Review: "Mission: Impossible - Fallout"

Who needs the stale 007 franchise when Tom Cruise is right there, still slaying on the silver screen in the remarkably fresh Mission: Impossible series?

I'm hardly a Cruise superfan - in fact, I'm prone to steering clear of most of his pictures - and yet even I cannot resist the sight of him sprinting around, bouncing from building to building with seamless ease and more than keeping up with co-star Henry Cavill, more than 20 years his junior. That this franchise surrounds Cruise with a dynamite supporting cast (including, for the first time, the divine Angela Bassett), makes the proceedings all the more satisfying. 

While the main attractions of Mission: Impossible are the countless set pieces, with Cruise acting like a madman on 24 Hour Energy, there is a plot in the picture, albeit a convoluted one that's increasingly difficult to keep tabs on. 

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his beloved IMF team (Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, having a blast, per usual) are racing against time to prevent the terrorist group the Apostles from getting their hands on nuclear weapons that, should they be obtained, will be used for attacks on the Vatican, Jerusalem and Mecca. To Hunt's chagrin, the CIA assassin August Walker (Cavill) has been tasked by CIA Director Erica Sloane (Bassett) with monitoring Hunt and his team during the mission.

To dive further into the proceedings, and the plethora of fights, chases, impersonations and so on that arise, would be to spoil the picture's many stimulating pleasures. Suffice to say, if you've gotten a kick out of prior Mission: Impossible sequels, you are guaranteed to have a ball here, even if, for my money at least, this still doesn't quite reach the sky-high heights of the first, Brian De Palma-directed entry. 

While Cruise overwhelmingly commands the screen with his awe-inspiring stunt work, he leaves room for his co-stars to shine, including the alluring Vanessa Kirby as the White Widow, a black market arms dealer; Rebecca Ferguson, back in action after appearing in Rogue Nation; and Pegg and Rhames, instilling heaps of humor into the proceedings. If there's a weak link among the ensemble, it's Cavill, who, with his matinee idol looks and lifeless acting abilities, most recalls an Abercrombie and Fitch mannequinn. 

Christopher McQuarrie, back after writing and directing the fun, if inferior Rogue Nation, has improved upon his past contributions to the franchise, packing Fallout with one fabulous, action-packed sequence after another and avoiding the lulls that have at times plagued the series (most notably in the disastrous first sequel).

Mission: Impossible - Fallout is a summer blockbuster that more than delivers the promised goods. And, I mean, it has Angela Bassett, so you obviously need to see it.

A-

Review: "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom"

I would say the thrill is gone but, let's be honest, there hasn't been a whole lot of movie magic in the Jurassic Park franchise since Sam Neill, Laura Dern and a dynamite supporting cast had a field day 25 years ago.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is perhaps the worst of all Steven Spielberg-directed pictures (at least 1941 is an ambitious failure), while I kinda-sorta get a kick out of Jurassic Park 3 and Jurassic World for low-brow thrills. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the latest entry in this increasingly ear-piercing franchise, operates at roughly the same middling level as those two latter films. If hardly a snooze, there's not a hint of inspiration to be found.

Less a family-friendly adventure than an unhinged monster movie, director J.A. Bayona veers the series into a more cataclysmic, violent direction and the results are only intermittently diverting. 

It's been three years since the ferocious chaos over at the Jurassic World theme park, which has left abandoned the island of Isla Nublar. Stateside, Congress is debating whether the remaining dinosaurs on the island should be rescued from an imminent volcanic eruption. Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), the park's former operations manager, has spearheaded a non-profit organization dedicated to saving reptiles and, when the government ultimately passes on such a mission, she is recruited by Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), a former colleague of John Hammond's (Richard Attenborough), to embark on an expedition to move the dinosaurs to a new island sanctuary. 

Concerned Blue, the last remaining Velociraptor, will be difficult to locate, Claire convinces Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), Blue's former trainer, to join her and the crew on the mission. Upon arrival on Isla Nublar, things don't go quite as expected for Claire and Owen, who are greeted by a by a savage crew of mercenaries with more monetary intentions in mind. They've been hired by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), Lockwood's malicious assistant, to sedate and capture the dinosaurs and bring them back to the states for auction. 

That volcano, no surprise, does erupt, but not before a handful of the reptiles have been captured and voyaged back to the U.S. Claire and Owen sneak their way back to the Lockwood estate, which, before long, becomes a house of horrors, as the latest genetically engineered dinosaur, the Indoraptor, escapes and has no hesitation to inflict carnage on everything and everyone in its path.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom offers no shortage of stimulating set pieces but even its best sequences feel familiar and devoid of real imagination. Where Howard is stronger here than the first time around, Pratt looks bored, this screenplay not providing him the same opportunity as the first to constantly charm and quip his way through the proceedings. The supporting cast is uniformly underused, the most egregious instance being the great Geraldine Chaplin, relegated to the most underwritten of roles. 

If not the abomination of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom still mostly underwhelms and, more than ever, calls into question the sustainability of this flimsy franchise.

B-

Review: "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

It feels like not long ago at all that I was a young lad, sitting in front of the tube, absolutely mesmerized by Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Perhaps unlike many fellow fans of my age, I was actually vastly more enchanted with Fred Rogers himself than the puppeteering of his Neighborhood of Make-Believe. During those latter segments, I mostly zoned out, whereas I was downright entranced by Mr. Rogers and his direct, honest and affectionate rapport with me, the viewer. (In my area, PBS aired the program right after CBS did The Price Is Right, so I guess you could say my formative years were spent idolizing Mr. Rogers and Bob Barker.)

Fives decades since the premiere of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and falling the same year Rogers would have celebrated his 90th birthday, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, the latest picture from Morgan Neville (whose Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal and the Oscar-winning 20 Feet from Stardom are among the best documentaries from recent years), wholeheartedly does the TV legend justice. It's an absorbing, entertaining and deeply affecting look at a man whose kindness and empathy are sorely missed in this trainwreck of times.

Won't You Be My Neighbor? traces Rogers' entry into the modest world of children's television in the 1950s. While trained and ordained as a minster, Rogers is perplexed by the limited and lackluster small screen offerings for kids, programs that generally consist of lame slapstick comedy, pies thrown in faces, clowns haphazardly dancing before the camera, etc. He partakes as a puppeteer in The Children's Corner, a new local children's television program in Pittsburgh, and, though he sticks with the show for several years, ultimately finds the proceedings don't quite live up to the superior vision he has in mind. 

So, Rogers develops a new program, which, over the 1960s, slowly but surely generates attention and acclaim, not just in Pittsburgh but nationally. Unlike most of the garbage infiltrating the airwaves and directed at children, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is a thoughtful, warmhearted program that never for a second dumbs itself down for its audience. It also delicately touches upon issues that countless parents undoubtedly haven't a clue how to discuss with their kids. 

Among the most striking moments of Won't You Be My Neighbor? is Rogers' testimony before the United States Senate in 1969. President Nixon has proposed deep budget cuts, including toward funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Rogers speaks before the Senate committee, his comments particularly directed at the chairman, Senator John Pastore. Pastore, at this point unmoved by pleas for retain such funding, is ultimately completely won over by Rogers, who speaks to the important of social and emotional education through public television. He even recites lyrics to one of his songs from the show. Pastore's reponse? "Looks like you just earned the $20 million."

Such is among countless moments to treasure in this documentary. His friendship with Francois Clemmons, the African-American vocalist who for more than two decades portrayed Officer Clemmons on the program - one of the first black performers to have a recurring role on a children's television series - is fascinating and we're also treated to a plethora of insightful interviews with Rogers' cast and crew, plus his delightful wife Joanne.

I suspect Rogers himself would have been quite pleased with this project. It's a perceptive and compelling picture, never mawkish, yet immensely poignant. Watching this film and spending an hour and a half with the man, it's hard not to feel some sense of sadness that Rogers isn't around right now, in times sorely lacking his gentleness and understanding. While I'm not exactly attune to today's offerings, I suspect the bulk of current children's television doesn't quite operate on the same level as Rogers' efforts.

More now than ever, we need a little Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood in our lives. 

A

Review: "Hereditary"

Oh, what a pleasure it is to see Toni Collette right where she belongs, on the big screen, in a leading role worthy of her sky-high talents.

Collette, who should've won that Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her devastating turn in The Sixth Sense, has a field day in her latest picture, filmmaker Ari Aster's dizzying horror flick Hereditary. Right up there with the legendary likes of Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby and Shelley Duvall in The Shining, this is one of the all-time great performances to grace this genre.

In the film, Collette portrays Annie Graham, wife to Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and mom to teenage son Peter (Alex Wolff) and younger daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Annie is kinda-sorta grieving over the recent loss of her estranged mother Ellen - they weren't terribly close and, as we soon discover, Ellen put her family through a whole lot of hell, especially Annie's brother, who ultimately committed suicide. 

When tragedy strikes another member of the Graham clan, Annie finds herself drawn to Joan (Ann Dowd), a member of a support group she has joined. Joan, who lost both her son and grandson, has been communicating with the latter through a seance. Annie, to the great chagrin of her family, decides she'll do the same at home - and what a poor decision that is, as the house becomes ravaged by malevolent supernatural forces that threaten to bring every Graham down. 

I'm hoping to steer clear of spoilers but let's just say fans of Rosemary's Baby, Poltergeist and The Exorcist are bound to have a blast with Hereditary. Aster has no doubt been inspired by the classics, without ever resorting to rip anything off. The film looks incredible, photographed by Pawel Pogorzelski, and Aster's screenplay, while a sad and scary affair for the most part, hardly lacks a sense of humor. Only the picture's ending doesn't quite satisfy, playing as curiously silly vis a vis the genuine horrors that precede it.

What's especially stirring here is the acting - Collette has never been better and she's matched by an ensemble also operating at the tops of their game. Byrne's understated approach gels nicely with Collette's hysterics, while Dowd is an irresistible, if unsettling delight. Both Wolff and Shapiro effectively contribute to the film's spine-chilling atmosphere.

Hereditary won't be everyone's cup of tea and I do fear its conclusion could overshadow the rest of the proceedings for some. That said, I doubt we'll be encountering another picture this genuinely terrifying over the remainder of 2018.

A-

Review: "First Reformed"

Oh, how I expected and wanted to love Paul Schrader's First Reformed.

I consider Schrader one of the finest screenwriters of the past half-century, his contributions especially to the likes of The Yakuza, Obsession, Taxi Driver and Bringing Out the Dead exemplary examples of his genius on the page. While Schrader's directorial efforts have proven decidedly more scattershot, rarely does he bore and, on occasion, he has delivered a real knockout, with Affliction perhaps being his masterpiece.

The thought of Schrader teaming with Ethan Hawke, an actor I've admired in many pictures, from Reality Bates to Richard Linklater's Before trilogy, for me set expectations rather high for their collaboration on First Reformed, a film that looked positively spine-tingling in its trailer.

Alas, I left First Reformed floored with the contributions of merely one of these two men. For while Hawke's performance as the despondent Father Toller is a truly mesmerizing portrayal, among the actor's most startling work to date, the film around him is a meandering slog that rarely suggests the brilliance of Schrader's past work. 

Hawke's Toller is the pastor of a microscopic church in upstate New York. Still beside himself over the death of his son, Toller has descended into alcoholism and chosen to ignore the illness that is undoubtedly ravaging his body. Toller is sleepwalking through life until the entrance of Mary (Amanda Seyfried). Mary is pregnant with the son of Michael (Philip Ettinger), an environmentalist who can't bear the thought of bringing a child into a world he views as doomed. 

Toller finds himself consumed with reflection on Michael's concerns and is all the more rattled by the discovery of a suicide vest in the couple's garage, shortly followed by Michael's suicide. His health gradually failing and dependency on booze increasing, Toller continues to counsel Mary while also finding himself at odds with Edward Balq (Michael Gaston), a chemical magnate concerned with Toller's newfound interest in environmental causes.

First Reformed is beautifully shot by Alexander Dynan and has that same unbearably dreary look and feel of prior, superior Schrader works. Hawke does heaps of heavy lifting but in the end, Schrader's curiously uninvolving script and the plodding pace of the proceedings left me on the verge of dozing off. The picture may be more dignified than the flamboyant likes of American Gigolo and Cat People but it isn't remotely as compelling.

Hawke's committed turn aside, First Reformed is a monotonous miss.

C+