Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (5/5 Stars)

See Tom Run.

The plot of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is ludicrous. There is this rogue Russian ex-general who has gone insane. We see about a 30 second newsreel footage of him giving a speech in parliament about the necessary weeding out a thermonuclear war would play in furthering the course of human evolution. Given that logic he has been attempting to steal nuclear launch codes and to start a full out war between Russia and the United States. To this end he succeeds in framing special agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the IMF for the bombing of the Kremlin in Moscow. The crazy man, played by Michael Nyqvist, spends most of his time running away from Tom Cruise who is running away from the Russian police. He is an undeveloped bad guy that functions less as a real person and more as a MacGuffin which enables the plot to go from high stakes scenario to high stakes scenario. Halfway through the movie I stopped caring. What became obvious to me halfway through the movie was that I was watching some of the best and well-made action sequences since “The Bourne Ultimatum.” I’m not even sure I wanted the guy to get caught because that would have ended the movie, which was ceaselessly thrilling. A critic may rationalize any viewpoint but cannot ignore involuntary bodily functions. For example, all laughter during a comedy no matter how low or stupid the jokes are must be admitted. In this movie, I can report that my stomach churned several times in the same way it would if I were on a roller coaster at Magic Mountain. This is a great action movie and worth watching just for the thrills. Do not wait to see it on video. See it in a theater and try to see it in IMAX.

It makes sense that the director of “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” does not have any previous action movies under his belt. In fact he doesn’t have any live action movies under his belt. Instead the director Brad Bird is an alumnus from Pixar. He directed such animated movies like “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille.” This becomes obvious because unlike so many action movie directors, he has put in the effort to competently storyboard, shoot, and edit his action sequences. Everything is super clear, the laws of physics are obeyed, and the action proceeds logically but not predictably. I hope that this movie makes a lot of money and inspires other action movie directors to try a bit harder at their craft. Or at least let it be shaming. They've been one-upped grandly by a cartoonist. 

The coup de grace sequence in this movie involves Tom Cruise (as special agent Ethan Hunt) scaling the side of the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world) with these special gloves that may or may not functionally work. I don’t know how they did it safely but what is on the screen is seriously freaky stuff. That of course, is only part of a movie that includes several car chases (one in a dust-storm), fistfights, and suspenseful spy stings replete with some seriously cool gadgetry and large explosions. All of this is done exceptionally well. 

In fact, it is shot in such a way, that it is obvious that the stars are doing actual stunts. For instance, Tom Cruise is clearly racking up some serious mileage running as fast as he can in plenty of scenes. And there he is doing the actual fight choreography in several fistfights. You can tell because the camera shots are far away enough and have long enough duration to tell. As far as the stunts on the Burj Dubai are concerned, well the producers made sure there were several featurettes online showing Tom Cruise on the outside of the building to quell any suspicions that it was some stuntman doing it or that it was shot in a green room and the outside added later. He really is there. I consider this as counting toward some top-notch acting. What's more is that Cruise and the other characters actually look scared, surprised, or concerned for their lives when really crazy shit starts to happen. I have seen too many movies where nobody seems to notice large explosions or machine gun fire. I find it far more effective (and dramatically correct) when characters notice just how dangerous something is. Case in point: Tom Cruise's face when he drives his car off a platform with a hundred 100 meter drop. Give that guy an Oscar Nomination. That's exactly the facial expression he should have. Let’s see Meryl Streep do that.

The IMF team works very well both as an action ensemble and in another degree as a comedy team. Tom Cruise gets the plum action jobs but that doesn’t mean that Jeremy Renner (from “The Hurt Locker”) doesn’t have some good scenes as well (a particularly good one involves him infiltrating a super computer by jumping into an oven hoping that some magnets work (it makes sense in the movie)). Paula Patton for her part lands the starring role in the movie's best fistfight with a lady baddie played by Ley Seydoux. Rounding out the group is Simon Pegg providing computer tech savvy and his usual humorous self. Most of the situations are so tightly wound that the comedy pitches thrown to Pegg are routinely knocked out of the park like softballed lobs. One of the best moments in the movie has Pegg walking into a room and saying, “That was not easy, but I did it.” This gets a huge laugh. That sort of reaction can only be accomplished by having one of the most death-defying stunts in the movie happen right before that. Pegg's humor cashes in on the suspense consistently. I would go so far as to say that this is the best Mission: Impossible movie that has been made. I'm glad they made it. 

One thing that is noticeably absent in this particular installment of “Mission Impossible” is any hint of sex. In this, it follows the trend in American action movies in particular. There once was a time when James Bond had a pretty swinging lifestyle. You can’t say that about the Daniel Craig incarnation. And when did Jason Bourne have any time for that sort of thing. In this movie, Tom Cruise gets as close as a longing glance from several blocks away. Just saying. 

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2/5 Stars)

A tepid lukewarm anticlimax

Wow, talk about a disappointment. The third film in the Millennium trilogy plays less like a thriller than as a scam. There isn’t an independent movie here. Well, actually there could have been. You could plausibly take the movies, “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” cut out all the repetitive exposition and superfluous plot points and combine the rest into a superior movie. But instead we have a story that takes twice as long as it should to tell. Why? Perhaps it was because they knew a person like me who loved the first movie, aka a sucker, would on principle go and see every movie in the series. (It may have also mattered that the author is dead and thus can’t write an unlimited amount of sequels. They may be trying to squeeze the most profit out of a limited supply.)

If you saw the first two movies then you basically know what happens in this movie. Not much new is introduced. As in the second movie, the journalist Mikael Blomvist, played a third time by Michael Nyquvist, is writing an expose on a secret cabal called “The Section.” They are involved in communist defection, sex trafficking, really bad stuff like that. Quite a lot of time is spent on him going around and telling people what the story is about and when he plans to publish. The story is retold several times. Meanwhile our heroine Lisbeth Salandar, played again by Noomi Rapace, is in the hospital healing from several bullet wounds. The main set piece of the movie is her trial for the attempted murder of her father. All of the evidence presented at the trial is taken directly from the previous two movies. It is a pretty clear case of self-defense and there is little suspense as to the outcome of it. The prosecution has a flimsy argument (Lisbeth is crazy), which it repeats endlessly. I think you hear it about four times by the time the movie is over.  

The first two movies did a very good job of being thrillers. The plots were always very procedural but they still managed to insert realistic action sequences and fights at appropriate intervals. Would it surprise you to know that there is but one action sequence in this entire movie, that it is not very long, and it is perhaps the least exciting action sequence in the entire series? I mean what the hell is that all about. Has the director, Daniel Alfredson, forgotten the genre he is working in?

The worst thing of course is even though the plot of this movie is wafer-thin it still had room for action. Alfredson simply chose not to shoot any of it. Everything is told in the passive voice. For example, Blomvist apartment is broken into and documents are stolen. Instead of showing the break-in as it is happening (action!), we are shown Blomvist talking to a security guard about the break-in (passive voice). Then there is the character of Niederman, the huge baddie/Lisbeth’s half-brother from the second movie. Several times in this movie the plot calls for him to steal cars, break into homes, and kill people. Do we see that happen? No, we see Niederman sitting and watching TV in somebody’s home as the camera slowly zooms out to reveal a dead guy in the background. If you can believe it, one of the biggest threats in this movie is a couple of anonymous email that are sent to the journalists and say insidious things like, “Are you afraid of the dark?” Talk about lukewarm scares. Really, it kind of surprises me that this movie is rated R. Almost nothing happens.

The first movie had this very dangerous edge to it that made watching it a really visceral thrilling experience. That feeling is basically nonexistent here. There is a scene where Salandar walks down a hallway in full gothic battle regalia, piercings, and Mohawk. It looks cool but such badassness feels out of place in such a tepid movie. In fact, the whole character of Lisbeth Salandar has been reduced to what is essentially a supporting role. She spends the whole time in a hospital and then a courtroom. Her character is not the type that speaks much, so when she is also not physically doing anything, well, not very much happens. True, Noomi Rapace is one of the few actresses who can still be interesting while just sitting there, but that isn’t nearly enough to carry what is supposed to be a thriller. It should be noted that the Mr. Lazy, Daniel Alfredson, was not the director for the first film. That director was a guy named Niels Arden Oplev. I don’t know why they didn’t pick him to direct the entire trilogy but whoever made that decision really screwed up royally.  

You know who could do a much better job with this story? David Fincher, that’s who. His version starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig comes out next year. Just in time too, I still haven’t gotten enough of Lisbeth Salandar. Let’s remind the Swedes what a badass movie looks like. 

The Girl who Played with Fire (3/5 Stars) August 22, 2010

This is only half of what might be a great movie.

The second installment of the Millenium Trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire, is not a stand-alone movie. It follows in the footsteps of other sequels that have already planned and written third pictures like ‘Matrix Reloaded’ and ‘Back to the Future II’ in that it sets up much more than it is willing to pay off. There is much exposition introduced into the plot here, amongst them a clandestine sex ring, a corrupt police force, and a considerable amount of names and locations that don’t have the called-for impact on the climax of the story. I would almost recommend that you don’t see this movie until the third installment comes out on DVD, and then you should watch the two movies together as a double feature. I say ‘almost’ because I don’t know yet whether the third installment will pay-off the buildup of the second. I hope so. We will see shortly. The third movie comes out this fall.

The movie starts off a year later after the first movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, ended. Lisbeth Salander, played by Noomi Rapace, returns to Sweden from vacation only to realize that someone has framed her for triple-murder. One victim was her guardian from the original movie and the other two were new members of her journalist buddy Mikael Blomkvist’s team. The journalists were investigating a sex trafficking ring. Apparently all three of the murders were related and most of the movie consists of Salander and Blomkvist trying to find out who did it. The movie stays true to the realistic journalistic procedures that were on display in the first movie. Having said that, this is where the movie bogs down for a while. Many Swedish names are thrown about and lots of people are introduced. At times it was hard to keep track of everybody and the fact that everything was in Swedish did not help much. 

Another disappointing thing about this movie is that Lisbeth and Blomkvist spend the entire movie completely apart from each other. I especially liked their dynamic in the original and felt it was missed here. The new bad guys also don’t rise to the devilish of the family of Nazis in the first, but are still pretty scary. One of them is this huge blonde bodybuilder who has a rare disease that makes him impervious to pain. The other is Lisbeth’s dad. You may remember him as the guy she lit on fire in the flashback at the end of the first movie. What do you call it when a daughter wants to kill her father? It’s not an Oedipal complex. Did the Greeks have a name for that?

Lisbeth Salander continues to be one of the most compelling characters I have ever seen and Noomi Rapace’s performance, from the movies I have seen this year, should garner a couple of Oscar nominations. So much of the movie consists of Lisbeth investigating alone that most of Rapace’s acting is silent facial expressions. Now since Lisbeth Salander is such a stoic character, Rapace has a very tough job. She has to convey what Salander is feeling while at the same time keeping the character very controlled. Somehow she does perfectly. That face! It is one of the most captivating things I’ve ever watched. You know what Screen Presence is: When the character has a nude scene and I’m still more interested in what’s going on with her eyes. Now, that’s Screen Presence. The best performance by an actress I have seen so far this year is Rapace in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” The second best performance by an actress I have seen so far this year is Rapace in “The Girl Who Played with Fire.” 

The movie does a rather cool thing in that it allows its heroine to not only be small but also look small. This is a rare thing in movies. Sure you have diminutive actors like Tom Cruise and Matt Damon running around, but the movie will usually employ some tricks to make them look taller than they actually are. For instance you can lower the camera, use close-ups instead of long shots, or cast an even shorter side-kick or bad guy. If the love interest is not a head shorter than the hero, he’s a small guy. That’s how you tell. In contrast, this movie seems to want to make it a point as to how small Salander is. They shoot her in wide shots so you can see all of her, they cast a taller woman to be her love interest, and the bad guy is an even bigger hulk. They even show her sitting on a kitchen counter in one scene. Her feet don’t touch the ground for chrissakes. (That’s no way to treat an action hero!) Actually I really like this and I like the look in Rapace’s eyes when she is about to fight a guy twice her size. There’s understandable fear not macho zeal there. This makes the movie all the more suspenseful. We feel afraid with Salander and wonder how she is going to get out of the mess she’s in. The fact that the heroine is small and knows it just makes the character that much braver and thus more likable. Perhaps we can allow male action heroes to look small someday. But I ask too much. 

The climax of the story reminded me of a bloodied, sweaty, and dirty Bruce Willis walking down the hallway screaming “Hans!” in the original ‘Die Hard.’ Like in that movie, the heroine here is allowed to (dare I say) not look pretty for a scene. Again I really liked it. That Noomi Rapace! She’s such a badass! The next movie comes out this fall. I eagerly await it. 

p.s. Rooney Mara has just been cast in the American version. That she is unknown is perhaps for the best.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (5/5 Stars) June 10, 2010

Men Who Hate Women

From Sweden comes a thriller directed by Niels Arden Oplev based on the best selling novel of Steig Larsson. It stars Michael Nyqvist as disgraced journalist Michael Blomkvist who is hired to solve a 40-year-old murder of a young woman. He has about six months to crack the case before he goes to jail. It also stars Noomi Rapace as the title character, a computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. Among the other characters in the story are several men who rape, torture, and murder women. In fact the original Swedish title is Man Som Hatar Kvinnor, which literally translated means “Men Who Hate Women.” The disturbing nature of that title no doubt provoked the American distributors to change it to the almost boring sounding “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” They shouldn’t have. If the author had the guts to write the book and the producers had the guts to make the movie and if the actors, especially Noomi Rapace, had the guts to be in it, then there’s no good reason the marketers should chicken out at the last moment. Especially since people considering the lamer and tamer title might be lulled into thinking they’re going to watch something safe. If you’re going to watch this movie I suggest you bring along your guts. You’re going to need them. 

The movie starts with two distinct storylines. The first is the murder mystery involving the disappearance of a young woman forty years ago. She was a member of the very rich and dysfunctional Vanger family. The elderly patriarch, Henrik Vanger, suspects that a family member murdered her as a way to hurt him. The number of suspects is limited and they all live in town. Some of them used to be dedicated Nazis. The second storyline is a character portrait of one of the most fascinating characters in recent movie history, hacker Lisbeth Salander. The exact details are shrouded in mystery but Lisbeth has a history of violence and sexual abuse. She was the victim of the sexual abuse. The man was apparently the victim of the violence. At age 24 she still reports to a sort of parole officer, a guardian is what they call it in Sweden. Her current guardian, sensing the vulnerability in her record and the way she dresses (very gothic) moves to be one more in the line of men who have hated her. She is threatened, blackmailed, and then raped in several scenes of astonishing simplicity and frankness. But that wouldn’t be the end of it when it is done to a person like Lisbeth. She turns the tables in what could be regarded as the perfect revenge: half sexual comeuppance, half permanent public service announcement. 

The stories collide when Lisbeth’s job requires her to hack into Blomkvist’s computer. She sees the clues that the journalist is assembling in his vain attempt make sense of the murder mystery. Perhaps because of her history, she is able to interpret some especially vague clues and sends a helpful email to Blomkvist. It seems that the missing women was on the verge of discovering the identity of a local serial killer who preyed on Jewish women Old Testament Style. Remember the family full of Nazis? When we finally meet the ultimate killer it is not unlike a scene with Hannibal Lector. Here is something he says quite matter-of-factly: “I do what every man dreams. I take what I want.” He also muses on the way a woman’s eyes react when she finally realizes that she will not only be raped but also murdered.

Standing stalwart on the other side of this enormous amount of evil is Noomi Rapace a SCREEN PRESENCE, which deserves to be written in all caps. When I write screen presence in all caps it denotes a performance that is captivating to the point of distraction by conscious recognition of its power. I am reminded of Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises,” Sigourney Weaver in “Gorrillas in the Mist,” and Jodie Foster in perhaps anything she’s been in. I swear to God that Rapace has perfected this intense gaze that is soul piercing. She dresses as if to give a message: “Go ahead. I dare you to fuck with me because I am the one who can take it.” I have always felt that being brave has less to do with a dangerous but noble act than with a serious recognition that the act one is about to do is dangerous but noble. Any fool can act on impulse. It takes bravery to be totally aware of the danger and deliberately go through with it anyway. Lizbeth is an incredibly brave person and simply by existing more than balances out a plot that could easily have been exploitive and instead turns the movie into some sort of feminist manifesto. 

Now I’m not talking about the kind of faux feminist bullshit that you would find in a Quentin Tarantino screenplay where the bad guy does the bad violence against women and the girls in matching tracksuits with badass weaponry and gung-ho catchphrases impose righteous justice to the tune of Japanese Pop Music. This movie takes it seriously. There is neither sensationalism in the violence nor glee in the retribution. This movie knows that watching a tormentor burn alive is not about to make the victim completely whole again. For all of Lizbeth’s stoicism, she still remains a damaged person symbolized quite effectively by the scar-like dragon that spans the width of her back. Consider how she reacts in her relationship with the journalist Blomkvist, who is without a doubt, a good man. Her stare temporarily falters. Her eyes dart about before quickly settling back in the defensive position. It’s as if she hasn’t the slightest idea of how to react to kindness. Shove her in a subway and she will not hesitate to fight. Be nice and her powerful stare becomes reminiscent of a deer in the headlights. (I guess that sort of thing happens when your out of practice with the experience). The movie ends on a kiss between the two that I believe can only be described as tragic. There seems to be a connection of the minds but the very act of intimacy unnerves her to the point where she has to leave the room immediately. It’s good to know that this is but the first movie in a trilogy. I eagerly anticipate the next two.

This is very dark material and as such there are a very limited number of ways it can be treated correctly. For that reason I am dismayed to hear that there might be an American version of this movie. Quite frankly, I think this is one area where American movies are not capable of perfection. Hell, we didn’t even have the balls to keep the movie title the same. They say that Kristen Stewart might play the Lizbeth Salander part. Now I have more respect for that talented actress than most, (probably because I never saw Twilight) but I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job than Noomi Rapace. She owns this character. Do yourself a favor. Go see the real thing. Believe me, after the first half hour, you won’t even notice the subtitles.