MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT (US/China - 2018) Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Cast: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Monaghan, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Wes Bentley, Vanessa Kirby, Frederick Schmidt, Liang Yang, Kristoffer Joner, Caspar Phillipson, Alix Benezech. (PG-13, 147 mins) Big-budget summer blockbusters don't get much more entertaining than MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT, the sixth film in the durable, 22-year-old franchise. An incredible jolt of adrenaline in cinematic form, FALLOUT is easily the best in the M:I series so far, and it might even be the best movie Tom Cruise has ever made. Setting aside his batshit religion, Cruise may very well be The Last Movie Star and only a fool would count him out after a trio of forgettable underperformers--JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK, THE MUMMY, and AMERICAN MADE--that had all of the entertainment industry prognosticators concluding that the now-56-year-old (!) actor was washed-up and his time had passed. While we justifiably question the necessity of a TOP GUN sequel that's due out next year, FALLOUT is Cruise here and now in a series that's been on a roll, reteaming him once more with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar-winning USUAL SUSPECTS screenwriter who emerged from an eight-year sabbatical to become Cruise's most trusted aide-de-camp in either writing (VALKYRIE, EDGE OF TOMORROW, THE MUMMY) or directing (JACK REACHER, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION) capacities in the ensuing decade. What everyone was saying about MAD MAX: FURY ROAD three years ago holds true here: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT is an instant classic in the action genre.
A direct sequel to ROGUE NATION, FALLOUT is as convoluted as you'd expect, with IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), botching a mission to intercept three weapons-grade plutonium orbs that end up in the hands of The Apostles, a splinter cell offshoot of The Syndicate, the organization run by international terrorist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), who was apprehended in the previous film. Assigned to retrieve the plutonium by IMF boss Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin), the team is overruled by CIA chief Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett), who orders her own operative and attack dog Walker (Henry Cavill) to tag along. The story moves all over the globe, as Hunt ends up posing as a mystery man named John Lark, set to buy the plutonium from the Apostles with a wealthy socialite and arms dealer known as The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) acting as a go-between. Things get even more complicated when The Apostles refuse to pay for the plutonium, instead insisting that if "Lark"/Hunt wants the plutonium, he has to help Lane escape from a military-fortified prison transport. Throw in MI-6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and her own assignment to kill Lane, Hunt being framed as a rogue agent once more, and a scheming Walker clearly up to games of his own, and the stage is set for one double-cross and jaw-dropping action set piece after another for a two-and-a-half hour stretch that's over before know it.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT is a movie that just doesn't quit. It's a preposterous delight and a rare instance of an action film that actually merits the comparison to the proverbial standby blurb of a non-stop rollercoaster ride. Though there's some conservatively-deployed CGI and visual effects, the abundance of practical stunt work and action choreography solidifies Cruise's standing as Hollywood's most death-defying madman. McQuarrie's puzzle-like story construction and recurring motif of "Who's really who?" recalls THE USUAL SUSPECTS, but there's also generous helpings of humor and warmth among the IMF characters who, to borrow a term from the FAST AND THE FURIOUS series, have really become family by this point (it's Hunt's unwillingness to sacrifice Luther that causes him to lose the plutonium in the prologue, something that Sloane and Walker never stop reminding him). FAST AND THE FURIOUS fans may want to argue the point, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a big-budget franchise still creatively firing on all cylinders and running better than ever six installments deep. It's impossible to pick a best scene--the HALO jump, the bone-smashing men's room throwdown, the epic boat/car/motorcycle chase through Paris, the greatest "Tom Cruise running" sequence ever, or the nerve-wracking, INCEPTION-like cross-cutting race against time in the climax, when the team tracks Lane to a medical camp in Kashmir where a smallpox outbreak caused by The Apostles has just been contained, which involves a helicopter chase, a brawl that spills over to the side of a mountain, and the defusing of two nuclear devices. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT is crowd-pleasing, edge-of-your-seat, popcorn movie perfection, the kind of relentlessly heart-pounding, balls-to-the-wall barnburner that restores your faith in the summer blockbuster.
THE MUMMY (US - 2017) Directed by Alex Kurtzman. Written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman. Cast: Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, Marwan Kenzari, Neil Maskell, Simon Atherton, Javier Botet. (PG-13, 107 mins) A simultaneous reboot of the Brendan Fraser franchise and at least the fourth attempt to kick off a new and updated 1940s-style monster cycle, it's obvious with the 2017 incarnation of THE MUMMY that Universal needs to get its shit together or give it up. 2004's VAN HELSING, 2010's THE WOLFMAN, and 2014's DRACULA UNTOLD all tried to reignite the legendary Universal monsters and failed, and now, in response to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, they're trying it again with the so-called "Dark Universe," an attempt to meld the classic Universal monsters with the comic book/superhero genre. There's already other films in various presumptuous stages of development, including an INVISIBLE MAN with Johnny Depp, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE with Russell Crowe, and yet another WOLFMAN with Dwayne Johnson, plus a BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, with a yet-to-commit Angelina Jolie's name being constantly mentioned. Universal's philosophy with the Dark Universe seems to be "If at first you don't succeed, throw another $200 million at it and cross your fingers."
THE MUMMY has a major A-lister at its foundation in Tom Cruise, and the 54-year-old actor is a good two decades too old to be playing Nick Morton, a smartass, devil-may-care Army recon officer and part-time fortune hunter who finds plenty of spare time to seek priceless treasure in dangerous areas of Iraq. With his wisecracking sidekick Chris (Jake Johnson), they're caught in a skirmish with Iraqi rebels, calling in an air strike that inadvertently opens a long-buried tomb housing the mummified Egyptian Princess Ahmamet (Sofia Boutella), deemed such a danger that she was entombed 1000 miles away in then-Mesopotamia. Centuries earlier, Ahmamet, after offering her soul to Set, the Egyptian god of death, slaughtered her entire immediate royal family to hasten her ascent to the throne. Forming an unholy alliance with archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), with whom he recently had a one-nighter in Baghdad after which he snuck out of her hotel room and stole the map that led him to Ahmamet's burial ground, Nick boards a military plane to London, where subway construction crews have accidentally unearthed a tomb containing Egyptian artifacts that date back to Ahmamet's time. The plane is struck by a swarm of birds and Jenny ends up with the only parachute, while everyone else onboard perishes in the resulting crash.
That is, except Nick, who wakes up in a body bag in a London morgue with a tag on his toe, supernaturally kept alive after being cursed by the spirit of Ahmamet. The mummy has been taken to the London headquarters of Prodigium, a secret government organization devoted to collecting and containing the world's monsters, and led by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Crowe), who must take frequent injections of an antidote when he feels his evil alter ego Mr. Edward Hyde taking control. Ahmamet has come back to life, draining the life of those around her LIFEFORCE-style, but is now kept in chains in an underground Prodigium bunker, intent on breaking free and collecting the artifacts necessary for her to reassemble the "Dagger of Set," the weapon required to make her an all-powerful god. She eventually possesses a Prodigium tech and escapes, materializing outside as a giant sandstorm that destroys London (cue obligatory "Tom Cruise running" shot as he's being chased by sand and dust). Ahmamet reanimates the long-entombed skeletons of crusader warriors unearthed in the London excavation, as a still-possessed Nick, plagued by visions put in his head by Ahmamet, is determined to stop the mummy's reign of terror and somehow save his own spirit.
THE MUMMY is a chaotic mess that somehow took at least six writers to put together, and it doesn't seem like any of them looked over anyone else's work. Three are credited with the screenplay, including veteran journeyman David Koepp (JURASSIC PARK), USUAL SUSPECTS writer and Cruise BFF Christopher McQuarrie (who's no doubt responsible for the ludicrous climactic plot twist), and Dylan Kussman, an actor best known as Cameron, the student who turns against Robin Williams' John Keating in 1989's DEAD POETS SOCIETY. Others had a crack at it, including Jon Spaights (PROMETHEUS, PASSENGERS), Jenny Lumet (at what point did a Universal exec say "Maybe we should see what the writer of RACHEL GETTING MARRIED can do with this?"), and Alex Kurtzman (TRANSFORMERS, STAR TREK, STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS), who ended up directing. The end result is disjointed and unfocused, like a product that was cynically assembled by market research, trend analysis, and focus groups. Why is Universal so hellbent on shoehorning these characters into a superhero scenario in a "Dark Universe?" Crowe could probably make a plausibly frightening Jekyll & Hyde in a straight, serious adaptation, but here, growling and hulking out with significant CGI enhancement, he just looks silly in what amounts to the Dark Universe's Nick Fury surrogate (and why is Dr. Jekyll even here anyway? Other than 1953's ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Jekyll & Hyde wasn't part of the classic Universal Monsters roster). The film also pays winking homage to the Universal-released AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, when Chris is killed off by a poisonous spider bite and his rotting corpse keeps returning to bust Nick's balls, much like Griffin Dunne's mauled Jack did to David Naughton's lycanthropic David in the 1981 classic. As the mummy, Boutella probably fares best, though the CGI does a lot of the acting for her. And despite the claims of some historically-challenged entertainment journalists who must be unaware of 1944's THE MUMMY'S CURSE, 1971's BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB, and 1980's THE AWAKENING, Ahmamet is not the first female mummy in a movie.
Cruise looks out of his comfort zone in a horror film that can't settle on a tone (it works best as a straight adventure in its early scenes, before quickly imploding), and this just seems like a superfluous project for him to be tackling at this point in his career. Cruise has the Barry Seal biopic AMERICAN MADE due out later this year, but other than his commitment to doing his own stunts in the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and JACK REACHER franchises and in a zero-gravity scene here, can you name the last time he really challenged himself as an actor playing a three-dimensional character? The serious actor side of Cruise has become harder to locate than the whereabouts of David Miscavige's wife. Where did BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY's Ron Kovic go? What happened to MAGNOLIA's Frank T.J. Mackey? Where's that Tom Cruise? He'll be 55 this year and his next two projects after AMERICAN MADE are MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 6 and the sequel TOP GUN: MAVERICK. Dude, what are you doing? At his point, is a future sequel to RISKY BUSINESS out of the question? Are we gonna get a 60-year-old Tom Cruise reliving his glory days and dancing around in his underwear to Bob Seger? In total coast mode with declining box office results but still big enough to avoid going the Nic Cage VOD route (for now), Cruise's career is in serious danger of becoming the Hollywood version of a classic rock band hitting the summer concert circuit and still selling a sufficient amount of tickets at big venues but playing nothing but the old hits for maximum nostalgia. He's the Def Leppard of A-list movie stars. The MISSION: IMPOSSIBLEs and the first JACK REACHER and EDGE OF TOMORROW were fine, but the last time he really stretched as an actor was when he put on a bald cap and a bunch of makeup and busted a move to Flo Rida in TROPIC THUNDER. It's almost like he left the committed, serious Cruise behind on that couch during his much-analyzed OPRAH freakout.
JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK (US/China - 2016) Directed by Edward Zwick. Written by Richard Wenk, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. Cast: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Robert Knepper, Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Holt McCallany, Madalyn Horcher, Robert Catrini, Jessica Stroup, Austin Hebert. (PG-13, 118 mins) Released at Christmas 2012, JACK REACHER was the first big-screen adaptation of the popular character from a series of books by Lee Child. Much was made of Tom Cruise not exactly being the 6' 5" wall depicted in the novels, but the movie was a smart and action-packed throwback with a refreshing 1970s approach that involved doing as much practical stunt work as possible, right down to an old-school car chase from the FRENCH CONNECTION school. It also performed under expectations at the American box office, and though it made $80 million against a $60 million budget, analysts still considered it somewhat of a flop compared to Cruise's track record, with the likes of his MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series. JACK REACHER proved to be a blockbuster hit overseas, particularly in Asia, which is probably the reason we're getting a sequel that American audiences really weren't demanding. Budgeted at just under $100 million for some reason, with a good chunk of the financing coming from China-based Huahua Film & Media Culture and the Shanghai Film Company, JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK is based on the 2013 novel Never Go Back, the 18th in the Jack Reacher series. It certainly doesn't look like something that cost nearly $100 million, and unlike most US/China co-productions, an incongruous and prominently-billed Asian pop star isn't on hand to play a character briefly and cumbersomely shoehorned into the story, though the version released in Asia is probably different.
Taking place a few years after the first film, NEVER GO BACK finds the loner Reacher doing freelance work for the military police and hitching rides from town to town, going where the road takes him like an ass-kicking David Banner sans the Hulk-outs. An ex-Army Major, Reacher has a flirtatious phone relationship with D.C.-based Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who's in his old office. He decides to pay her a visit when he makes his way to D.C., only to find she's been arrested and facing a court-martial for espionage. Of course, Reacher decides to meddle in the investigation and doesn't buy that Turner set up two soldiers under her command to be killed in Afghanistan when they uncovered an illegal weapons trade supposedly being run by Turner. Everyone in the Army seems eager to pin this crime on Turner and sweep her under the rug, starting with her replacement, the scheming Col. Morgan (Holt McCallany). The Army also lets Reacher know that he's got a paternity suit against him, even though he insists he has no children. When Turner's lawyer (Robert Catrini) is murdered, Reacher is arrested and thrown in an Army compound, where he of course stages a daring and improbable escape with Turner, the two going on the run and picking up Samantha (Danika Yarosh), the 15-year-old who may or may not be Reacher's daughter and is being targeted by the same killer-for-hire contractors out to silence them.
Of course Turner is innocent, the real culprits being a rogue contracting outfit called Parasource, who dispatch a ruthless assassin known simply as The Hunter (Patrick Heusinger) to make them all disappear. Parasource's contractors are hijacking US military weapons and selling them on the black market in the Middle East, a lucrative scheme overseen by the retired and constantly sneering General Harkness (Robert Knepper), whose villainy is obvious the moment you see that Robert Knepper is playing a sneering character named "General Harkness." Knepper, who seems to be getting all of the roles that once went to former actor James Woods before he decided to spend his emeritus years in daily Twitter meltdowns, can play this kind of part in his sleep and doesn't really get much to do other than behave like a smug prick as Harkness (of course, he's seen glowering at his desk, ominously reminding a group of paramilitary goons "No witnesses"). One thing working against NEVER GO BACK is that none of its villains--Harkness, Heusinger's The Hunter, or McCallany's Morgan--are as effective as the inspired casting of legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog as "The Zec" in the first film. This film cost nearly $40 million more than its predecessor and doesn't really go bigger in any way. There's no big names in this other than Cruise. Jobbing journeymen like Knepper and McCallany (the J.T. Walsh of his generation) are exemplary character actors but they don't command huge salaries. And Smulders has HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and some Marvel movies to her credit, but she isn't a big-screen headliner making Jennifer Lawrence money, so where did the budget go? Sure, the explosions look a bit more convincing than the CGI norms of today, but there even a big car chase doesn't match the impressive one in the first film.
Director/co-writer Edward Zwick, a veteran journeyman whose career has been all over the place (he created THIRTYSOMETHING and directed films as varied as SPECIAL BULLETIN, GLORY, LEGENDS OF THE FALL, THE SIEGE, Cruise's THE LAST SAMURAI, and the DiCaprio bling-bang of BLOOD DIAMOND), gets the job done but doesn't bring the snappy wit that USUAL SUSPECTS writer Christopher McQuarrie brought to the first REACHER (McQuarrie is one of the committee of producers on NEVER GO BACK). Cruise is pretty much the whole show here and much of the film is in service to his ego, whether it's his name mentioned no less than three times in the opening credits or the now-obligatory scenes of the still-youthful-looking 54-year-old running. Smulders is a solid foil who handles herself well in the many action scenes, but NEVER GO BACK stumbles a bit with Yarosh's Samantha. The actress herself is fine but her character's main function--aside from being absolutely unable to even--is to do stupid shit that alerts The Hunter or Harkness to their whereabouts, whether it's sending a text on a phone she knows she shouldn't have, or using a stolen credit card to order room service while Reacher and Turner are out trying to clear their names. Samantha is also the source of the script's biggest plot hole, one that's glossed over by Zwick and co-writers Marshall Herskovitz and Richard Wenk in the hopes that the audience will just forget about it. JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK isn't trying to be an original piece of work--otherwise, it wouldn't include a brawl at a warehouse that looks like an abandoned set from a Nine Inch Nails video, and the final showdown between Reacher, Turner, and Harkness' Parasource assholes wouldn't take place at a wharf--but despite its many familiarities and predictable developments, it's always fun to see badass characters just plowing their way through bad guys (Reacher punching a guy in the face through a rolled-up driver's side window is a highlight), and Cruise and Smulders are a likable team. Bonus challenge for when this hits Netflix streaming: drink every time someone says "Reacher" and see if you make it to the halfway point before passing out.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION (US/China - 2015) Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Cast: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris, Simon McBurney, Xiang Jingchu, Tom Hollander, Jens Hulten, Hermione Corfield, America Olivo, Robert Maaser, Wolfgang Stegemann. (PG-13, 131 mins)
Putting aside the fact that he's a pretty weird guy who believes in a patently crazy religion, there's no denying that Tom Cruise is perhaps The Last Movie Star, the kind of guy who, with occasional missteps (ROCK OF AGES), knows what his fans want and always delivers. The action just gets more frenetic and ambitious with ROGUE NATION, written and directed by Cruise's apparent new BFF Christopher McQuarrie, who won an Oscar for his USUAL SUSPECTS script nearly 20 years ago. McQuarrie disappeared from sight after 2000's THE WAY OF THE GUN and resurfaced with a writing credit on Cruise's 2008 film VALKYRIE. Since then, McQuarrie wrote and directed Cruise in 2012's underrated--with a growing cult--JACK REACHER, and he co-wrote last year's EDGE OF TOMORROW. Fans of McQuarrie the writer will be happy to know that he brings some of his gift for verbiage and Keyser Soze hyperbole to ROGUE NATION, particularly when Alec Baldwin's irritable CIA chief tells one of the bad guys that Cruise's Ethan Hunt is "the living manifestation of destiny...and he's made you his mission!" As a director, McQuarrie throws all of the styles of past M:I franchise helmers into a blender in a way that's tantamount to a greatest hits package. There's a lot of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2's John Woo in the fight choreography and some generous Brad Bird in the elaborately death-defying GHOST PROTOCOL-style set pieces, plus the long Vienna Opera House sequence that's more Brian De Palma than anything De Palma did as the hired gun directing the first M:I installment in 1996. Though there's quite a bit of CGI assistance, ROGUE NATION goes the extra mile in the action sequences to make them as practical as possible. Sure, for every scene of Cruise hanging on to the outside of a plane as it's taking off, or doing most of his own driving in a high-speed motorcycle chase sequence, there's one of him being bounced around like a pinball or a really phony-looking car flip that momentarily takes you out of the movie, but these interruptions are few and far between.
After a spectacular opening sequence with IMF agent Hunt hanging on to the side of a plane as it takes off, the actions starts bouncing around the globe, first in London where Hunt, on the trail of a terrorist organization known as "The Syndicate," is ambushed by its sinister leader Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Hunt and his IMF team have never been able to produce any concrete evidence of The Syndicate's existence, much to the consternation of CIA chief Hunley (Baldwin), who has IMF disbanded and tells agent Brandt (Jeremy Renner) that he believes Hunt "is both arsonist and fireman, and that the Syndicate is a figment of his imagination, created by Hunt to justify the continued existence of IMF." Hunt, now off-the-grid and considered a global fugitive, enlists the aid of his former cohort, Langley-based CIA flunky Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), who meets up with Hunt and deeply-embedded British agent Ilsa Faust (a star-making turn by Rebecca Ferguson), who shows ever-shifting loyalties after infiltrating The Syndicate and constantly being put to the test by the nefarious Lane. Eventually, Brandt and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames, who probably looks forward to the M:I films to rescue him from the world of straight-to-Redbox) join the group in Morocco for an incredible car/motorcycle/SUV chase down a Casablanca highway. The action moves at a furious clip and never stops, whether it's the MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH-style sequence in the opera house or a complex plot to retrieve data from a underwater power server that requires Hunt to hold his breath for several minutes, though watching how it plays out, I'm not sure I buy the hype that Cruise himself held his breath for several minutes.
ROGUE NATION doesn't aspire to be anything more than escapist entertainment and it's one of the most enjoyable movies of the summer. At 53, Cruise seems to have stopped chasing an Oscar and instead settled into a comfort zone where he's found a niche but isn't coasting. At this rate, he won't need to do a geriatric actioner in five or six years because he'll never have stopped doing stuff like this, and that's fine. Cruise is in top form here, and he's matched by a game Ferguson, who needs to return if there's any future M:I outings. Renner, Pegg, and Rhames all have their moments in the spotlight (Luther busting Brandt's balls about handling the 4x4 during the car chase gets a big laugh). Baldwin, with his blustery GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS delivery, benefits the most from McQuarrie's gift of wordsmithing, while Harris makes a decent if one-dimensional bad guy. Like the FAST & FURIOUS franchise, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE seems to be gaining steam as it goes along, with the last two being particularly strong (I even like the much-maligned second entry by John Woo, which has achieved almost HIGHLANDER 2 levels of loathing by fans in the decade and a half since its release). In short, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION is the most no-holds-barred actioner to hit screens since MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, and while it isn't the game-changer that George Miller masterpiece was and the second half isn't quite as rousing as the first, it gives you almost everything you could possibly ask for in a big summer movie, with enough real stunt work--one of the highlights of JACK REACHER, by the way--mixed with digital to demonstrate the difference. Strap Cruise to a parked airplane or on a motorcycle in front of a greenscreen and this is as forgettable as any generic action movie. Cruise and McQuarrie know the difference and audiences should, too. This and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD should be case studies in why the studios need to scale back their reliance on cartoonish CGI and start using it to enhance the action rather than being the action.
GOING CLEAR: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE PRISON OF BELIEF (US/UK - 2015) Written and directed by Alex Gibney. (Unrated, 120 mins)
"All Scientologists are full of shit" - actor Jason Beghe, who left the Church of Scientology in 2007.
If you're of the opinion that Scientology is a cult, Alex Gibney's documentary GOING CLEAR: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE PRISON OF BELIEF, based on Lawrence Wright's book, will do nothing to dissuade you. Delving into the history of the alleged "religion" and its formation by insanely prolific science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the film gives plenty of information and backs it up with transcripts and first-hand accounts by high-ranking "church" officials who now count themselves among the former members. But even in in-depth conversations with these former members--including CRASH director Paul Haggis and CHICAGO P.D. star Beghe--Gibney often explores the "what" at the expense of the "why" when it comes to what drew them to join. What is it about this organization that persuades its members to give it all of their money? Wright mentions that he studied things like Jonestown and radical Islam, and Scientologists follow that same pattern of fervently-devoted, cult-like thought. Of course, these days, Scientology is synonymous with its star representatives Tom Cruise and John Travolta, both of whom--need it even be mentioned?--declined or more likely never responded to interview requests from Gibney. The Scientology origin stories of both actors are explored here, with Travolta being recruited by "a female actress" during the making of his first film, the 1975 horror film THE DEVIL'S RAIN (she isn't mentioned by name, but it's Joan Prather) and top church official Spanky Taylor being assigned as his handler when he soon blows up with WELCOME BACK KOTTER and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. Taylor would eventually become critical of the church and was sent to something called "Project Rehabilitation Force," billed as a retreat for stressed members but, according to Taylor, a prison camp where problem Scientologists are subjected to menial labor and sleep deprivation. She alleges Travolta knew of her predicament and did nothing about it, and that the iconic actor is, for all practical purposes, a prisoner of Scientology.
Cruise's Scientology exploits are even more unsettling than those of Travolta. Following Hubbard's death in 1986 after spending much of the 1970s and into the 1980s in hiding and on the move due to mounting legal problems, the organization has been run by chairman David Miscavige, who's virtually a figure of Mephistophelean evil by the time the end credits roll. And it's not unjustified--Miscavige lobbied hard for Scientology's tax-exempt status, even suing the IRS and individual employees until the government agency caved and granted them tax-exemption, right down to the backlist of Hubbard's science-fiction novels being classified as "religious texts," therefore making the revenue they generate non-taxable. Miscavige and Cruise are shown to have a borderline codependent relationship that was ruined for the better part of the 1990s by Nicole Kidman, who feared that Cruise was becoming too much like Miscavige. When Cruise and Kidman were away in the UK for well over a year working on Stanley Kubrick's 1999 swan song EYES WIDE SHUT, Miscavige, upset that his bromance with Cruise had fizzled over the preceding several years, set in motion a plan to end the Cruise-Kidman marriage by, among other things, getting inside information by having Kidman's phones wiretapped and also through incessant "auditing" of Cruise--"auditing" essentially being rigorous one-on-one "therapy" sessions tantamount to brainwashing the actor into breaking up with his wife. In 2004, Miscavige assigned church member and future HOMELAND actress Nazanin Boniadi to be Cruise's girlfriend (his marriage to Katie Holmes is never mentioned). Miscavige envisioned Cruise to be Scientology's ambassador, and in footage of a gala celebration of Cruise's accomplishments, it's disconcerting to see one of the world's biggest and most powerful movie stars subserviently kissing Miscavige's ass and saluting him.
Gibney delivers the sideshow horror stories but there's still an alarming lack of substance to GOING CLEAR, which is odd considering just how many ex-Scientology big shots are on board, with one former top figure repeatedly being harassed by vengeful members who brazenly show up at his doorstep (they even go so far as to rent the vacant property across the street from his house and watch/videotape him 24/7). There's allegations of physical abuse and virtual slave labor, and one story about a game of musical chairs that reveals Miscavige to be an utter sadist, but it never really gels together. Miscavige and his minions have gone all out trying to trash-talk GOING CLEAR, even launching a bullying troll campaign on Twitter, and while it doesn't disappoint in terms of illustrating just how completely batshit--yet very powerful and financially savvy--the whole organization seems to be, the film never really coalesces into a whole. Why isn't there any mention of Miscavige's wife Shelly not being seen in public since 2007, or that KING OF QUEENS star and former Scientologist Leah Remini filed a missing persons report on her behalf shortly before leaving the church in 2013? That seems important. Part of this might be that as a filmmaker, Gibney is nearly as prolific as Hubbard was as a writer. GOING CLEAR is the third of five documentary features Gibney's done since the beginning of 2014, with the two-part SINATRA: ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL airing on HBO next week. That's in addition to two short films for ESPN's 30 FOR 30 series. All told, he's directed or co-directed over 20 feature-length docs since 2010. While it's nice that the workaholic Gibney keeps himself busy, one can't help but wonder if GOING CLEAR could've been a little more consistent, cohesive, and substantive if he didn't have four other irons in the fire at the same time. Maybe Errol Morris or Werner Herzog should've made this film.
EDGE OF TOMORROW (US - 2014) Directed by Doug Liman. Written by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth. Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Noah Taylor, Kick Gurry, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong, Tony Way, Franz Drameh, Dragomir Mrsic, Masayoshi Haneda, Terence Maynard. (PG-13, 114 mins)
Admittedly, the trailers for EDGE OF TOMORROW didn't look promising. Based on the 2004 novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, EDGE appeared to be another chance to show Tom Cruise running around and saving the world, this time in a GROUNDHOG DAY-meets-STARSHIP TROOPERS scenario. Yes, that's part of the plot, and the film makes no secret that it's a mash-up potpourri of other military sci-fi films. But even before it establishes its central conceit, EDGE is subverting your expectations in creative and unpredictable ways. Yes, it fuses GROUNDHOG DAY and STARSHIP TROOPERS, and also ALIENS and WWII movies and video games and Tom Cruise running and feels like the kind of movie James Cameron might've made in the late '80s and early '90s before he publicly unleashed his inner Insufferable Asshole for all the world to see. But it takes those elements and sends them in an unpredictable direction, and when Cruise runs, he doesn't run like a hero saving the world. He stumbles and bumbles like a guy who's skated by on his personality and just likes wearing a uniform and whose grinning visage is all a show for the cameras. Cruise has some fun toying with his screen persona here, and that's just the beginning of the unexpected highlights that this furiously-paced, surprisingly inventive, and often quite witty sci-fi actioner has to offer.
Set five years into a Europe-based war with an alien race known as Mimics, EDGE opens with military media liaison Major William Cage (Cruise) being ordered by United Defense Forces commander Gen. Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) to act as an embedded correspondent with forces launching a massive invasion of France to hold off and defeat Mimic forces. Known as a ubiquitous presence on cable news as the chief UDF spokesperson and PR/propaganda flack, the arrogant Cage objects to being sent into combat, and ultimately tries to blackmail Brigham by threatening to publicly blame him for any casualties in the next day's attack. An enraged Brigham has him arrested and branded a deserter, and the next day, Cage wakes to find himself on a military base, stripped of his rank, busted down to Private, and being read the riot act by gung-ho Sgt. Farrel (Bill Paxton, whose presence is an obvious nod to ALIENS). Cage, despite almost no training and with the extent of his service being a smiling face on TV encouraging young people to join the fight, accompanies the troops on the invasion, which immediately ends in disaster: the Mimics knew they were coming and wipe out the UDF in five minutes, including Cage and legendary warrior and the heroic face of the UDF, Sgt. Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), aka "Full Metal Bitch" and "The Angel of Verdun" after leading the first UDF victory against the Mimics at Verdun. But then something funny happens: Cage wakes up, back on the base, at the same starting point as the previous day. He goes through the same botched attack again, and each time he's killed, he wakes up at the previous original point. His ability to finish everyone's sentences and predict the outcome of the UDF invasion are summarily dismissed as parlor tricks and the ravings of a coward trying to get out of military action, but during one time loop, Vrataski tells him "Find me when you wake up." Only she knows what he's talking about and how he's reliving every day once he's "killed," and together, they try to devise a plan of attack, based on their previous failures, of defeating the Mimics in France and finding the truth behind what they are, what they're capable of doing, and why only they have experienced the time loops.
Like Sakurazaka's novel, EDGE is essentially intended to be one long video game, and it's one of the very few instances where that's meant as praise. Witness the constant "resets" from the same starting point each time Cage is "killed" and the way he and Vrataski strategize and memorize every Mimic movement during the failed invasion in order to survive and "get to the next level." Director Doug Liman (SWINGERS, GO, THE BOURNE IDENTITY) and editor James Herbert handle the potentially unwieldy time element in expert fashion. Most impressive is the way time loops come to shockingly abrupt ends when Cage is unexpectedly killed and how, when the time loops seem to stop, we only gradually realize that Liman is only letting us see certain developments for the first time. In other words, we discover that Cage has been living these time loops for an undetermined amount of time, and there's a subsequent implication that even the precise starting point is something that's questionable in the context of the narrative. Liman holds it together in masterful fashion, but EDGE OF TOMORROW could've easily been an incoherent mess considering the committee of writers involved and the fact that it didn't even have a finished script until shooting was about to start. The screenplay is credited to Christopher McQuarrie (who won an Oscar for his USUAL SUSPECTS script) and Jez & John-Henry Butterworth (FAIR GAME), but the initial work was done by Dante Harper, whose original script was reworked by Joby Harold (AWAKE). Liman tossed out most of the work done by Harper and Harold and brought in the Butterworths, whose work was then revised by Simon Kinberg (SHERLOCK HOLMES, ELYSIUM). Kinberg departed the project and Cruise pal McQuarrie (who worked with the star on VALKYRIE and JACK REACHER, two of Cruise's most underrated films, and is set to direct the next MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE entry) was brought in to write an ending and give the script one final polish.
EDGE OF TOMORROW's seemingly frozen-in-time Europe looks terrific (I skipped the 3D version) and the CGI creatures are very well-done. It never pretends it isn't constructed on a foundation of great films that came before it, but it wastes little time in becoming its own beast. Going in expecting a by-the-numbers CGI blur, you may come away pleasantly surprised at the relatively old-school feeling of the whole thing. But that may just be part of the Cruise experience at this point. Yes, he's a crazy Scientologist, but he's one of the few genuine movie stars left who can still draw huge audiences just on the basis of his name. For all their accolades and media ubiquity, how many blockbuster mega-hits have guys like George Clooney or Brad Pitt had? Not many. People don't go see "Brad Pitt movies." They go to "movies with Brad Pitt," and often, mainstream audiences don't like them (THE TREE OF LIFE, KILLING THEM SOFTLY, THE COUNSELOR). People still go see "Tom Cruise movies" regardless of what they're about. Sure, one could argue that the 51-year-old Cruise is entering the self-deprecation phase of his career with the way he slyly mocks his image here (the patented "Cruise running" shot comes very early, and it's clumsy, awkward, and hilarious), but the guy's still got it. Sure, EDGE OF TOMORROW has a couple of plot holes (at the point in the time loop where Cage and Vrataski's Jeep runs out of gas, why doesn't Cage ever consider taking some gasoline cans along with them on the next loop?) and it may suffer from coming so closely on the heels of another Cruise sci-fi epic with last year's visually stunning but somewhat empty (and seemingly already-forgotten) OBLIVION. That was another film that stood on the shoulders of giants, but unlike EDGE, didn't take things to the next level. Contrary to the ho-hum trailer and TV spots we've been seeing, EDGE OF TOMORROW is incredibly entertaining and far better than it has any right to be, and it may very well be the summer's biggest surprise.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Written by Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt. Cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo, Zoe Bell. (PG-13, 125 mins)
With his mega-budgeted 2010 directing debut TRON: LEGACY, Joseph Kosinski fashioned one of the best-looking films you'll ever see, a triumph of visual effects and production design that stood as a prime example of CGI done right, even if the story itself was muddled and the film itself released decades past the point of anyone really caring. Kosinski's follow-up effort, OBLIVION, continues to show him as a style-over-substance guy, with its apocalyptic visuals, widescreen vistas and landscapes and its coldly clinical futuristic sets demonstrating a stunningly ominous post-nuke wasteland that you don't really see much on the big screen these days. While this is mostly obviously accomplished via CGI, it's interesting to note that Kosinski's wildly ambitious sci-fi CGI worlds in TRON: LEGACY and OBLIVION feel more real and organic than most of the greenscreen CGI backgrounds you see in contemporary cinema set in the present day. I spend a lot of time bitching about CGI, but its possibilities are limitless when used as part of the story and executed with diligence and care as opposed to existing only as a necessary time-saving and/or cost-cutting measure. Say what you will about Kosinski's abilities as a storyteller, but props where they're due: the guy's made two incredibly beautiful-looking films. Count me as a fan...for now.
So yeah, the script? Well, that could use some work. Based on a graphic novel concept by Kosinski, OBLIVION is set in 2077, around the nuked ruins of the east coast. In 2017, Earth was invaded by an alien race known as Scavengers, or "Scavs." The Scavs were defeated in the resulting nuclear war, but the planet was left a desolate wasteland due to both the nuclear option and the Scavs blowing up the moon, throwing off Earth's gravity and atmosphere. In the ensuing 60 years, humanity has migrated to the Saturn moon of Titan, with water from Earth's oceans extracted and filtered for fuel to provide sustenance. Overseeing the extraction is "Tech 49" Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), stationed in a facility high above the ground where his communications assistant and significant other Vica (Andrea Riseborough) is in constant contact with their supervisor Sally (Melissa Leo), who's on the space station Tet, orbiting above the planet. Jack and Vica have two weeks left in their contract before they're to be cycled out and relocated to Titan, but in the meantime, Jack spends his days surveying the ruins, looking for stray Scavs to be eliminated by drones that he periodically has to maintain and repair.
Jack doesn't tell Vica that he's plagued by recurring dreams where he's in NYC in 2017, a time when he couldn't possibly have been alive, and atop the Empire State Building proposing to a woman. A space vessel crashes and Jack witnesses a drone killing the human survivors. He rescues one, Julia (Olga Kurylenko), who he immediately recognizes as the woman from his dreams. He takes her back to their base where it's revealed Julia has been in hypersleep since 2017 at the time of the initial Scav attack. Jack's investigation into her story and his discovery of a band of renegade survivors led by Beech (Morgan Freeman) force him to question everything he thinks he knows about his assignment and himself.
The script by Karl Gajdusek (the barely-released Nic Cage/Nicole Kidman home-invasion dud TRESPASS) and Michael Arndt (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and the upcoming STAR WARS EPISODE 7) takes its time setting up the story and there's quite a bit of opening exposition required to get the audience up to speed. It's hard to discuss where the story goes once Freeman, GAME OF THRONES' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (as Beech's right-hand man), and an criminally-underutilized Zoe Bell (visible as another Beech follower but getting no dialogue) turn up about an hour in without divulging some serious spoilers. But for that first hour, Kosinski lets the story unfold very much like a richly detailed novel. Those expecting nonstop action might actually find the first hour a bit dry, but the world-building and visuals work together in ways that should please fans of hard sci-fi. Once the twist is revealed (and most will probably see it coming), OBLIVION turns into a much more standard and predictable action/explosion movie, losing some steam and overstaying its welcome to some extent. At 125 minutes, it could probably lose 15-20 minutes and maybe one or two endings.
The biggest detriment to the story itself is that it feels like Kosinski and the screenwriters just cobbled together some highlights of their favorite sci-fi classics old and new, as OBLIVION constantly straddles the fine line between homage and ripoff. Even casual sci-fi fans will spot plot elements cribbed from films as varied as TOTAL RECALL, BLADE RUNNER, 12 MONKEYS, WALL-E, INDEPENDENCE DAY, PLANET OF THE APES, LOGAN'S RUN, EQUILIBRIUM, and PREDATOR. A battle sequence near the midway point is straight out of STAR WARS, and even the flying drones look and act like distant cousins of the ED-209 from ROBOCOP. There's even ideas borrowed from more esoteric fare like SOLARIS and MOON. Just as in the thoroughly enjoyable and underappreciated JACK REACHER from a few months back, Cruise is essentially Cruise throughout--he's fine but performance-wise, he's not really challenging himself very much here. It's not quite the ego trip that many of Cruise's films turn out to be (he even shares the heroics with someone in the finale), perhaps because he's just an actor here and not a producer, largely leaving Kosinski to run the show even though the film has been unmistakably tailored for its star.
The strengths of OBLIVION lie in its visuals, the cinematography by LIFE OF PI Oscar-winner Claudio Miranda, and its largely synth-based score by M83 that grows more conventional as the film progresses. Therefore, it's not quite as catchy as Daft Punk's soundtrack for TRON: LEGACY , but it's in the same ballpark. Perhaps the biggest surprise of OBLIVION is that it wasn't shot in 3D. It's one of the few films of late where the technology would've been justified, especially in that amazing first hour. In the end, with its standard "Tom Cruise" performance from Cruise and its predictable and extremely derivative story, OBLIVION is little more than really sweet eye candy, but sometimes that's enough. Though at some point, Kosinski will have to work from scripts with a little more substance and originality if he's to reach his full potential as a major genre filmmaker. That is, unless he's content to be the next Paul W.S. Anderson.
Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Cast: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, David Oyelowo, Jai Courtney, Joseph Sikora, Alexia Fast, Vladimir Sizov. (PG-13, 131 mins)
Since winning an Oscar for scripting 1995's THE USUAL SUSPECTS, Christopher McQuarrie has maintained a pretty low profile: he made his directing debut with 2000's THE WAY OF THE GUN, an underrated thriller best known for its hilariously profane opening sequence, and it was another eight years before he resurfaced to script VALKYRIE. He created the short-lived 2010 NBC series PERSONS UNKNOWN and scripted the awful THE TOURIST and starting with JACK REACHER, his first directing effort in 12 years, McQuarrie is either having a burst of inspiration or he's out of money: he wrote the upcoming JACK THE GIANT KILLER and this summer's X-MEN spinoff THE WOLVERINE, and is slated to write and direct MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 5. JACK REACHER, an adaptation of One Shot, the ninth entry in Lee Child's popular series of Jack Reacher thrillers, is a refreshingly bullshit-free, crowd-pleasing popcorn action thriller configured as a perfect star vehicle for a seemingly miscast Tom Cruise, who's not quite the image of 6' 5" Reacher that Child's readers have gotten used to over the years. But, Cruise is Cruise, and when he's on his game, he can sell you on pretty much anything. There are times in JACK REACHER where it teeters on becoming a Cruise vanity project, but McQuarrie keeps it in check and the result is a fast-paced and very entertaining film.
Opening with a Pittsburgh sniper attack that's one of the most well-crafted set pieces of 2012, the film finds Iraq War vet and sharpshooter James Barr (Joseph Sikora) accused of killing five random people outside PNC Park from a parking garage across the river. He says nothing while interrogated by homicide detective Emerson (David Oyelowo) and the district attorney (Richard Jenkins), but writes "Get Jack Reacher" on a sheet of paper. Barr ends up in a coma after being beaten by other inmates during a prison transport, and all Emerson can conclude about Reacher is that he's a much-honored US Army vet, war hero and ex-military cop who disappeared and lives off the grid except for having his monthly pension wired to wherever he happens to be. As soon as Emerson says "You don't find Jack Reacher unless he wants to be found," in walks Reacher (Cruise). Reacher knows Barr from their combat days and knows what he's capable of, but something doesn't add up. Reacher ends up working as an investigator for Barr's attorney Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike), who happens to be the district attorney's daughter ("Is that even legal?" Reacher asks), and in the course of his detective work, uncovers various clues and conspiracies that indicate that perhaps a complicated plot has been set in motion to frame Barr and make him a patsy.
The ultimate revelation (maybe the victims weren't random after all?) doesn't really hold up under much scrutiny, or the very least, it seems like entirely too much work for the true villains, though it does give us the inspired casting of legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog as a one-eyed, nearly-fingerless ex-Siberian gulag inmate known as "The Zec." JACK REACHER is a fun ride the entire way, with an intriguing mystery, lots of wiseass, crackling dialogue, and a very welcome respite from blurry, CGI-heavy shaky-cam action sequences and obvious, distracting greenscreen work. There's a long car chase midway through that's hardly the greatest ever filmed but manages to stick out from the pack simply for how old-school it is in its execution. Sure, there's minimal CGI in a few shots, but it's mostly the real deal with the actors in the cars, and what's immediately clear from watching it is how exceptional it seems because we so rarely see them done this way anymore. The JACK REACHER car chase is good but would've been pretty by-the-numbers in the days of, say, BULLITT (1968), THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), THE SEVEN-UPS (1973) or TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. (1985). The fact that it seems so great in 2012 is a pretty sad commentary on what passes for car chases most of the time. In fact, other than the cell phones and the Iraq War references, JACK REACHER could've almost been made 30 years ago with very similar results.
I haven't read any of Child's Reacher books, which is probably why I have no opinion of the miscasting of Cruise, but in the context of what's onscreen, he's fine. He's got a solid supporting cast around him, most notably Herzog, who has the kind of voice that you can just listen to regardless of the subject (even better when he's talking about chewing off his own fingers), and the always-awesome Robert Duvall in full-on "old coot" mode as a crusty ex-Marine who helps Reacher out in the final act. JACK REACHER isn't the kind of film that wins awards or gets the deluxe Criterion treatment down the road, but it never tries to present itself as anything more than what it is: fast, unpretentious and thoroughly enjoyable big-screen escapism.
