Mission: Impossible: Fallout review

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT:

TOM CRUISE RETURNS FOR ANOTHER STUNT-FILLED MISSION THAT’S WORTH ACCEPTING!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Cavill, and Rebecca Ferguson in Mission: Impossible: Fallout

            Tom Cruise (Rain Man, Minority Report, Edge of Tomorrow) is back as IMF agent, Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the long-running Mission: Impossible film series. Hard to believe the first film came out back in 1996 and Tom Cruise continues to dish these movies out, take the series to new heights with each new installment, and make box-office profits, it truly lives up to its “Impossible” name.

            Now, Cruise collaborates once again with Rogue Nation director, Christopher McQuarrie (The Way of the Gun, Persons Unknown, Jack Reacher) and producer, J.J. Abrams (Lost, Star Trek (2009), Star Wars: The Force Awakens) in Mission: Impossible: Fallout, and no, it has nothing to do with the Fallout video game series. This marks the first time a director of a previous installment directed more than one film in the Mission: Impossible series, if John Woo came back there would have been a lot more doves.

            Every Mission: Impossible movie that came before had a different director which gave all of them their own unique style, some of them better than others, not gonna lie. McQuarrie is the first director to return to the franchise, so I was curious to see how Fallout would play out compared to its predecessors.

            Not only is Fallout debatably the best installment of the series but it might be on par with Die Hard, The Matrix, and Mad Max: Fury Road as one of the best action movies of all time. Sure, plot wise, it’s pretty formulaic, but seeing Tom Cruise actually perform all these stunts live and in front of the camera with very little CGI is undeniably impressive not just from a stunt perspective but also from a cinematography and production design standpoint.

            Fallout is here to remind us and Hollywood how action movies are done, we live in a time where CGI and green-screen stunts dominate most of the cinema. Seeing practical effects and real stunts happening are more impressive and adds more to the excitement, you look at Tom Cruise jumping off buildings, crashing a helicopter, and climbing up a mountain with a loosening winch without a single scratch you can’t help but say “Wow”.

            After a mission gone wrong in Berlin, Ethan Hunt and his IMF team, technical field agent, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg-Cornetto trilogy, Star Trek (2009 trilogy), Paul), former MI6 agent, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson-The White Queen, Life, The Greatest Showman), and IMF agent, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames-Pulp Fiction, Lilo & Stitch, Dawn of the Dead (2004)) are pitted in a race against time to obtain three plutonium cores from a terrorist organization called The Apostles, consisting of former members of The Syndicate. Director of the CIA, Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett-Boyz n the Hood, What’s Love Got to Do with It, Black Panther) sends Special Activities operative, August Walker (Henry Cavill-The Tudors, DC Extended Universe, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) to the IMF and instructs that he shadows Ethan during his attempt to retrieve the plutonium.

            When Ethan interrogates Syndicate leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris-Prometheus, Southcliffe, Macbeth) for information regarding The Apostles, he realizes that what he does with the best intentions can come back to haunt him and the end he’s always feared is upon him. The plutonium cores are apparently being used to power a nuclear weapon that will contaminate the water supply of Pakistan, India, and China, therefore wiping out a third of the world’s population.

            Ethan and his team must do the “Impossible” to stop The Apostles, defuse the weapons, and save the world.

            The film also stars Alec Baldwin (Beetlejuice, The Departed, 30 Rock) reprising his role from Rogue Nation as IMF Secretary, Alan Hunley, Michelle Monaghan (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Source Code, Patriots Day) reprising her role from Mission: Impossible III as Ethan’s ex-wife, Julia Meade, and Vanessa Kirby (Great Expectations (BBC), Everest, The Crown) as White Widow.

            Overall, Mission: Impossible: Fallout delivers everything that makes a great action movie, lots of over-the-top thrills and stunt work, a splash of humor, and an intelligent story that makes you think and treats you like an adult. It’s the Mission: Impossible equivalent of The Dark Knight mixed with Mad Max: Fury Road, that’s literally what the movie is in terms of plot.

            Ethan Hunt is interrogating Lane, the villain from Rogue Nation, and what’s his plan? To spread anarchy and chaos, yeah, sounds familiar doesn’t it. Though I think Lane may have surpassed Ledger’s Joker in terms of defining anarchy, this guy’s literally trying to poison the water supply of a third of the world’s population, I’m pretty sure he’s done plenty of that in Batman cartoons and comics, but I digress.

            The action sequences are some of the best in the series as well as the best all summer, you got your foot chases, a motorcycle chase, and a helicopter chase to name a few, and unlike a Michael Bay film you never get tired of watching it. The way they’re all planned, filmed, and executed make them so exhilarating to watch whether IMAX or standard, I could literally watch a compilation of every action sequence on a continuous loop, that’s how good they are.

            Tom Cruise continues to do his usual shtick and I think he’s at his best when he’s working with other people on-screen. Which is why I consider the later installments of the franchise to be the strongest because it’s not just Tom Cruise performing stunts, he’s got talented co-stars with him to work off of and they all have great chemistry for both humor and drama, not to mention we got Cruise fighting bad guys with an indestructible Henry Cavill, how is this not the best summer blockbuster of the year?

            Mission: Impossible: Fallout delivers all the goods, surpasses every previous installment of the series, and makes for a fun night of summer blockbuster excitement. And you almost forget that this movie was responsible for killing the Justice League movie last year.

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies review

TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES:

JUST AS LOW-BROW AND GOOFY AS THE SHOW IT’S BASED ON BUT MIXED WITH A SURPRISINGLY CLEVER SATIRE ON SUPERHERO MOVIES AND THE FILM INDUSTRY ITSELF!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4 (I’m both happy and sad that I’m giving it that score!)

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Starfire, Beast Boy, Robin, Cyborg, and Raven are about to make the superhero movie to end all superhero movies…hopefully in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

            Alright haters, get your keyboards ready, prepare those “Angry” reactions on Facebook, roast me on a fire for what I’m about to say, this is going to be a (mostly) positive review of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, based on the Teen Titans Go! TV series on Cartoon Network. This marks the first movie based on a DC cartoon show to get a wide theatrical release since 1993’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm as well as the second wide-released movie based on a Cartoon Network show since The Powerpuff Girls Movie in 2002, unless you want to count Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters in 2007.

            Let’s talk about the show for a moment, when I first watched Teen Titans Go! I thought it was the worst, most atrocious thing ever animated. I grew up in the mid-late 90s and early 2000s, so I watched the original Teen Titans show as a kid, which was more action and drama-oriented but also blended with some humor.

            Teen Titans Go! Felt like a serious downgrade and a desperate answer from Cartoon Network to Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob Squarepants. But after a while I gave the show another chance and it’s not the worst thing out there, yes, it is a step backwards from the original show, yes it can be obnoxious and not all the jokes land, but there are some legitimately good episodes in there as well as some cute references to other DC and Warner Bros. properties, and admittedly I will get a laugh out of the absurdity of an episode from time to time.

            So, not a fan of the show personally but it has its moments, and it’s clearly doing something right as a lot of kids seem to enjoy it, Cartoon Network runs it often (Perhaps too often in my opinion), and even spawned a crossover episode with the 2016 Powerpuff Girls reboot. I’m not one of those angry man-children who live in their parents’ basement and complain about how Teen Titans Go! “Destroyed my childhood”, if you actually complain about stuff like that then your childhood isn’t worth defending and you should just crawl back into that corner.

            Teen Titans Go! Is far from being among the original Teen Titans, The Powerpuff Girls, Steven Universe, Ed, Edd n Eddy, or Adventure Time as one of Cartoon Network’s best shows. But it’s much better than the shows from that awful Dark Age of Cartoon Network like Out of Jimmy’s Head, BrainRush, or Destroy, Build, Destroy, I’ll take Cyborg shouting Meat Party Time and abusing the Night Begins to Shine song over any of the cringe-worthy humor and execution of Out of Jimmy’s Head.

            However, when the movie was announced, and the trailer came out for it, I was ready to hate it. The highlight of the first trailer was a fart joke and I was like “Oh My God, this movie’s gonna blow” and I didn’t understand the purpose of bringing Teen Titans Go! To the big-screen, nothing about it screamed cinema so what was the point? I was asking myself.

            Nevertheless, I tried to keep an open mind, who knows? It could actually be good, after all the trailers for Trolls and the 2016 Ghostbusters movie got negative responses but ended up being decent films so I guess anything was possible. Well, after sitting through Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Incredibles 2, and Ant-Man and the Wasp, I can gladly say that Teen Titans Go! To the Movies might actually be one of the smartest, funniest, and most original superhero movies I’ve seen in a long time…and this is coming from a guy who did not like the show initially.

            The film follows the superhero team, the Teen Titans, consisting of leader and former Boy Wonder, Robin (voiced by Scott Menville-A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Ben 10, Gravity Falls), space princess, Starfire (voiced by Hynden Walch-Justice League, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Adventure Time), robotized humanoid, Cyborg (voiced by Khary Payton-General Hospital, Ben 10, The Walking Dead), half-human, half-demon sorceress, Raven (voiced by Tara Strong-Batman: The Animated Series, The Powerpuff Girls, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), and shapeshifting comic relief, Beast Boy (voiced by Greg Cipes-Ben 10, The Legend of Korra, Star VS the Forces of Evil) learning that Hollywood is making movies based on every superhero from Batman and Superman to Wonder Woman and Green Lantern (But they don’t talk about that one). Enthusiastic about the possibility of a Teen Titans movie, Robin and the rest of the Titans head to the Warner Bros. studio to make it happen.

            There’s just one problem, the world sees the Teen Titans as a joke and not as real heroes, and Robin thinks that getting a movie is the only way people can see them as heroes. After being rejected by film director, Jade Wilson (voiced by Kristen Bell-Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Astro Boy, Frozen) and Robin being laughed out at the premiere of the new Batman movie, thinking that they’re going to make a movie about him, the Titans decide they need an arch-nemesis to make this work.

            In comes diabolical supervillain, Deadpool, I mean, Deathstroke, I MEAN, SLADE! (voiced by Will Arnett-Arrested Development, Blades of Glory, The Lego Movie/The Lego Batman Movie) with the power of “Mind Manipulation”, who has stolen a mysterious crystal and plans to use it to put everyone on the planet under his control. The Titans may have found their arch-nemesis and must stop his evil plan and save the world…and of course get their movie deal.

            The film also features the voices of talk-show host, Jimmy Kimmel as Batman, Nicolas Cage (Face/Off, Matchstick Men, National Treasure) as Superman, who was originally set to portray Superman in a Tim Burton directed film which never saw the light of day called Superman Lives, James Corden (Into the Woods, Peter Rabbit, Ocean’s 8) as Balloon Man, singer, Halsey as Wonder Woman, rapper, Lil Yachty as Green Lantern, Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stand by Me, The Big Bang Theory) as the Flash, Patton Oswalt (The King of Queens, Ratatouille, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) as Atom, and Eric Bauza (Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Ben 10 (2016)) as Aquaman.

            Overall, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a silly but clever detour from the explosion-filled, effects-driven superhero movie fare that dominates most of the American box-office. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is a legitimately good movie with a good blend of dumb, goofy humor from the show and jokes that satirize superhero movie tropes, how the film industry works, a compilation of fake trailers for “upcoming” DC movies that had me laughing on the floor, and a phenomenally hilarious scene where the Titans go back in time to undo all the superhero origin stories, Back to the Future style.

            Sure, not every joke works, there are some misfires, but the majority of them hit bullseye and I think I laughed harder at this movie than any episode of the series. Seriously, if the show focused more on the pop-culture and superhero satires rather than the low-brow childish humor, this could actually be a great superhero spoof series on par with The Tick.

            I doubt this movie would encourage me to become a fan of the show, but I’m glad I saw it and might even get it on Blu-Ray when it comes out. Sometimes after all the Dark Knights and Batman v. Supermen, we need a break from the dark and edgy PG-13 superhero films and go for something silly and wacky, I don’t think it’s on par with The Lego Batman Movie in terms of a superhero movie satire but given the negative reputation of the Teen Titans Go! Show, just saying it’s a good movie at all is like praising it like a masterpiece.

            For a movie that should have been dead on arrival, I’m relieved that the Teen Titans Go! Team managed to prove me wrong. This is my “Go to” family superhero movie of the year…after Incredibles 2, well played Titans.

AND NOW A STATEMENT FOR THE ORIGINAL TEEN TITANS FANS: The creators of the original series stated that if Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a success at the box-office then they will get to work on season 6 of Teen Titans. Guess what, the Teen Titans Go! Haters are now required to see it, which I’ll admit is a brilliant marketing plan. YOU WANT THAT TEEN TITANS SEASON 6? THIS IS HOW YOU GET IT! And who knows, you might end up having a fun time with this movie as well.