National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

The holidays are a time for families to get together and celebrate the season. Of course getting large amounts of family members into one area can sometimes lead to problems as the close proximity leads to working on each other's nerves after a while. Christmas Vacation deals in those moments throughout the film and almost always works.

The movie is the third in the Vacation saga as after going to Wally World and Europe, Clark Griswold decides to have people come to his house to celebrate Christmas. We find the Griswolds on a trip to get a tree for their house and it is there where we see how this film will operate throughout. It has a plot- of sorts- but it is more of an excuse to set up sketch pieces and almost every single one of them hit. The tree trip goes horribly wrong over and over again. The Christmas lights on the house go horribly wrong. Both Clark and Ellen's parents come in for Christmas and that goes wrong. The aunt and uncle show up and that goes wrong. Sledding, holiday shopping, and the idea for the pool all go wrong. When things look like the worst, Eddie shows up and him and his family add another level of annoyance to Clark's perfect family Christmas.

What feels right about this film is that they do nail the way your relatives can get on your nerves. When you see people all the time their quirks get easier to focus on and eventually it is all you can notice. The scene where Ellen is trying to reassure Aubrey all the while frantically looking for a pack of cigarettes is a perfect example of this. She is projecting calm but her actions are telling a different story. The moment she lights up the cigarette her mom yells out, "Ellen, are you smoking again?" Ellen ends the scene by sniffing out the cigarette and splitting a head of lettuce with one forceful swing of a knife. The camera ends on that image and focuses for maybe an extra split second before moving to the next scene. It speaks volumes to the feelings that Ellen has about arrangements and underlies some annoyance with Clark. You can also see that Clark has second thoughts about his plans once the parents arrive and he says, "Well I'm gonna go park the cars and get the luggage, and well, I'll be outside for the season."

However, that is not why people watch this movie over and over again. It is the comedic pieces and there are plenty of them here. The film does a good job of balancing slapstick with more subtle humor, sometimes in the same scene. The aforementioned car trip to the tree begins with Clark engaging with another driver in a struggle on the road. It is a nice callback to the first Vacation movie where the lovely Christie Brinkley shook Clark from the redundancy of the road trip. Here Clark is happy and joyous and the actions of the other driver push him in the opposite direction. They crash into the parking lot at the tree place but then it leads to a small scene where Aubrey freezes and Clark tries to give some big speech about the holiday but instead his tongue is so frozen that it ends up coming out in a lisping mess.

Randy Quaid is great again in his role as the completely unhinged Cousin Eddie. It is a little troubling to watch in some ways now seeing as Quaid is really unhinged in real life. So perhaps he wasn't acting so much as playing himself. When he shows up here the anarchic nature of the situation takes off. He wears garish Christmas sweaters, drinks egg nog from a moose antler cup, and dumps the septic tank on his RV into the sewer leading to one the hilarious line, "Merry Christmas. Shitter was full." He does this all while standing in a bathrobe and wool hat in the middle of the street. Later, Edie causes the entire holiday to crash by kidnapping Clark's boss and bringing him and a bevy of cops to the home.

Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo do well again in their roles as the leaders of the Griswold family. They play well off each other and actually feel like a married couple. He has big ideas and she smiles and goes along with them all the while quietly rolling her eyes. Even when she helps Clark get the lights going she lets him have the moment instead opting to enjoy the smile on her husband's face.

What helps this film out is that they have great supporting players up and down the cast sheet. Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis play the kids of the Griswold family and bring the right amount of love for their parents and mortification at their more bizarre antics. Doris Roberts and E.G. Marshall play Ellen's parents (And one of my favorite lines in the film comes from Marshall. On the front lawn when the lights don't work, he begins telling the kids how bad their father is in this and Lewis says, "He worked really hard grandpa." He responds with, "So do washing machines." I always loved that line in the film.) William Hickey pops in as Uncle Lewis. Julia Louis Dreyfuss and Brian Doyle Murray play supporting roles as well. The veteran cast of actors and good comedic actors make every line land and know how to play these situations to the hilt.

It's a movie I'm sure you've seen but it is one that is worth re-visiting year after year. In the spirit of the season I will close by saying:

"Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, kiss my ass, kiss his ass, kiss your ass, Happy Hanukkah."

Die Hard

Hans Gruber: Mr. Mystery Guest? Are you still there?

John McClane: Yeah, I'm still here. Unless you wanna open the front door for me.

Hans Gruber: Uh, no I'm afraid not. But you have me at a loss. You know my name but who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne? Rambo? Marshall Dillon?

John McClane: I was always kinda' partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really dig those sequined shirts.

Hans Gruber: Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mister Cowboy?

[Elevator rings as Hans's minions arrive on John's floor]

John McClane: [Quietly, as he backs through a door] Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.

I can't begin to tell you how much joy I still derive from that short conversation between villain Hans Gruber and hero John McClane in 1988's Die Hard. Everything that the movie is can be found by analyzing that exchange. The evil German sees McClane as being typical of American culture. McClane is a nobody (in Gruber's eyes) and he feels that McClane is playing a hero because every red blooded male wants to believe that would be them in the role. The dichotomy here comes from the fact that we have seen everything that Gruber has not to that point. McClane is not aSuperman character and everything he is doing comes from thinking and planning. He is not necessarily carefully planning his moves. His only motivation is staying one step ahead of the bad guys that are trying to take the building.

Director John McTiernan was coming off a pretty fun action film in 1987's Predator when he returned to direct this film. The film itself is based on a novel and is brilliant in its simplicity. Today audiences are treated to hero characters that seem mild-mannered until a situation calls for them to be a hero. Then they turn into an all world athlete mixed with a horror movie monster. They operate in the shadows and somehow always have the jump on the bad guys. In this film, it is confined to one building and has a very claustrophobic feel to it. McTiernan films this movie so there are a lot of tight shots on McClane and we get a sense that the walls around him are far more intimate than they appear. It feels like he is trapped in that building and his only way out is to find a way to survive. Not necessarily strap on guns and be a marksmen- but just be good enough.  In fact, the simplicity of the plot was so easy that the running joke in Hollywood pitch meetings to do when describing an action film is to refer to it as "Die Hard on a _____." That is a huge testament to what the creators and the acting parties did here.

This film may not have worked as well though if it didn't have strong actors in the lead roles. Alan Rickman and Bruce Willis are fantastic in the roles they play. They argue with each other but there is always a sense of begrudging respect for the other. Gruber would never admit that he is impressed by McClane wiping out his 12 men by himself but his facial reactions and responses to comments tell a different story. McClane feels it is pretty brazen what Gruber is trying to pull off but being a cop he knows he has a duty to stop him. Everyone else is basically playing stock characters so you need strong forces in the middle pulling the action towards them. I know many criticize Reginald VelJohnson in his role as the cop who talks with McClane throughout the film but I think he works because you need some cop who is sane or else it makes the entire force look stupid and thus has Willis playing off them AND the bad guys.

The story itself is pretty simple. A group of German terrorists take over a building and plan to rob it but must make it look like a terrorist act. McClane is in the building but out of sight when the Germans first show up so they don't know he is there. He spends the film shuffling through the upper floors, offing bad guys, and delivering threatening messages for Gruber.

Other than that, there is not much to say about this film. It is a fun action film with a delicious subtext about what it means to be and American hero. The meaning can be found in that line I quoted at the top. Also, this features a great use of "Christmas in Hollis," by Run DMC. This is a film you need to see if you have not already.

It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie

Tell me if you've heard this one before. The Muppet theater is in trouble and the gang needs to raise money so they can save their arena. The group gets together and prepares a knockout show to raise funds and do the job. A seething villain watches on from the outside hoping the Muppets will fail so they can turn their theater into something for the villain's personal good. In the end everything works out okay and the Muppet Theater is saved. If you saw the recent Muppet film in theaters it is pretty much the plot of that film. However, it is also very close to the plot of this 2002 made for NBC movie starring The Muppets.

I know people love The Muppet Christmas Carol from 10 years earlier but to me this works a little better because it feels more like a Muppet production rather than them shoehorning themselves into the Dickens classic. (However, both pale in comparison to the 1987 television special "A Muppet Family Christmas"). The set-up here is very similar to the old Muppet Show with the gang engaging in screwball antics while guest stars pop up in and out of the film to move it along rather than take over the film. There are a few gags in here that are as good as anything they've done since Jim Henson's untimely passing in 1990.

The story opens with Joe Snow, a Rankin/Bass type snowman, narrating what has been happening in the town. The snowman is quickly dispatched and from there we move into the story. Kermit has been trying to keep the theater going and has the gang working hard on a new show. However, we meet Kermit after something bad has happened and he is dejectedly walking through the streets wondering how much better The Muppets would be if he had never been born.

It is then we are introduced to an angel named Daniel (David Arquette) and his "boss" (Whoopi Goldberg). He takes us back to the beginning of the story to find out what got Kermit into this depression. Kermit was approached by a real estate agent named Rachel Bitterman (Joan Cusack) who says she will foreclose the theater if she is not paid. In this series of events, Pepe the King Prawn deserts the Muppets to join with Bitterman because he thinks she is hot. After Kermit leaves we find out that Bitterman plans to turn the Muppet Theater into a new hot nightspot named Club Dot. Pepe tells Bitterman the deadline in the contract to pay is 12 am so Bitterman changes the contract to 6 pm giving the Muppets less time than they thought. Pepe then spies Bitterman with a new man and tries to warn Kermit about what is coming. He finally gets the message there but then Kermit sends Fozzie with the money and it gets lost forcing the Muppets into foreclosure. Kermit then begins walking the streets wishing he was never born and Daniel has to show him that course of life. From there it is a standard take on It's A Wonderful Life with Kermit seeing what would have happened without him.

This is where you get some of the funnier stuff and some nice in jokes for hardcore fans. Without Kermit the Muppet Theater does not exist so Club Dot is in its place. Kermit enters the building and is immediately accosted by Sam the Eagle as a raver holding glow sticks. The sheer vision of that was enough to make me laugh out loud. Kermit then backs into a cage and sees Scooter as a cage dancer wearing S&M gear. It's a pretty adult joke for the movie although it is not as out of place as you would think in the Muppet universe. The big in joke is that Doc Hopper's has become a big franchise around the country and he is getting rich on selling frog legs. Because you know the Life story you know how this will end but that does not mean the journey there is any less satisfying.

Before we get to the portion at the end there is a ton of classic Muppet antics sprinkled throughout. Fozzie is his normally groan inducing joke-telling self. This all becomes funnier when he gets mistaken for The Grinch in his trip to Bitterman's office. Miss Piggy is her normal diva self, and the rest of the Muppets are trying their hardest to work in their spotlight moments while being good soldiers for the greater good. Kermit is his usually steady center. The fibers of the gang are as strong as ever as they battle the outside forces against them.

Along the way we get cameos from the Scrubs gang, Matthew Lilliard, Joe Rogan, and even Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. they never stay for too long and they are only used to further how zany the Muppet world is. There is also a pretty nice Muppet take on Moulin Rouge entitled Moulin Scrooge.

The simple fact in the end is this. If you like that warm feeling you get inside around this time of year than the Muppets are always going to be right for you. They make a living in reminding you of why they are so eternal, and how the ideas of friendship, loyalty, and dedication are the keys to success and lasting relationships. This is a fun movie and is pretty easy to find around in stores right now.

Gremlins

I remember (somewhat) being a young kid in the mid 1980's. It was really a wonderful time to be a young kid. The cartoons were better, the movies were better, and the toys were top notch- and as a bonus didn't give you lead poisoning. I believe it was either my 3rd or 4th birthday where I got a Gizmo stuffed animal. I couldn't wait to take that thing to nursery school as plenty of my friends had their own little Gizmo's. If you were lucky you had the ones that talked as well with the same playful childlike voice that Howie Mandel used in the film (and later used in his animated series Bobby's World). So it was pretty cool a few months later when I was at a family friend's house and was introduced to where Gizmo really came from. People knew it was from Gremlins but as a kid, toys sort of exist in their own universe and you can not see how they would function outside of that. It's the same theory that has turned Toy Story into a beloved franchise. Anyway, as they flipped through the channels I caught a peek of Gizmo staring at something and was fixated on his image. I wanted to see Gizmo in his adventure. That lasted all of a few minutes before Stripe pounced onto the screen with his scowl and white poof of hair. I was ready to hide quickly.

It took a few years but I revisited the film and was pretty struck by what I saw. What on the surface seemed like a neat little family film- because of the furry lead- was actually a pretty nasty black comedy. The most humorous part of the movie to me is that if you just watched the first 20 minutes or so and then turned it off you would almost never believe how the thing ends up because it would seem so off the wall from the set-up, even with it being slightly ominous and shady.

Randall Peltzer sets out to buy a Christmas gift for his son and heads to Chinatown where he discovers an ancient creature named a Mogwai. He tries to buy one but the owner refuses because owning one he says, "Is a great  responsibility." As Randall leaves he is approached by the store owner's son who agrees to sell the creature because his family needs the money. He however does relay to Randall that there are certain rules to owning a Mogwai. If you've seen the movie you know them, if not well here they are:

1.) Never expose it to bright lights- especially sunlight which will kill it.
2.) Never get it wet- which will make it multiply
3.) Most importantly, never, EVER, feed it after midnight- no matter how much it cries

I guess somewhere in there you should've been able to detect something was amiss here.

That night a glass of water is accidentally spilled on Gizmo and he multiplies by 5 including Stripe who is the leader of the new 5 Mogwai but is very hostile to Gizmo. The son, Billy, wants to learn more about Mogwai so he takes it to his science class and leaves one with his teacher. When Billy returns home the 5 new creatures bite through his alarm clock cord and trick him into feeding them after midnight. When he wakes up the next morning the 5 Mogwai are in cocoons. Gizmo, who refused the food, remains unchanged.  When the Mogwai emerge from their cocoons they are now Gremlins with snarling teeth and a nasty taste for chaos and humans. From there it is a chaotic battle as Stripe and the evil Gremlins try to wipe out everyone in their path.

It also needs to be mentioned that this film helped (along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) to usher in the PG-13 movie. It wasn't really a kid's movie but yet it didn't warrant the R rating that more adult films got. So the MPAA invented a new category for these types of films and now PG-13 is looked at as a Holy Grail for studios. If they can get movies into the PG-13 range it opens up a huge audience for them.

This is a really fun little movie and Joe Dante does so much right when it comes to creating a setting and mood for his film. Dante was heavily influenced by films of the 1950's and the town here feels very reminiscent of the stripped down towns presented in those films. There are thousands of blinking Christmas lights, everyone is jolly in town, there are Christmas carols being sung, and it feels like a local neighborhood. This all ends up being incredibly effective when things break down since it feels like it could be happening to you. That small town feel is something Dante would go back to in later movies like Matinee and one of my favorite movies The Burbs. In that latter film and the television show he helped create Eerie, Indiana he focused on the aspect of bad things happening in small town America.

The macabre sense of humor that permeates the film though is where this movie really shines though. Dante takes the structure of a family film and subverts that by introducing so many elements that seem ripped from horror films. You have the evil creatures tormenting the good creature and then the humans it has attached itself too. There is a scene where the Gremlin in the science lab breaks out of its' cage and hides in the corner of a darkened room only to bite the hand off of the teacher. Most notably though is the scene that sticks out like a sore thumb every time you watch the film. It is the scene that many critics attacked, and even Steven Spielberg hated but allowed Dante to keep because it was his film. This was despite the fact that Spielberg had creative control on the film. It's kind of funny that so many critics savaged the scene because it really is something culled from the 1950's where the jokes were usually of a sick and twisted nature. It's hard to describe exactly what is said. In the middle of the chaos Billy and his girlfriend have this discussion:

Kate: Now I have another reason to hate Christmas.

Billy Peltzer: What are you talking about?

Kate: The worst thing that ever happened to me was on Christmas. Oh, God. It was so horrible. It was Christmas Eve. I was 9 years old. Me and Mom were decorating the tree, waiting for Dad to come home from work. A couple hours went by. Dad wasn't home. So Mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went, and still nothing. So the police began a search. Four or five days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing, so I went to try to light up the fire. That's when I noticed the smell. The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.

It feels so out of place and so bizarre in the middle of the film. I never minded its inclusion but it feels like they wedge it into the story rather than just letting it naturally happen. Still it's an amusing anecdote and is an old urban legend.

In the end this is two different movies that really shouldn't work together but with Dante's deft touch they do. You have a family Christmas film on one hand, and on the other a horror comedy. Dante at this time was really turning into a good director with a nice style and he found a way to find common threads between the two genres  and create a film that really is fun to revisit at any time of the year. Even if just to see how cute Gizmo is again.

 

 

Scrooged

Charles Dickens classic novella A Christmas Carol was written in 1843 and to this day still holds up as a classic piece of literature. The ideas presented by the book- the fortunate looking out for those who are less fortunate, and the obligations of society to help those in need lest they face eternal doom are timeless and are still ideas many of us could learn from even today. It's those themes that lead the book to still be loved and taught in schools even 168 years after its first publication. Those themes also make it perfect for the Christmas (or holiday) season where the sense of brotherhood and glad tidings and goodwill should make us take a look at those around us and reach out where we can. If you've ever stopped to throw a dollar in the Salvation Army bucket this time of year you know where the themes stem from.

The universality of the themes in the novella make it easy to adapt into films and television shows since it represents what we always hope to be as human beings rather than how we usually end up being. Hollywood has taken numerous stabs at the material from the George C. Scott film in 1984 to Scrooge McDuck playing the title role in Mickey's Christmas Carol. Even It's A Wonderful Life features some variation on the theme and you have to be able to see how The Grinch's plight has its foundation in the character of Ebenezer Scrooge. However, 1988's Scrooged starring Bill Murray and directed by Richard Donner may be one of the more off kilter adaptations of the source material.

Part of that comes from Donner directing the film. Donner has an interesting eye when it comes to helming films. He has bounced between superhero films (Superman), action movies (Lethal Weapon series) to horror movies (The Omen). A Christmas Carol has a dark sense of humor about its self but it is always couched in the fact that in the end we get to see Scrooge come full circle as a character. When the ending hits it drives home the point that some of the humor in the story comes from Scrooge trying to rationalize what is happening to him and the fact that the ghosts delight in showing Scrooge how poorly he makes everyone around him. In this film the dark humor is really amped up but then at the end instead of a full circle character change, we get Murray playing Scrooge as a slightly less abrasive jerk. To be fair, some of that may be a result of the screenplay. The writers of the screenplay (one of which was the original head writer for Saturday Night Live) came out at the time of the film and declared that the movie was much different than the screenplay they wrote. It would be fun to see how they originally wrote the film because the finished product goes heavier on the dark rather than the comedy. The only time it really gets humorous is when it seems like Murray is going off on his own little tangents.

The film itself stays pretty true to the format of the novella. Bill Murray plays Frank Cross, a hotshot television executive, who delights in offending people at every turn and is forcing his employees to come to work on Christmas Eve for a live presentation of Scrooge. In a meeting about a commercial spot for the show he presents a commercial basically promising the viewer nuclear Armageddon if they don't watch the show.  When the meeting closes Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldwaith) stays behind to voice his displeasure and is promptly fired by Cross. His mentor then shows up as the Jacob Marley character promising three ghosts will visit. That leads to Buster Poindexter as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and then a seven foot ghoul as the Ghost of Christmas Future. You know what Cross will see and what will ultimately come of it. In the end Murray's character breaks into the live presentation of Scrooge and delivers a speech extolling the virtues of the holiday and relaying the ideas of what he has learned.

Murray is the star here and plays the part with his typical manic energy. He is having fun throughout and is only one of two who seems to be doing so. At the end when he issues his speech he slips into his lounge singer persona from SNL and just goes completely off the wall with what he is saying and doing. In fact, the film is so tied to Murray I would go so far to say that without him in the lead role this would've been a completely terrible film. As it is, he keeps it just funny enough that the character- while an acerbic jerk- is just barely likable enough.

In the supporting cast it is a mixed bag with one real standout. Poindexter is okay as the Ghost of Christmas Past but his cigar chomping and voice that sounds tinged after a 6 day whiskey binge gets old fairly quickly. Karen Allen plays Cross's ex-girlfriend and she is pretty good in an underdeveloped role. She works in a homeless shelter and is the direct opposite of her former boyfriend in that she only does good for people who are needy. She smiles and laughs but Murray and her never seem to have any real chemistry together. Part of that is the completely jokey nature Murray takes throughout but part is the script. Alfre Woodard plays a variation of the Bob Cratchit role as Cross's secretary and the mother to a couple kids that are living as best they can. Her youngest son is someone who never speaks and she is clearly worried about his demeanor. She is fine in the role even if they don't give her or her story quite enough screentime. Goldwaith is pretty funny as the employee who gets fired and gradually loses his mind before turning back up at the station with a shotgun looking to kill Frank. By the end he is in full-on Goldwaith mode where he is screeching, talking fast, and using every facial tick at his disposal to get across how unnerved he is. The real standout though is Carol Kane who plays the Ghost of Christmas Present. She plays her part as some mix of Glenda the Good Witch and a UFC fighter. She talks in a bizarre accent, squeaks her lines in a high pitched voice, and engages Cross in one beating after another. It is the one supporting player that Murray seems to really have some chemistry with and the middle section of the film with her around really sizzles and moves along quickly. So quickly in fact that we only get a minute or two with the Christmas Future ghost and it feels so anti-climatic compared to what just happened in front of it.

In the end though, the film is fun even with its problem areas. If you are a fan of Bill Murray (and I'm a huge fan) you will enjoy this film because he is basically playing versions of characters that came before. It is almost as if the Ghosts of Performances Past are at work here. You won't get any new ground covered, and you know the story, but with the sheer unhinged nature of Murray's performance, and the choices made by the makers of the film it is never boring to watch.

Mission Impossible 3

Now this film is more like it. That is not to say that it is a perfect movie but it gets far more right than it gets wrong and is easily the most enjoyable of the first three films in this series (This reminder that Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is now in theaters). All it took was turning the keys to the car over to a guy who was directly in the middle of a buzz filled television show.

The script throws us directly into the fire with Ethan Hunt strapped to a chair and his wife strapped to a second chair across from him. Controlling the action is Owen Davian, played with a sinister glee by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Hunt is pleading for his wife's life while Davian is insisting that Hunt hand over the Rabbit's Foot. The sequence ends with Davian shooting Hunt's wife in the head and then the film jumps back in time to show us how we got to that point. By structuring the film this way it did a few things that worked. In the first two films we met Hunt either in the middle of getting one up on someone or out climbing mountains on vacation. Here, he is a hero in peril from the start and we know that no matter what happens with Hunt having the upper hand, at some point he will be trapped by the villains. Also, it jump started the story giving us a frame of reference to work towards rather than just trying to build from the start which is sort of where the second one falls apart. In the second one the story builds to a virus being released. Here, we aren't sure what the Rabbit's Foot is, but if a guy is willing to shoot a woman point blank in the face it must be something that carries some heavy power. This film has stakes and it throws a bunch of cards on the table at the start.

This seems to grow from the fact that J.J. Abrams (Lost, Fringe) knows how to make viewers emotionally invested in the characters. Hunt had a quality of not being likable at times in the first two. Here he has some personality and we can feel for the plight he finds himself in. From there then we actually get some supporting characters fleshed out a little. It's not great, and it is still where the film falters some, but Simon Pegg in a few minutes of screen time is almost as developed a character as Thandie Newton was in the second film.

The film shines to when the big action pieces show up including the bridge scene which is arguably the best action sequence in the series of films. Davian is being transported in a convoy when it is attacked by Davian's crew. There is a helicopter firing on the trucks from above knocking out quite a few of the good guys. It is tense and there are plenty of explosions which all lead to Davian escaping. This leads to hunt fearing for his wife's safety and leads us into the scene which began the film.

What really sets this film apart from the other ones though is that Hoffman is great as the villain. He is enjoying the role and controls the situations with a seething vengeance. He resists the urge to yell most of the time and instead relies on ordering threats and commands through gritted teeth. Since he is so evil and defined it gives Hunt a real foil to play off of and that means the action has some sense of conflict. What is happening matters because the viewer cares for Hunt and his wife. It also means the plot twist isn't as bad because the viewer can see a scenario where Davian convinced the person to flip just by sheer force of a threat.

I have to admit by the time this sequel rolled around I was growing weary of the series. However, Abrams brought a fresh take and developed a movie that- while still formulaic was never boring and was actually interesting throughout. Hopefully the 4th one keeps the train moving in a positive direction.

Mission Impossible 2

In yesterday's post I discussed some of the problems I had with the film adaptation of the Mission Impossible television show. Again I feel i need to mention that I generally had no problem with the first movie in the end though. It has some glaring imperfections but underneath it all I think they were trying to make a goofy action film and they ended up making a goofy action film with an incredibly insulting plot twist to fans of the series. I also mentioned that I found the two sequels to be quite polarizing. Here we are at the first one and I can say without any reservations:

This movie is not any good.

The first red flag for this film was bringing in John Woo to direct. That sounds like a knock on Woo and in some ways it is. On the other hand though I have enjoyed a few of his American films but I think he falls into his familiar patterns to often and removes all the tension in an action sequence by giving everyone guns and then reducing the movie to a slow motion piece. Worse than that though is that Woo has a vast world at his disposal as far as weapons go in a vaguely futuristic society and instead relies on staples of the action movie genre resorting to a computer over and over again. All those factors combined remove any emotional attachment from the film to the point where the characters fates don't matter. It's especially troubling when the film is asking us to sympathize with Thandie Newton's character throughout. By the time she injects herself with the virus it almost feels like you want her to just die and get it over with.

The script is a let down too as it doubles down on the Ethan Hunt character at the expense of everyone around him yet it somehow finds a way to even further minimize the rest of the team. Ving Rhames spends most of his time looking at a computer screen watching what is happening as if he is a viewer surrogate. Newton is given nothing to do throughout other than wear cutoff shirts. Dougray Scott, usually pretty great, just plays a stock villain here and is given a lame plan and is then underwritten on top of it.

The action tries to look great and they only really succeed in the opening sequence with Hunt climbing through the mountains. Other than that it is just variations on pieces from the first film including using something similar to Ethan rappelling into the building. It just feels like the film has no ideas to put forward and is instead just daring the audience to not like it. I can hear the studio suits saying, "They saw the first one and this will be pretty much the same film."

There is really nothing to say about the film beyond that. It's a film with little to no character development that has a villain with a silly plan and no real good guys to speak because even Ethan is willing to let Nyah take some abuse for the greater good. Luckily for viewers the series got much better with the next entry.

Mission Impossible

(As a warning- the first part of this post will reference ideas that anyone under the age of 17 will not be able to comprehend. Be warned if you are of that age)

For about 7 years of my life growing up my family did not have cable. Basically we had the normal 3,6,10,17,29,57 and then whatever else I could find on the old UHF stations by manipulating the rabbit ears and adding sheet after sheet of tin foil. On one of the stations on Friday nights they would show the old Mission Impossible television show. One night I found the station just as the theme song was kicking on and I was instantly hooked. The episode was one where a scientist had developed a pill that turned people into willing slaves and as it wound to a close the words popped up, "To Be Continued." There was no way I was missing the conclusion to that story (luckily for me they showed 3 hours of the show every Friday night so I didn't have to wait long) and I was hooked. In fact, I was so hooked to the point that when they announced the movies were coming out I immediately bought the cassette single of the theme to play at home, and when I finally got my license a year later it was the soundtrack of my first drive ever. So yes, I enjoyed the show immensely.

Yet, when they announced a movie based on the series it was met with reservations from me. I thought how are they going to replace the original actors. When I found out it was going to be Tom Cruise in the starring role my worries eased some. I know Crusie gets a ton of praise for his eccentricities but the guy is a pretty damn good actor and is enjoyable to watch in almost everything he does whether it be a starring role like Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men or a supporting role like Les Goodman in Tropic Thunder. Add in Jon Voight, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jean Reno and you have a pretty solid cast. When you factor in Brian DePalma you have the right pieces in place. I was excited when the movie opened and I remember seeing it opening weekend still.

Watching it 15 years later my enthusiasm has waned some for the film. Perhaps I'm over my nostalgia for the original work, or perhaps it is just that the film is a little too busy. Also, there are a few other issues, the first one I'll mention bothered me at the time as well.

On the original show, the IMF was a true team effort. They had their star agents but everyone got turns in the spotlight. In this film though it is all about Cruise's character from start to finish. That would've worked had this been an origin story of sorts but it really isn't. It is a mission we are thrown into and then it is Ethan Hunt creating a team once his old team is obliterated in a double cross.What really bothered me though was that in the end they had Phelps be a traitor which ruins the entire fabric of the television show that I and so many others invested time in watching religiously. Isn't the movie being made for them? Why insult them?

The big problem though is that this is an action movie but it is really a bunch of set pieces loosely strung together with a convoluted storyline. By the time you get to the end so many people have jumped teams and so many things are happening that you need a flow chart to keep up. Maybe my 15 year old brain wasn't processing everything or I was much smarter then (both are legitimate possibilities).

The first team they have assembled is a completely likable group with Kristin Scott Thomas and Emilio Estevez but they get killed off in the first 15 minutes which then means we have Cruise for a long time until the next team assembles. We don't have enough time with the old team or the new team to grow attached to any of them which means their fates aren't something that really matter. They are just ancillary pieces to Hunt and his story.

There are parts where DePalma creates some nice tension but too often he keeps falling back on action pieces which are more from James Bond movies than Mission Impossible.

In the end I sort of feel indifferent towards the film. I didn't really like it, but I didn't really hate it either. Plus, the following two films are far more polarizing to me. As it is, this film worked in being an action movie but don't expect a coherent film in any way.