Mission: Impossible III

Obviously the fourth Mission: Impossible movie just came out, but I still haven't seen the third yet, so I decided to correct that last week. Each movie in the series has had a different director and subsequently a different tone, and the third installment was the first feature film made by J.J. Abrams. It sort of mixes and matches elements from the first two movies. The first was a paranoid spy thriller, and the second was pretty much a Hong Kong action movie. The third film has some of the same kind of bombastic action and huge scale of the second, but it's ultimately closer to the first film in terms of realism (which itself wasn't exactly totally authentic, just look at the climactic scene for proof). Some elements definitely seemed silly - there were several one-liners and over-the-top moments that probably didn't need there, and got in the way of the story a bit. But the setup was smarter and the payoff better than the mediocre second film, and the darker tone seemed to fit the series well. I don't think it was quite as good as the original, but it was close enough.

Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt, though he is no longer a regular spy and instead trains recruits for the agency. He's even trying to settle down with a woman played by Michelle Monaghan, something his friends and colleagues are skeptical of. He gets pulled back into action when one of his trainees played by Keri Russell is kidnapped on a mission, a job that kicks off a plot involving someone bad inside the agency trying to stop him while a black market dealer played by Philip Seymour Hoffman tries to sell something that's potentially extremely dangerous. Backs get stabbed, explosions go off, and complicated heists get executed. The movie is completely packed with recognizable actors, and most of them do pretty well in their roles. It's fun to see Ving Rhames and Tom Cruise together again, and their team is rounded out competently by Johnathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q. Laurence Fishburne plays a fairly predictable but solidly slimy higher-up at the agency, and Simon Pegg only gets a couple scenes to do his wisecracking nerd routine but does it well anyway. Hoffman plays a totally creepy and intimidating villain despite his lack of physical prowess, and the mole subplot ended up being more interesting than I expected. Abrams makes a few unexpected decisions and shoots the action very well, and I thought the distinct color palette of the film worked as well. It's not a particularly special action movie in most ways, but it's done well enough to be pretty enjoyable throughout. It got me interested in hopefully seeing Brad Bird's take on the series before it leaves the theaters.

Source Code

Duncan Jones is now two for two with science fiction films that are well made and visually appealing, have intriguing concepts, and are entertaining to watch reach their conclusions. Although Jake Gyllenhaal's central performance isn't as gripping as Sam Rockwell's in Moon, which pretty much had to carry the entire film, he's good enough to lead a film that I otherwise thought was a little better in most other areas. When I first saw the trailer for Source Code, it seemed like a silly idea. They seemed to be depicting the main idea as a simulation of the last eight minutes of a train ride before it blew up, not actually altering events but observing them to figure out what happened. Gyllenhall's inability to grasp the concept of being unable to save the already-dead victims made him seem dull. It works a lot better in the actual film, when they lay out that he's actually being repeatedly projected into an alternate universe that the source code creates, rather than basically just watching a static event over and over again. Some bits that don't quite make sense are hand-waved away with simple catchphrases like "genetic mapping" or whatever, and they don't really go into how these parallel realities are actually created. But it's not hard science fiction, and as a way to set up a twisty, exciting thriller, it's more than enough.

I really liked Gyllenhaal's character, a military helicopter pilot who wrestles with trying to grasp the situation he's in, helping with the mission he's been given to help prevent a larger attack, and striving to find a way to save the train passengers, especially the girl played by Michelle Monaghan that he sits across from. She doesn't have a lot to work with, being stuck in the same eight minutes of plot as along with the other passengers, but she's cute and likable and pretty easy for Jake to fall for. His attraction contributes to his larger attempt to do more than just solve the attack, something which his handlers tell him he can't do but you become unsure of over time. Vera Farmiga plays his main contact in the real world, an operator who has to balance her duty with her obvious sympathy for his situation, and does a nice job with it. I was less pleased with Jeffrey Wright as the creator of the source code project, who is a bit too obviously evil and uses an odd gravelly voice, but he doesn't damage the film much. The plot has the expected twists and turns, and resolves in a way I quite liked examining angles of the concept in ways I wasn't expecting, and bringing the different story elements to a united conclusion. There's lots of really good imagery in the movie, stuff that seems simple but helps add up to the sort of movie that could have been a lot weaker, but manages to capitalize on its potential quite well. It's too bad that Jones says he only wants to make one more science fiction movie before stopping for a while, because he seems to have a real knack for pulling it off.

Due Date

When I saw the first trailer for Due Date, I was interested, because it seemed to have the potential to be a modern day Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I was also a bit wary, because the trailer itself wasn't actually very funny. So while it didn't turn out to really measure up to some of the great road comedies of the past, I was glad to have enjoyed it enough to make seeing seem worthwhile. It's not the most creative movie ever written, but a lot of times mediocre material can be salvaged by a good cast, and Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifiankis are two of the best funny actors working today. The surrounding supporting players aren't as unique and compelling as you'd hope, but they work well enough to give material for the two leads to bounce off of.

Todd Phillips has never really been very impressive at his job, and the main problem with the movie is the script that he and the bevy of other writers involved came up with. There's just not a ton there to work with. Some of the dialogue is pretty good, especially pretty much everything Downey says when he gets pissed, which is often. But less effort is made to justify the contrivances of this movie, such as why the two mismatched main characters are stuck together and why they are eventually able to bond. Of course it's something that has to happen, it just doesn't feel natural when the transition occurs after not a whole ton of prodding. And the biggest gap in the story involves the resolution of several highly dangerous crimes that take place, in a way that just completely ignores how the world works. I get that it's a comedy and that I should just enjoy it, but usually movies at least try to hand wave this stuff somehow rather than completely ignoring it.

And while I liked the performances, the characters were a bit thin, especially Galifianakis'. His performance of an overweight, effeminate, idiotic, delusional man-child is enjoyable, but unlike his role in Phillips' The Hangover, pretty much all of the humor comes from pointing out these characteristics repeatedly rather than showing how these characteristics would be funny. As I mentioned before, the supporting cast is decent. Danny McBride makes another stellar cameo as a war veteran working at the Western Union, and Juliette Lewis makes for a pretty good pot dealer. It's kind of funny seeing Michelle Monaghan as Downey's wife after their roles together in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, though despite Jamie Foxx' likability, I really could have done without the subplot involving those two, and he was also heavily involved with the ashes-in-coffee-can bit that was way too The Big Lebowski for me. So that probably gives you a pretty good feel for how the movie goes - lots of issues with the writing, but still enjoyable because of the people in it. It makes for a pretty enjoyable movie that's far from a great one, and one I'm not desperate for the chance to see again. Better than it could have been, but less than its potential.