within the movie.  Mustn’t forget a reason to include a running sequence for Ethan to perform on rooftops.  Fortunately, all of it works best here, more than in any of the other films.

What sells these pictures, and again Fallout is the best example, is the photography and editing applied to these scenes.  Two sequential car/motorcycle chases occur throughout the streets of Paris.  (Look!  I see our honeymoon hotel, The Hotel Regina located across from the Louvre, as Ethan races by in a BMW!!!!!)  A smashing three-person fist fight in an impeccably white men’s room is a brawl for the ages. 

The highlight of this installment is a helicopter chase above and within a mountain valley that first focuses on Tom Cruise himself climbing a rope up, up, up to a chopper and swinging his legs onto the railing to get a foothold.  There’s time dedicated to him falling and inching his way back into the vehicle.  Then it becomes a chopper chase followed by a collision that ends with the remains wedged within a narrow mountain crevice.  What a set piece this is!  Absolutely outstanding camera work.  The wide and close editing, sound and visuals work so perfectly in sync with one another.  I don’t want to watch the making of documentary for this picture.  The trickery of McQuarrie’s camera crew is such a treat.  I’d rather savor the finished product on repeat viewings.

Juxtaposing against this chopper fight are two other scenarios involving Ethan’s teammates.  This is where I’m especially grateful for Christopher McQuarrie’s writing.  Two bombs are rigged in line with each other, and a detonator also must be retrieved by Ethan.  The whole team has to work cohesively, otherwise it is sayonara to much of the Asian continent if both devices explode.  McQuarrie’s “impossible mission” is orchestrated beautifully with suspense cranked way up.  His imagination for adventure allows a magnificently edited third act.  To date, I consider the stakes here to be the highest in the entire series.

The presence of this collection of actors is marvelous with recognition deserving of Henry Cavill donning an untrusting mustache and looking like a brutal, blunt instrument against the superspy Ethan Hunt.  Cavill also plays CIA agent wisely.  He’s got a stoic expression for most of the film but that is because he trusts the audience will assume what a dangerous threat he can be.  Cavill occupies one of the best characters in the seven films.

Mission: Impossible Fallout is truly one of the most thrilling pictures you’ll find.  What’s most important is the action serves the story.  Action just for the sake of action is tiring like in the Fast/Furious films.  There has to be a cost and a tangible feeling to the speed, obstacles and pain that good action scenes serve their characters and the story as a whole.  When Ethan falls from a helicopter or has to jump out a window, I grip both arm rests and let out a collective bellow with the audience.  Films with the grandest of adventure must draw out responses like that.  Otherwise, it’s all just a ho hum journey to the end credits.  Fallout is anything but a stroll.  It’s an absolute balls to the wall, explosive crowd pleaser.

PRINCE OF THE CITY

By Marc S. Sanders

Sidney Lumet made an outstanding career of bringing attention to corruption within the halls of police precincts, amid the offices of politics and the inside the hallows of cherrywood courtrooms with manipulating lawyers and unsympathetic judges. His films are spellbinding with difficult conundrums for his protagonists to overcome and survive.  Prince Of The City is a perfect example.

A handsomely young Treat Williams stars as Danny Ciello.  He’s a famed cop working for the New York City Special Investigative Unit.  He’s part of a squad of partners who are also his best friends.  Jerry Orbach is the standout among the gang.  They make a huge difference in the big busts they accomplish.  In fact, some of them were part of the famed French Connection cocaine takedown.  Their celebrated careers lend to their monikers.  Danny is an especially accomplished “prince of the city.”  Proudly, they march into a crowded courtroom with a packed audience to announce another huge indictment with the criminals handcuffed together in a line.  However, these officers are also immoral in their daily practice. 

A bust of illegal immigrant drug dealers is made early in the film where over ninety-two thousand dollars is uncovered, and the team agree to share half among themselves.  A little later, Danny gets a desperate call in the middle of the night from one of his informants and to appease him he rips some heroin off another street user to give to the other one.  It’s a necessary evil to ensure progress as an accomplished detective.  The snatching of the monies? Well, as his brother frustratingly points out, that’s so he and his partners can live comfortably in furnished homes with nice clothes and jewelry. Yet perhaps all of this is no longer sitting right with Danny.

None of this is unusual for Danny but considering that an internal investigator (Norman Parker) has approached him about going undercover to reveal corruption that’s rampant throughout the police force, his conscience is weighing on him.  Danny agrees to go to work on this assignment.  However, he lays out one important condition. He’ll never give up his partners, including wearing a wire in their presence.  He lives with his wife, but he loves his partners.

Prince Of The City is a long film, but its running time is necessary because there are so many facets to Williams’ character.  Also, the residual effects of Danny’s work branch off in so many directions.  More than once, Danny is warned not to perjure himself.  Legal authorities find it hard to believe that Danny only broke his ethical code just three times in eleven years.  However, Danny insists that’s all there is.  He’s warned over and over it better be.  Otherwise, those that are working with him will later work against him.

Lumet is very good at showing realistic settings.  An abandoned post office is designated as a secret locale to store evidence and wiretap records that Danny collects.  In the beginning, the joint is empty, but over a progression of five years’ time, the shelves fill up quickly and a large staff is assembled, equipped with computers, typewriters and stuffed file cabinets.

Danny catches cops on the take.  He gets a crooked lawyer on tape.  He’s also taking big risks that amplify his stress.  Lumet showed the increasing agony of a cop against a police department in Serpico with Al Pacino.  I thought the actor was a little overdone in that film.  Here, Treat Williams could not be more authentic, and the transition from cocky detective to paranoid informant, working against his colleagues, comes through much more subtly as the film carries on.  Danny gets caught in a diner sting wearing his wire.  His quick instincts save him, but only after his shirt is torn open showing the wire, and a gun comes out of nowhere.  The sloppy struggle that ensues with a broken glass door and overturned tables loaded with food and dishes is frighteningly realistic.  Lumet shoots the moment with a documentary kind of feel.  Deliberately, there’s no special effect to the camera work here.  It’s all in Williams’ performance and the actors he shares the scene with.

Treat Williams performance is so wired that I am very surprised it did not lead to more recognizable and stand out roles later in his career.  Williams was unknown at the time of this film’s release in 1981, but his lead in this picture is as welcome as Ray Liotta in Goodfellas.

Danny Ciello is a fictional character based on the real-life narcotics detective known as Robert Leuci.  Leuci had a checkered background dating back to when he became an undercover cop informant.  Neither Danny or Robert wears the white hats of pure honor and loyalty.  That is what makes these men so challenging.  Because they are somewhat impure, there is a tipping scale to how they should be regarded. 

A marvelous part occurs in the last act of the film.  Danny’s transgressions as well as what he’s accomplished have all been laid out.  The costs of his partners’ careers have been considered.  The risks and dangers that Danny and his family with two young children have encountered are given their due attention.  Now, as the film is concluding, Lumet along with his co-writer Jay Presson Allen, assemble close to twenty prosecutors and district attorneys in a dark, slightly sunlit office to debate whether Danny Ciello should be charged for violations of perjury.  One prosecutor threatens to resign if Danny is prosecuted.  Another one cannot see how a police officer can be granted pardons for violating the very laws he’s been sworn to uphold. No one is right or wrong in this argument. The collection of actors in this scene is amazing. 

The Oscar nominated script from Lumet and Allen do not provide a straight answer as to whether Danny is a hero or a criminal.  Prince Of The City is never spoon fed to its audience.  Different perspectives and receptions have likely been generated from the picture.  I’d love to hear other people’s viewpoints.

Once again, I commend the running time of Lumet’s film.  Danny Ciello is a complicated man who sacrifices so much that the cost of everything needs to be acknowledged.  The rampant corruption that is uncovered among his colleagues is so extensive that the turnaround response must be depicted.  Some men committed suicide for their crimes.  Some swear they’ll never give themselves up or even Danny.  Danny is expected to do the same in return.  Danny lost friendships and trust over the assignments he accepted. His children and his wife (an excellent Lindsay Crouse) were undeservedly forced to live in fear for their lives, and upend their household, ironically feeling obligated to accommodate those assigned to protect them.  At one time, Danny is relying on men who are heading the investigation, promising to abide by his conditions and guarantee his safety.  Later, these men accept promotions that pull them away to other departments, leaving Danny to deal with people he cannot count on going forward, and who may work against him or refuse to honor original promises.

It’s quite unfair for Danny as he continues to make headway.  An uncaring portrayal by Bob Balaban (really good in everything he does) as a federal prosecutor forces Danny into uncompromising positions where he’s squeezed into offering up everything with little to no options.  Because Danny is no longer the conceited prince that he once considered himself to be, these authorities keep him beholden to his commitments, no matter the cost of his career, his partnerships or how it affects the lifestyle of himself and his family.

Prince Of The City is a very heavy film with much to address.  If this were to be remade, without the guidance of Lumet’s expertise, it could only work as a miniseries.  Though I doubt it would ever compare to Treat Williams’ performance or Sidney Lumet’s specialty in covering the complexities that organically stem from police corruption.  This is a fascinating film that I’m looking forward to watching again.  Because the weight of the material is so thick, I’m certain I’ll discover something new in a repeat viewing.  This is one of Sidney Lumet’s best films.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE DEAD RECKONING PART 1

By Marc S. Sanders

The object of the Mission: Impossible films is not to wow its audience with thought provoking questions of politics or Cold War intrigue or even daring and uncompromisingly evil villains (apart from Phillip Seymour Hoffman).  The elements of espionage coursing through the TV series are non-existent in the film adaptations.  I’m not watching a film based on a John LeCarre spy novel.  By the time the seventh installment has arrived, titled Dead Reckoning Part 1, the goal of the film series is to sketch out the set ups for one action piece after another.  Only they must be bigger, bolder, and seemingly that much more impossible to overcome for their hero, Tom Cruise (playing a guy named Ethan Hunt).  The action is once again top notch.  The glues that bind these displays of bravado together, you know where the characters have to talk and give us a semblance of a plot, is as nil as the scotch tape that assembles a stretch of film reel into a running time length of nearly two hours and forty-five minutes.

The locales are as grand as any travel getaway. We go through a labyrinthine airport.  A techno night club works as a meeting place for a bunch of characters. There are journeys to the Arabian Desert, Rome, Venice, and a beautiful ride along the famed Orient Express.  Shot on digital, this movie is a gorgeous travelogue.

Let’s get the problems out of the way, though.  The MacGuffin that Ethan Hunt and his trusty pals Benjy and Luther (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) have been assigned to recover is two parts of a specially designed key.  One part is supposedly with the disavowed MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson).  The other half is questionable as to who possesses it, but a thief known only as Grace (Hayley Atwell) may be significant in finding it.  Put the two halves of the key together and it will unlock something that no one seems to know of, or where it is located.  Here’s my first issue.  The audience does know what the key unlocks because it is shown in the first three minutes of the film.  So, while the cast of characters act dumbfounded, we know all along.  So, there goes any curious interest I may have for wanting to follow through with this. 

The other problem is that the same conversation happens over and over and over again.  Lines like (and I’m paraphrasing here, or maybe I’m not) “If this key gets into the wrong hands…” and “Whatever this does unlock, Ethan, could spell the end of the world…” or “It’s important that both halves of the key are not put together…”  or “Whatever this does unlock…”  (See?  Even I just repeated myself in this write up.) Except, we know what it unlocks!!!!!  The same exchange of dialogue occurs over and over.  The redundancy exhausts itself.  It occurs so much in fact that it’s writer/director, Christopher McQuarrie, relied upon the repetitive dialogue to stretch this next M:I chapter into two films instead of one (Part 2 is scheduled to be released in 2024).  I don’t recall the context of any of Ving Rhames’ lines going further than what I have presented here, for example.

The film is also a little too character heavy.  I never understood why two agents (Shea Wigham, Greg Tarzan Davis) are constantly pursuing Ethan.  Just was not clear for me. Heightened suspense?  That’s the best excuse I can think of.  The White Widow from the prior film (Vanessa Kirby) also appears.  Not much purpose to her.  Cary Elwes is the deputy director, there at the beginning and later towards the end, but again I was not entirely certain of his contribution to the story.  Even Ilsa Faust does not seem to have much value, except to work as a step in Ethan’s ongoing trajectory for the key.  I think Rebecca Ferguson had no more than five lines in the whole picture.

Finally, Ethan Hunt seems to be up against an omnipotent enemy, an AI program known as The Entity.  The humans doing the bidding of this phantom program consist of a goatee wearing Esai Morales and his henchwoman, played by Pom Klementieff.  She looks straight out of a James Bond picture and makes for a good car chase through the stone cobbled streets of Rome in a tank like Hummer.  Morales is as boring as most of the other the M:I villains.

What works for the film is what Tom Cruise really wants to impress you with though.  Riding a speeding motorcycle off a mountain and parachuting his way down.  That’s actually a near sixty-year-old Tom Cruise performing that feat.  Very impressive.  The car chase with a handcuffed Cruise and Atwell in a puny yellow Fiat versus an unbeatable Hummer and an army of Italian police vehicles is fun on the level of Roger Moore’s Bond films.  Most impressive for me is the final act where the famed Orient Express train tumbles off a bridge with a gap in the middle, car by car with all the furnishings, piano included, pouring out while Ethan and Grace hold on for dear life. 

It’s the high stakes stunts that work.  Whatever smidge of a story there is fails though.  The script by McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen lacks so much that the cliffhanger the film ends on doesn’t leave me yearning for more because it only hearkens back to the beginning.  The characters catch up to what the audience has known for the last three hours.  So, I’m not losing sleep wondering with what happens next.

Of course, I’ll go see the Part 2 installment.  Tom Cruise won’t let me down in whatever daredevil achievements he’s dreaming of doing next.  However, am I going to these movies to watch Mission: Impossible, or to watch an aggressively updated version of Circus Of The Stars?

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION

By Marc S. Sanders

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is as stunt filled as its predecessor. Perhaps even more.  The difference for me though, is that it is better than Ghost Protocol.  The stunts and action are at least equal in both films, but Rogue Nation also plays with its characters while not stopping at certain points to explain what must happen next.  Sure, the movie talks, but it speaks with developments and surprise, rather than starting the story all over again from square one (a shortcoming for me with the prior film).  Much of that is thanks to a new character, a disavowed British Intelligence Agent named Ilsa Faust played with perfect unsurety and mistrust by Rebecca Ferguson.  She’s the actress keeping me interested beyond the magnificent action scenes because I want to uncover what her game really is all about. 

Rogue Nation opens soon after Ghost Protocol ended.  A hearkening back to the original TV series has finally introduced the nefarious and clandestine organization known only as The Syndicate.  No one has been identified as heading this mysterious group.  A face or name has yet to be linked.  None of the major governments, including America, even believe they exist.  Tom Cruise as Super Spy Ethan Hunt is the only one certain that this Syndicate is responsible for a series of terrorists’ attacks and government overthrows occurring throughout the world.  By the way, I always call him Super Spy, because nothing gets past Ethan Hunt.  Not only can he run fast enough to hop onto a cargo plane taking off a runway, but he even has a talent for drawing as well as reading lips in various languages. Amazing!!!!  Incredible!!! Astounding!!!! ETHAN HUNT – SUPER SPY!!!!!

Don’t ask how we get there, but Ethan recruits his trusty pal and computer hacker Benjy (Simon Pegg) to attend an opera in Vienna where the leader of this shadowy Syndicate may be.  Complications and fistfights, along with sniper rifle assassination attempts ensue backstage during a performance, and now Ethan has convinced Benjy that his hunches must be true.  Ilsa is also there, but is she trying to kill Ethan or just fend him off, or is she working alongside of him?  Ferguson plays the role with a perfect poker face, and it helps keep the movie running along while wanting to find out more information.

Every Mission: Impossible film has that one especially heightened action set piece.  This time, Ethan has three minutes of inhaled oxygen while he enters an underwater vault to hack into a “safe deposit box.”  Benjy gleefully sees the simplicity in this.  “Well you can do that!”  As an extra bonus, we are treated to a kinetic motorcycle chase through Morocco.  The sound editing alone with revving engines and cars screeching, machine gun fire, and horns blasting is impressive enough.  Accompany it with well placed camerawork (nothing is blurry or shaky like in many other action films) and you have a set piece that’ll keep you alert.  Who needs dumb Fast/Furious junk when this stuff tops it?  Kudos to writer/director Christopher McQuarrie.

There are some standard motifs to Rogue Nation.  Once again, there’s a government official or two who does not trust Ethan Hunt’s intentions and thus he’s number one on the Most Wanted list.  How many times has this guy saved the world, already?  Give him a break! Also like before, most recently in the last installment, the IMF team has been shut down.  That does nothing for me anymore.  I wouldn’t expect anything less.  No IMF team, but Ethan and Benjy still get a hold of the most inventive gadgets and tricked out cars they can find.  So what’s the big deal if the IMF is on the chopping block?  Still, I like how this picture wraps its storyline up and defeats the villain.  It’s different and a welcome surprise.  Ilsa Faust’s character arc tidies itself up nicely as well.

Amazing stuff happening in this fifth chapter of the film franchise.  As long as Tom Cruise and company get more daring and aggressive with the impossible missions that need to be overcome, the staying power of these films holds.  Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is a fantastic piece of filmmaking.