Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner, Alec Baldwin, Simon McBurney, Sean Harris

I’ve gone down as saying that writers turned directors don’t always make the best movies which is true a lot of times, but in the case of Christopher McQuarrie this isn’t so. McQuarrie started out writing The Usual Suspects (1995), then he took a stab at writing/directing with The Way of the Gun (2000) which I remember not loving so much the first time I saw it. I haven’t seen it in ages so I might feel differently about it now. His first experience working with Cruise was on Valkyrie (2008), which wasn't a successful movie, yet started their professional relationship which led to McQuarrie writing and directing Jack Reacher (2012), which also starred Tom Cruise. I remember it having an amazing car chase sequence that stood out. Making Jack Reacher with Cruise must have been a good experience because here he is again working with Cruise on his first big budget summer blockbuster; Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015). This is the fifth installment in the still running strong franchise, which is growing in popularity with each picture. In my opinion, each film has been better than the last. So what’s so cool about this fifth installment?

This time around the IMF (the Impossible Mission Force) is being disbanded by the American government because apparently their results are too destructive. But of course, Ethan Hunt and his team aren’t that easy to disband, and so they go on one final mission to try and stop ‘The Syndicate’, a group of terrorists who are out to destroy the Impossible Mission Force, so they can go about their usual villainous plans. Can Ethan and crew clean their name and prove themselves useful to the U.S. government once again? Or will their names remain tarnished for all eternity?

I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Mission Impossible movies, but from the fourth one on, for some reason I’ve started liking them more. I guess the stunts and the action have gotten way more interesting, even more impossible. And the fact that Tom Cruise is doing a lot of his own stunts makes everything way more fun. I mean, truthfully, screw all the crap that’s been said about Cruise, I’m all for applauding genuine talent, and Cruise has proven himself to be the quintessential action star, unafraid of going out there and really giving us a show. And by going out there, I mean, really literally going out there and doing stunts himself! The man is currently 53 and he still looks like a million bucks! I guess when you're a millionaire film star, when you're not making movies you're in the gym working out with your personal trainers, while a professional cook makes you the healthiest dinners imaginable. The dude looks brand new, healthier and more active than a lot of men at his age, so expect a Cruise that looks like he’s still 30.

The film is none stop action from beginning to end; it starts with an action set piece where Cruise is hanging from a plane…literally! Sure he used wires and harnesses, but still, it’s admirable that he was actually hanging from that plane in a day and age where everything is done with green screen! Tom Cruise, I salute thee! This movie is so gung ho for reality that there’s this underwater sequence in which Tom Cruise has to hold his breath for an extremely long time while switching a computer disk on an underwater computer. It’s an extremely complicated scene that I thought was completely CGI, but upon my investigations of how it was done, I was amazed to learn that it was truly shot underwater. This means they built the actual set, filled it with water and shot the sequence down there. Awesome. Any other filmmaker would have done that whole sequence in CGI, again, my hats down to McQuarrie and crew for choosing to shoot their film in front of their cameras as opposed to the inside of a computer. On this show Cruise even rides motorcycles at high speeds! There’s this moment in which he scratches his knee on the road while taking a curve and I was like whoa! That’s what I’m talking about! So yeah, it’s true, Tom Cruise is the big special effect of this franchise. Similar to how Jackie Chan was on his films, Cruise is an actor and a stunt man all in one.

It was good seeing the Mission Impossible Force together once again. Here we get Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and heeelloooo, Rebecca Ferguson! Holy Moly, this actress looks stunning on this movie! You might remember her as ‘Ergenia’, the bow and arrow specialist in Brett Rattner’s Hercules (2014). I mean, this lady is a show stopper. Not only does she look amazingly beautiful, the epitome of sensuality, she also kicks major ass on this movie! She has this fight sequence where she’s saving Tom Cruise’s life that is a wonder to behold, she has great physical ability that’s for sure! Then we have Simon Pegg with the comedy relief, he reminded me of the obligatory comic relief guy from 80’s action films, where the big action star always had a ‘funny’ guy tagging along saying one liners and jokes throughout the whole movie, only Simon Pegg is actually likable and funny. So all in all, I’d say that this Mission Impossible is a sure fire winner. Even better then Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), and that’s saying a lot because Ghost Protocol was tons of fun, however simple it was. The good thing about the action on this film is that the action sequences are intricate, extensive and aren't throw aways, they really go out of their way to do something that will entertain, that will sustain our attention for a long period of time. Don’t even think so hard about the story or if you’re getting it or not, remember everything will be explained in the climax, just go with the flow. By the time it’s all over you’ll be a satisfied moviegoer, that’s a guarantee!

Rating: 4 out of 5

Surrogates (2009)

Title: Surrogates (2009)

Director: Jonathan Mostow

Stars: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, James Cromwell, Ving Rhames

Review:

The only extras included on the Surrogates DVD are a commentary from director Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) and a music video by a band called Breaking Benjamin. The song is called “I will not Bow”. Immediately upon watching this music video I knew who this movie was made for. Teenagers. Teenage boys to be precise. I got nothing against teenagers (I was one too at some point!) what Im actually worried about is the type of shitty films that are being made for them! So anyways, I decided to watch part of the music video, just to see what kids are listening to nowadays. The song is so vomit inducing I stopped half way (sorry if I insulted any Breaking Benjamin fans) but watching this video helped me understand the main reason why this movie sucks so much. I mean it’s as if the filmmakers thought “this movie is for teenagers, we don’t have to explain things a lot, don’t take things too seriously!” You could almost feel the filmmakers not caring much for what they were making. You could almost hear them say “this is just a PG-13 sci-fi movie, lets hurry this thing along!”

The premise of this movie is that everybody has a cyborg that does everything for them. People don’t even bother to go out of their homes because the cyborg will do it for them. People have to connect to the cyborg at home while the cyborg goes out into the world and lives their life for them. This has its pros and cons. Pros are you don’t have to go out and risk anything. You don’t catch deceases; you can do dangerous things and not be afraid of dying. You can go out and get crazy without worrying about any negative repercussions. The downside? You’re not living your life. Your real body stays at home, it doesn’t get any exercise, and basically, you stop wanting to really live. You become so dependant of the machine that you become ashamed of your humanity and want to be the cyborg all the time. They market the surrogate experience as being “like real life…only better!”

Interesting premise for a movie no? Yeah, I thought so too. Unfortunately, it is executed in the worst way possible. I’m a huge science fiction nut, don’t know if you guys have noticed it, but I like to really watch science fiction movies. I love how society can be explored through them. And to some extent, this movie does explore a part of our society. It speaks about our dependency on technology, about our loss of humanity. And that’s all fine and dandy (and not all together new) but damn it, why did the movie have to be so bad? One of the major horrors of this movie, is its atrocious script. It never really dwells on anything too long. Its like a child with attention deficit disorder. It shows quick little snippets of information that we are supposed to take for granted just because a character said it. Explain something quickly, move on to the next thing.

Case in point? The leader of the “Human Coalition”. The character that Ving Rhames plays in the film. This is a very important character because it represents the counter point to the way things are. It’s the character that has to stand up for what is right. He has to stand up for the humans. How do we grasp that he is rebellious? That he hates machines? Well, there is this one five second scene where he is sitting in some sort of radio station thing. He grabs the microphone and says: “Look at yourselves. Unplug from your chairs get up and look at the mirror. What you see is how God made you. We’re not meant to experience the world through a machine!” and then he has to stop talking because the government has discovered him. I mean, is this how we “flesh out” a character in this movie? Is this how we know what this guy feels? Ving Rhames appears only about three times in the film. Briefly. We never really get to know him as a character, we only get to know his functionality. This is the leader of the rebels, that’s all you need to know. Pfft. And this is supposed to be the leader of the humans! The characters in this movie are about as superficial as the cyborgs that the film is criticizing. Not much attention was paid to characters and situations. This is as simple a script as they come. Some plot points are simply explained away in a sentence, and we are supposed to take them for granted. As a result, you know exactly where the film is headed, and the film is over before you can blink.

Another thing that bothered me a lot about this movie was that it had an epic storyline that was delivered in such a small scale. I don’t know if this has to do with the economy and with studios tightening their budgets, but this films storyline implied world wide repercussions, yet the film chooses to show only what happens in a small city street. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Like there’s this scene where all the surrogates are deactivated and I thought to myself “okay, this is where the shits really going to hit the fan, were going to see how this is going to affect the whole world” I mean, think about it. If everyone uses their cyborgs to live, that means that even people flying planes are using surrogates. This means that doctors performing operations are using surrogates. I was expecting to see the shutting off of the Surrogates to be a spectacular part of this film. Sadly, repercussions of this world affecting event is reduced to seeing a couple of small scale car crashes on one small city street. (END OF SPOILERS) This just showed me that this film was epic in scale, but not epic in execution. I felt cheated. That’s the best way to describe it. I felt that if I had seen this film in theaters, I would have felt like they stole my money.

The whole idea of robots doing everything for us and us loosing our humanity has been done before in way better films then this one. And since I think you shouldn’t even bother watching Surrogates, I have compiled a list of better films that address the same themes, only better. So take notes, for you will have yourself a far better time watching the following films then you ever will watching Surrogates.

Artificial Intelligence A.I. (2001) - Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, now there’s a movie big in scale that explores these same themes in detail, not as if it was reading the cliff notes. Cause that’s what I felt like Surrogate’s script was like. As if I was reading the cliff notes for a much better film. A.I. is one of Spielberg’s masterpieces with excellent special effects, performances and it explores the whole aspect of artificial intelligence taking over our lives in much detail.

I, Robot (2004) – This film comes to us from Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow) and though I would never go as far as saying that its one of his best films (actually its one of his most commercial ones) its still better film then Surrogates. Its kind of like a murder mystery about the first “murder” committed by a robot. Will Smith investigates. Not awesome, not great, but a hell of a lot better then Surrogates.

Strange Days (1999) On Kathryn Bigelows Strange Days people also start preferring to live experiences through technological means rather then through real life. It also has a “leader of the revolution” that is being hunted down. The future in this film is not as squeaky clean as the one depicted in Surrogates. This is a grimy city on the verge of chaos. The film takes place on New Years Eve 1999, all the chaos and “end of the world” mentality that people had during the last year of the old millennium is executed very well thanks to Kathryn Bigelows excellent direction.

Brainstorm (1983) – This film stars Christopher Walken wanting to live in a virtual reality world. This film plays with a lot of the same themes as in Strange Days, actually Im sure this is the film that inspired Bigelow’s film. But this one gets a bit more philosophical with its implications. The characters on this movie have found a way to record human experiences, and once you put the magic helmet on, you can re-experience the whole thing. But what happens when the government wants to get a hold of it? And what happens when you record someones death? Can we see what happens after death?

So as you can see, when compared to these other movies, Surrogates treats its themes in a simple, child like matter. As if spoon feeding the audience, but with fast food instead of a nutritious meal.

I did like certain aspects of the film though. I mean, I liked the premise; I just didn’t like how they chose to execute it. I did enjoy the whole thing with everyone being a robot. I mean, lets face it. Sometimes when you go out into the world and see “the masses” humanity going about their business, you can’t help but think that we are all programmed in our own way. I actually love this theme of humans relying too much on technology; again, I just didn’t enjoy how they pulled it off on this particular film. But some of the visuals were cool, like these moment when Bruce Willis gets on a train and everyone on it is obviously a surrogate with their blank eyes and their plastic looking skin. I liked the idea behind the weapon that disables the surrogates. Unfortunately, this movie needed to think bigger, needed to explore its themes in a more elaborate way. Even this films action sequences are lackluster! There’s this chase sequence that involves a helicopter crashing into the ground. A great idea, if only the helicopter didn’t look so CGI!

Oh well, I’ve gone on long enough about how bad this movie is. It’s been quite a while since Id seen such a terrible movie. I mean, I guess every generation has its fare share of bad science fiction films. I remember when I was a kid (this was during the 80s) we got movies like Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) or Ice Pirates (1984). They might not have been great films, but at least those teenage oriented sci-fi films were fun to watch. Watching a film like Surrogates is just painful.

Rating: 1 ½ out of 5