FILM REVIEW OF "MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE--ROGUE NATION" (2015)

The latest installment in the “Mission: Impossible” film franchise ranks as one of the best.  “Jack Reacher” director Christopher McQuarrie’s “Mission: Impossible--Rogue Nation” (**** OUT OF ****) rivals its superlative predecessor “Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol” with spine-tingling suspense and spectacularly staged set-pieces.  Mind you, things haven’t always been so first-rate.  The initial “Mission: Impossible” movie was arguably exciting enough in its own right, especially when Tom Cruise suspended himself Spider-man style at CIA Headquarters to hack a computer.  Nevertheless, the film portrayed one of the most beloved television series characters in such a sacrilegious light that most “Mission: Impossible” fanatics abhorred it.  I grew up watching Peter Graves play Jim Phelps from 1967 to 1973 and then again briefly from 1988 to 1990 on the weekly, hour-long, CBS-TV program, and the heretical notion that Phelps could turn traitor constituted nothing short of blasphemy.  Little did it matter that the people who produced “Mission: Impossible” gave Phelps legitimate grounds for his treachery.  Comparably, this would be tantamount to turning either Marshal Dillon of “Gunsmoke” into a homicidal hellion or indicting Andy Griffith’s Sheriff Andy Taylor for police brutality.  Never has a film franchise impugned a television character’s virtuosity with such cavalier abandon.

As the second entry in the Paramount franchise, director John Woo’s “Mission Impossible II” emerged as a vast improvement over the original and got things straightened out.  The head-butting motorcycle confrontation between Ethan Hunt and the villain is something to remember as well Woo’s choreographed gunfights.  Unfortunately, the stimulating third installment “Mission Impossible III” made an error almost as egregious as defaming Jim Phelps.  Tom Cruise and director J.J. Abrams gave Ethan Hunt a wife to worry about, and that matrimonial madness provided the motive force in its contrived melodrama.  The secret agent with a double life and a wife is the stuff of spoofs, and the marriage plot was predictable.  Perhaps if they had substituted Hunt’s parents (remember them from the 1996 original?) for his wife, the idea might have been more palatable.  As swiftly as the franchise got Ethan hitched, it got him just as quickly unhitched with ambiguous details.    “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” kept Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) separated from his wife, and he reverted to single status as he had in “Mission Impossible II.”  Happily, neither Cruise nor his latest collaborators have pulled anything as idiotic as “Mission Impossible III” with “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.”

Like the best James Bond extravaganzas, “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” opens with a cliffhanger gambit.  Ethan Hunt scrambles atop the wing of a military cargo plane, an Airbus A400M, as it trundles down the runaway for take-off.  He slaloms off the wing down to the fuselage and seizes a convenient door handle.  Hunt’s cyber genius colleague Benjamin Dunn (Simon Pegg of “Shaun of the Dead”) struggles to open the door remotely while Hunt clings desperately for dear life to it as the huge plane gains altitude.  Reportedly, Cruise performed this barnstorming stunt on his own on an actual plane with a special camera attached to the fuselage to record the exploit.  Frantically, Benji opens the wrong door, but eventually he opens the right door.  Hunt gains access to the cargo hold and spots the pallet of VX-nerve gas missiles.  The villains, a band of Chechen separatist fighters, discover Hunt’s presence too late, and he deploys the chute on the pallet, so both the missiles and he plunge into the blue.  This snappy incident is peripherally related to the plot, and it gets this outlandish escapade off on the right foot.  Mind you, this tense scene reunites Hunt with not only Benji but also series regular Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames of “Pulp Fiction”) and “Ghost Protocol” addition William Brandt (Jeremy Renner of “The Bourne Legacy”). 

This time around our heroic quartet wrestles with their worst nightmare: the Syndicate, an enigmatic league of terrorists, alluded to at the end of “Ghost Protocol,” that threaten not only to destroy the IMF but also initiate global chaos.  Predictably, of course, we know that Hunt and company will preserve the status quo.  Nevertheless, writer & director Christopher McQuarrie takes everything right to the brink and lets it teeter.  Earlier “Mission Impossible” movies relied on the plot device of ‘disavowing’ Ethan Hunt so he wound up as the man in the middle between the good guys and the bad guys.  “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” raises the stakes considerably by ostracizing the entire IMF Agency, with bureaucratic, stuffed-shirt CIA Director Alan Hunley (Alex Baldwin of “The Hunt for Red October”) arguing passionately for the IMF’s dissolution after the San Francisco incident involving a Russian nuclear missile.  Unless you’ve seen “Ghost Protocol,” you won’t know about this escapade.  Meantime, IMF Representative William Brandt refuses to confirm or deny anything about the mission to which Hunley refers in his efforts to convince a Senate Committee to shut down Brandt’s group.

In London, Hunt stumbles onto the Syndicate quite by accident when he is heading for a briefing at an album shop called The Vinyl Option.  He follows the usual procedure and enters a listening room with a recording.  The big difference, however, is this briefing doesn’t originate from his own organization but instead from the opposition—The Syndicate.  This shadowy, sinister organization consists of thousands of spies who have deserted their respective outfits and have been listed officially as dead.  Think of the vintage Nick Nolte shoot’em up “Extreme Prejudice” (1987) from director Walter Hill where Nolte’s small time sheriff dealt with murderous combat veterans reported killed in action.  Syndicate honcho Solomon Kane (Sean Harris of “Prometheus”) appears outside the booth, holds a silenced automatic pistol to the record shop clerk’s head, and shoots the poor girl in the noggin while a stupefied Hunt watches in horror from the listening booth as knock-out gas obscures his vision. When Hunt recovers consciousness, he finds himself in captivity, strapped to an eight-foot tall pole, in a locked, underground room.  Pretty but pugnacious Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson of “The White Queen”), a gorgeous babe with shapely legs who follows Kane’s orders to the letter, argues with a sadistic henchman called the ‘Bone Doctor’ (Jens Hultén of “Skyfall”) who wants to do more than question Hunt for information.  The ‘Bone Doctor’ wants to carve him up, but Hunt surprises him with a head butt that knocks his adversary unconscious.  A strenuously athletic bare-knuckled fight with the ‘Bone Doctor’s’ own henchmen ensues with Hunt decimating the opposition with Faust’s help.  Essentially, this is the bulk of everything you need to know.  McQuarrie’s movie with its complex, labyrinth-like plot defies synopsis.

“Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation” delivers everything that we’ve come to expect from this intrigue-laden, stunt-oriented, gadget-encumbered franchise.  Our resourceful heroes still sport those latex masks that they peel off at dramatic moments to surprise us.  Not surprisingly, they are required to break into and out of various buildings bristling with sophisticated security safeguards that sometimes challenge them to the point of death.  The debonair 53-year old Cruise performs his own perilous stunts, virtually all of them hair-raising, acrobatic endeavors.  He careens a small car around in a maze of narrow city streets with the villains in hot pursuit and then launches himself astride a motorcycle with daredevil gusto.  Meanwhile, director Christopher McQuarrie succeeds at making everything appear doubly difficult for our protagonists, and they encounter an improbable but death-defying gauntlet of obstacles that would stymie lesser souls.  Several scenes benefit from throttling tension because one set of heroes execute tasks that prevent another hero from either being captured or killed.  Cruise and co-star Rebecca Ferguson team up in several helter-skelter, close quarters, combat scenes that surely required lots of rehearsal.  Ferguson displays dazzling dexterity when she clashes with a henchman twice her size who wields a knife far larger than her blade.  One of the best sequences has Cruise debating which villain to perforate before either assassinates a foreign dignitary during a live opera performance.  Simon Pegg supplies the incidental comic relief that seasons this largely straightforward saga, while Sean Harris is effectively malicious as the chief villain.  Everything from “Tomorrow Never Dies” lenser Robert Elswit’s widescreen cinematography to James D. Bissell’s production designs is appropriately polished to virtual perfection.  The fifth globe-trotting “Mission Impossible” foray qualifies as a rapid-fire, white-knuckled, adrenalin-laced, nail-biter with momentum that never slackens and surprises that always astonish.

 

FILM REVIEW OF "DIE ANOTHER DAY" (British 2002)

The twentieth installment in the long-running James Bond film franchise, “Die Another Day,” concluded Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as 007 and celebrated the 40th anniversary of the series with references galore to previous Bonds. The credibility of this epic 133 minute extravaganza suffers mildly from some hopelessly unrealistic but nevertheless exciting predicaments that challenge our globe-trotting British secret service agent. Ultimately, New Zealand director Lee Tamahori doesn’t let Ian Fleming fans down and he directs with a vivid sense of flair. Tamahori approaches “Die Another Day” (***1/2 of of ****) as if he were Hong Kong action director John Woo and often accelerates the editing with jump cuts to cover a lot of territory faster. Another example of Tamahori ratcheting up the action occurs when Bond kills the villain in the last quarter-hour of the plot.

Despite its outlandish reliance on some obvious computer generated imagery, this inventive Bond adventure qualifies as one of the better 007 sagas and a fitting conclusion for the Brosnan Bond. The race across the ice and Bond’s escape from this predicament is the primary culprit here as well as the chief villain’s frozen Icelandic residence. Gustav Graves has constructed an entire palace out of ice. Interestingly, “Die Another Day” incorporates African conflict diamonds in its serpentine plot, four years before the fashionable Edward Zwick thriller “Blood Diamond” (2006) with Leonardo DiCaprio dealt with these controversial gems. Naturally, Judy Dench returns as Bond’s superior M, and John Cleese was on his own for the first and last time as her Majesty’s quartermaster Q. The most incredible gadget that Bond receives is an invisible Aston Martin with the usual arsenal of weapons. Toby Stephens and Rick Yune make two audacious villains and “Reservoir Dogs’” Michael Madsen appears as a duplicitous, high-ranking C.I.A. executive.

“The World Is Not Enough” scenarists Neal Purvis & Robert Wade maintain the larger-than-life action with exotic locales, good-looking ladies, but a marginally darker tone since betrayal is involved. Bond amounts to a renegade British Intelligence agent out for revenge against those vile dastards who framed him for security transgressions that he would never made. In some ways, Purvis and Wade were inspired not only by John Glen’s “Octopussy” with North Koreans committing criminal acts just as the renegade Soviet general did in that outing, but also Guy Hamilton’s “Diamonds Are Forever” with a villain who deploys a satellite in outer space constructed of diamonds that can projects a monstrous beam of destructive energy. Hardcore 007 fans will spot the encore of Commander Bond’s small “Thunderball” underwater breathing gadget. The escape from a cargo plane at the end is reminiscent of “The Living Daylights.” Purvis and Wade spring a number of surprises—at least three if you are counting—that really shake up the movie. These surprises along with Tamahori’s sensational helming make “Die Another Day” a memorable 007 escapade.

“Die Another Day” opens on the Pukch’ong Coast of North Korea as 007 and two other agents surf unobtrusively into the beach. Bond and his companions steal an attaché case filled with diamonds from Mr. Van Bierk (Mark Dyman of “Until Death”) and appropriate his helicopter to fly to a secret rendezvous in the de-militarized zone in North Korea. Bond places two bricks of C-4 explosives with a timer under the diamond trays and set off to keep an appointment the arrogant Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee of “Elektra”), son of General Moon (Kenneth Tsang of “The Replacement Killers”), who has no qualms during a U.N. embargo about trading arms for African conflict diamonds. Moon’s second-in-command, Zao (Rick Yune of “The Fast and the Furious”), takes a digital picture of Bond with his Sony Ericsson cell phone and uploads it to the Internet. Later, Zao shares the results of his search with Colonel Moon, and they discover that Van Bierk is really a British assassin named James Bond. Immediately, Colonel Moon arrests Bond and destroys the helicopter with a tank-busting weapon. General Moon calls his son because he is approaching the de-militarized zone where he has his headquarters. Hastily, Colonel Moon orders his men to disperse and take the weapons with them. He orders Bond executed, but the explosives in the attaché case ignite and Bond escapes. Zao is stricken by a shower of diamonds that embed themselves in his face. Colonel Moon and Bond battle it out on the hovercraft that Moon used to transport the weapons to the location. Thousands of land mines on the border of North and South Korea pose no problem to Moon because the hovercraft can float harmlessly float over them. Bond and Moon exchange small arms fire and Moon even resorts to a flame thrower. They run out of room to maneuver and Moon plunges over the edge of a cliff while Bond seized a bell and survives. “Saved by the bell,” he quips until he sees General Moon arrive with an army. Moon takes Bond and turns him over to North Korean interrogators and during the title credit sequence, Bond is tortured.

Eventually, months after his arrest, Bond learns that he is scheduled to be released as part of an exchange for Zao. M (Judy Dench of “Shakespeare in Love”) isn’t pleased to see 007. Not only did Zao kill three Chinese agents when he tried to blow up a summit meeting, but also because British Intelligence suspects that Bond spilled his guts and exposed deep cover agent in North Korean high command. M agreed to get Bond out of North Korea to ensure that he didn’t expose more agents. Naturally, Bond said that he didn’t capitulate to his captors and betray Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Bearded and ragtag, Bond vows to get the individual who set him up, but M rescinds his double-0 status. Furthermore, she informs him that he is going to be taken to an evaluation center in the Falklands. Bond has other plans and fakes a heart attack. After he escapes from British Intelligence in Hong Kong harbor, Bond begins his search for that mysterious person. Initially, with the help of the Red Chinese, 007 treks to Cuba to find Zao.

In Cuba, he finds out that Zao is in an island clinic run by Dr. Alvarez (Simón Andreu of “Bad Man’s River”) who specializes in DNA replacement. Bond meets into Jinx (Halle Berry of “Monster’s Ball”) in Cuba. She emerges from the sea like Ursula Andress did in Terence Young’s “Dr. No.” Jinx is after Alvarez, too. They team up in semi-sort of fashion and destroy Alvarez and his clinic. Bond fails to kill Zao and the villain escapes. Jinx is cornered on a cliff by two gunmen and performs a header into the ocean. She dives in just as Colonel Moon had plunged into the ocean in similar fashion.

Bond finds himself back in the good graces of British Intelligence. M meets him at an abandoned London subway station. They discuss the conflict diamonds and we get a thumbnail sketch of the latest villain, Gustav Graves, at about an hour into the action. M points out that Graves is a politically connected individual. Indeed, he is about to be honored by the Queen. She adds that Graves was an orphan who wound up working in an Argentine diamond mine. He learned engineering and discovered a trove of diamonds in Iceland, half of which he donated to charity. Bond suspects that Graves has been using his discovery of diamonds in Iceland as “a front for laundering African conflict diamonds. M allows Bond to return to M.I. 5 Headquarters and pick up several gadgets from Q, such as the invisible Aston Martin with adaptive camouflage as well as a sophisticated ring that can shatter glass. Q explains that the ring contains an “ultra-high frequency single-digit sonic agitator unit. Bond meets Graves during a fencing competition and the two fight each other for money. Graves loses control and the fight escalates with the use of cutlasses, but Graves’ public relations expert Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike of “Doom”) intervenes and keeps the guys from killing each other. Tamahori does an excellent job of staging the cutlery clash between hero and villain. Graves gracefully accepts defeat at Bond’s hands and observes, “You’re a rare challenger, Mr. Bond.”

Several things differentiate Brosnan’s final outing as the redoubtable civil servant earlier as well as later entries. First, the bullet is finally seen entering the gun barrel during the pre-credit sequence. Thus far this represents the one and only time that this has occurred in the series. Second, the title theme sequence continues the narrative with Bond enduring torture while incandescent women appear on screen and scorpions are seen scuttling about to Madonna’s song. Third, this is the only time that James Bond appears with a full beard, giving Brosnan look like a 17th century buccaneer. Fourth, the initial action transpires in Korea, the first time that this location with its volatile real life implications for possible nuclear war has been appropriated. Fifth, the plot later takes 007 from places like Cuba to Iceland. Sixth, the C.I.A. has its own agent out there in the form of Halle Berry’s Jinx Johnson. Seventh, the pre-credit sequence qualifies as one of the livelier ones with Bond battling a crazed North Korean colonel as they sweep over a mine field in hovercrafts blasting away at each other with machine guns and flamethrowers. As usual, Bond still finds the time for the classical throwaway witticism and the women are seductive.