MI4: Ghost Protocol (Spoiler-Free) review

I was able to catch a sneak preview of Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol on Wednesday night. It was in the IMAX theater, so it had all the appropriate bells and whistles. 


I'm not a big fan of Tom Cruise. I AM a big fan of Brad Bird, and seeing as how this was his first live-action movie, I wanted to see how he did. If I was pressed for my initial reaction to the movie, I would say it was okay. Not great, not mind-blowing, not spectacular....just okay. 


First off, I'm not a fan of the MI movies. Why, you ask? Because Abrams pulled a dick move in the first movie and made Jim Phelps (the original MI agent from the classic tv show) the bad guy. He essentially just took a gigantic shit on all the fans of the tv show (which he did again with his version of Star Trek, but that's for another story). So the two things compelling me to see this installment was Brad Bird, and The Dark Knight Rises prologue. BUT, I still went into this movie with an open mind and treated it as a spy movie that had nothing to do with a great tv series.


What I got was a lot of people running after and away from each other on foot. Actually a shit-ton of running. In a movie that has a run time of 2 hours and 13 minutes, one hour was just of people running on foot. The chase scenes were so long they actually got boring. The most exciting scene in the movie you've already seen on tv commercials. It's the skyscraper free climb. That was also the most stunt-intensive scene in the movie. 


In other words, for a big budget, spy-action movie, it was strangely devoid of big scenes that made the audience go 'wow'. Which I found very disappointing. 


As for the actors, Tom Cruise played the agent that has everything well in hand (which became kind of annoying because it meant the character is never in any real danger...except for the skyscraper scene). Simon Pegg played......Simon Pegg. He's supposed to be the techie of the bunch, but he's throwing out little one liners and even a few lines from movies he's made in the past. Paula Patton was pretty, but never any real personality for the role. In fact, a female assassin played by Lea Seydoux not only upstages Patton, but makes me wish that their roles had been reversed. Jeremy Renner was the only star in the bunch that actually shined brightly. Not only did he do a great and believable job, but he even conveyed the fun that he was having with the role as well. The guy who played the villain was so bad, that I didn't even bother to learn or look up his name. Nope, I have the IMDB page open, but I'm not even looking at his name because he played an easy role so badly that you could easily interchange him with any James Bond, low rung lackey and get a better villain in the trade. 


In the end, I walked out of this one tired, not pumped (which I usually am after a good action movie) with kind of a 'meh' indifference to the whole thing. Or let me put it another way....the night before I was fortunate enough to see The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) six minute prologue in a sneak preview in the IMAX theater. I waited in line two and half hours for a t-shirt and a six minute preview. That six minutes had a tighter action sequence and an spectacular stunt that left me floored than the entire two hour and thirteen minutes of MI4 did. In fact, as I was leaving the MI4 screening I actually was running the prologue back through my head and marveling at how much better (and tighter), and how much more exciting that six minutes was compared to all of MI4. 


MI4 could easily have been trimmed down to 90 minutes, since the plot really isn't anything you haven't already seen before in a Bond movie (which is better anyway (even the shitty ones with Brosnan as Remington Steele...err...'Bond')). So the bottom line is is it worth the IMAX ticket price? That depends. Do you want to see a spectacular six minutes of action with TDKR only to be let down with the mediocre action and questionable special effects of the two hour movie that follows it? If your answer is 'no', then I'd say this is a bargain matinee only if you're really super bored during the holidays and you've already seen everything else in the theaters at least twice. Otherwise, I'd say skip it and watch it on DVD or pay-cable movie networks.


Oh, I'm aware that some you out there think I hate everything (which is far from the truth, I'm just so good at crucifying the bad stuff that you remember that much more vividly), but I overheard more than a few people leaving the theater saying that it was boring, with a few even saying they fell asleep. For a 7:30pm showing. So I wasn't the only one. 


Rating: Bargain matinee only if you've seen everything else in the theater, otherwise wait until DVD. 

Enjoy.

Super 8 Movie Review

I went and saw JJ Abram's new movie, "Super 8" tonight. I sprang for the extra dough to see it on the IMAX screen to get the better sound, and because the higher ticket price keeps the riff raff out of the theater. Here's a brief synopsis of the movie:

A group of kids in a small rural town circa 1979 are making a zombie movie by the train tracks when they witness a dramatic train derailment. This derailment brings in the Air Force and the military to cover up whatever was aboard the train. Strange incidents begin to happen all over town including power fluctuations and mysterious disappearances which the kids take it upon themselves to solve. 

This is Abram's homage to Steven Spielberg's 80's movies. You know, "E.T.", "Goonies", etc. as well as those 80's coming-of-age stories ("Stand By Me" comes readily to mind). So how does he do? Well, it feels like someone trying to do an 80's Spielberg movie, and pretty much missing the mark. Especially if you're one of those 80's kids, like me, that grew up seeing classic Spielberg movies first run in the theater. You can feel the nostalgia being forced. 

That's not to mean that there aren't some fine performances in this movie. Elle Fanning does a good job in quite a few scenes, but does a bit of overacting in a handful of scenes as well. The other five main boy characters come off as kind of a pale imitation of The Goonies, only being film nerds instead of adventurers. And the main boy, Joel Courtney, has a lot riding on his shoulders since the film is mainly seen though his eyes, and he's nearly in every scene. 

Abrams' main problem with Courtney and Fanning is that you can tell he's overly enamored with the actors and he tends to linger on them a little too long for comfort. Yes, Spielberg used to do this as well, but he used it sparingly to call attention to certain scenes. Abrams uses it at the drop of a hat.  

So how does the movie story hold up? Not that well, really. These kids get into and out of ridiculous situations with ease. With so much ease in fact, that they never really truly feel like they're in any danger. Also, just like in an 80's Spielberg movie, the kids always know more than the adults, and frankly that cliche just doesn't work well anymore. 


Then there's the much ballyhooed monster. You really never get a good look at the entire creature. Sure, you get a good look at its face in one scene, but it almost seems like a different creature when it's moving due to the weird movement of its limbs and the use of CGI. Also, the creature's motivation for the destruction it causes is set up well, but you would think it would go about things a little differently so as not to draw as much attention to itself given the circumstances. That's where one of the movie's flaws comes into play, because you see that the creature does have a hiding place, but then it rampages all over parts of town drawing so much attention to itself that it kind of makes no sense as to why it has a hiding place in the first place. 


So is this movie worth the hype and your money to see it in the theater? Frankly, no, it's not. It's a nice, extravagant, vanity piece and homage to different time and movie type, but it falls flat in a lot of been-there-done-that archetype that we've seen in films that were made much better long before this one was ever thought up. So don't fall for the false hype.


Rating: Rental. Seriously, this summer and this year are packed with movies coming out, and this one can easily be missed being seen in the theater since it will be out on DVD in the Fall anyway.