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Cruise missal

Tom Cruise is his maniac self in Mission: Impossible - Fallout, the sixth installment in his steady franchise and proof that the actor is spectacularly certifiable. The movie is one “Wow!” moment after another—and proof that the guy shows no signs of slowing down more than half way through his fifth decade.

The movie stacks stunt after stunt featuring Cruise doing everything from jumping out of airplanes to scaling cliffs to piloting his own helicopter. It also features Cruise leaping from one rooftop to another and breaking his ankle against a building. That stunt shut down production for weeks but remains in the film in all its bonebreaking glory.

Do we really care about the plot when some of the best stunts and action scenes ever put to film are in play? Thankfully, the plot is the sort of fun, twisted story that has become the hallmark of this series, so you’ll be interested even when Cruise isn’t risking his life. Yes, there are a lot of “Hey, haven’t I seen that before?” moments—lots of masks being ripped off—but the labyrinthian hijinks still feel fresh overall. No, I’m not going to do much to explain it. That wouldn’t really do you any good.

OK, I’ll tell you a little. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) finds himself on yet another mission to save the world, this time from nuclear terrorists headed by Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the baddie from the franchise’s prior installment making a welcomed return. This time, Hunt is saddled with an “observer,” August Walker (Henry Cavill), tasked by CIA director Erica Sloan (a so-so Angela Bassett) with making sure Ethan and the Impossible Missions Force complete their mission with minimal funny stuff.

Cruise is sick in the head for a myriad of reasons. Thankfully, one part of his sickness provides for movie stunts like the ones mentioned above. Cruise, in reteaming with frequent Cruise director Christopher McQuarrie, now the only director to have helmed two M:I films, pulls off his most spectacular cinematic feats yet. The skydive sequence, when Hunt works to save an unconscious co-jumper before they go splat, is a thousand strains of unbelievable. There’s a motorcycle chase through Paris streets that demands you see this thing on an IMAX screen.

Cavill, whose facial hair has gotten a lot of attention this past year, gets a chance to stretch out and play someone far more interesting than his Kryptonian dud. The guy is a multi-dimensional badass here, especially in a bathroom brawl where Walker and Hunt try to take out a worthy opponent. Cavill shares in the glory of some of the film’s craziest stunts. That’s not him skydiving though. Cruise, also a producer on the film, forced Cavill to watch that sequence from the ground in favor of a stunt double.

Alec Baldwin, the original Jack Ryan, takes a break from hosting Match Game to show that he can still throw some big-screen punches as Hunt’s new IMF commander. Vanessa Kirby is sinisterly terrific as White Widow, a sly arms dealer Hunt must confront. In her second go ’round, Rebecca Fergusson’s Ilsa Faust adds many elements of surprise. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames deliver their usual competent support. And Lorne Balfe’s score deserves a big round of applause for its adrenaline-inducing contributions.

No matter how many dollars this movie makes, Cruise is going to have to slow down at some point. In some ways, Mission: Impossible - Fallout feels like it could be the franchise capper. It’s hard to think of any way Cruise can top what he puts on screen actionwise in Fallout. Then again, I probably started saying stuff like that when the original Mission: Impossible came out. Never underestimate the chance of Cruise topping himself, yet again, in the future. Ω

“Where’s Scientology when i need it?”

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4Ant Man and the Wasp Ant-Man and the Wasp is a fun continuation of what returning director Peyton Reed started with Ant-Man three years ago. I whined a bit about the decent original, a movie that I wanted to be more subversive, having known that Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) was supposed to direct it. I’m over it. Reed kicks some Marvel ass, and his sequel is actually better than the first. After the well done but admittedly gloomy Avengers: Infinity War earlier this year, Ant-Man and the Wasp joins the likes of Thor: Ragnarok as a fun, slightly eccentric diversion from the serious Marvel shit. This one, for the most part, just wants to have a good time, and it succeeds. As the title implies, this is no longer a one-man show for the always entertaining Paul Rudd as Ant-Man. Evangeline Lilly returns as Hope Van Dyne and gets a bigger part of the limelight as the Wasp, who has decidedly better martial arts skills than professional burglar Scott Lang. The Wasp lets the kicks fly in an early scene with a crooked businessman (Walton Goggins), and she owns every moment she’s onscreen. It simply looks like a kick from The Wasp hurts more than one from Ant-Man. Well, that would make sense. She trained him. While the stakes aren’t quite as high as the usual Marvel fare—the entire universe isn’t at risk in this one—Reed and his crew make it more than compelling. They also make it very funny, thanks mostly to Rudd, ninja master of comic timing.

4Equalizer 2 In a summer of endless sequels, Equalizer 2 has the distinction of being unoriginal and predictable. It stimulates that part of your brain that likes to see things go boom and bad guys get pummeled, while allowing the part of your brain that likes to solve things and seek intellectual depth go nappy time. It also has a little guy named Denzel Washington in it, supplying his every line with grace and punching up the quality of a rote script tenfold simply by being on screen. He and director Antoine Fuqua team up once again and make the sequel to a cinematic update of an OK TV show well worth your time. It’s fast food, but it’s good fast food. Washington returns as Robert McCall, former special ops guy with a taste for vigilantism and tea. He’s just sort of hanging out in Boston, working as a Lyft driver and painting over graffiti at his apartment complex, when word comes in that a good friend has bit the dust at the hands of mystery killers. Robert doesn’t like it when you kill his friends. Robert doesn’t like that much at all. In fact, it’s fair to say Robert will do bad things to your body for such acts. He goes on a search for the killer/killers, and you will probably figure out who the bad people are fairly quickly.

1Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom This is a big dummy dino joke of a movie. It’s nothing but a brainless, sloppy rehash of Steven Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World, with a lame militaristic angle thrown in (again!). Yes, the dinosaurs look cool, and things get off to an awesome start. The prologue is scary, looks great, is well directed, and seems to be setting the tone for a film that recalls the grim tone of Michael Crichton’s original. Sadly, things degenerate badly after the title credits pop up. When a volcanic eruption on the isle of dinosaurs threatens their genetically engineered lives, Congress holds hearings on whether or not to save them. These hearings involve the return of the one and only Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm. Rather than having Goldblum around for his trademark psycho rambling and dark wit, his character just groans a couple of lines about how we shouldn’t have made the dinosaurs because it goes against nature and they have really big teeth and might bite you. Then he goes away. Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) return to the island to save Blue, the adorable velociraptor who wants you to pet him. Eventually, the action winds up in a large mansion in the states, where a nefarious businessman is keeping dinosaurs in the basement in order to auction them off in what amounts to a dinosaur fashion show for evil countries that want to weaponize them.

4Sorry to Bother You First-time writer-director Boots Riley, leader of musical group the Coup, creates one of the craziest movies you will see this—or any—year with Sorry to Bother You, a hilarious, nasty and even scary showcase for the talents of Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson. Stated simply, there are tons of “what the fuck?” moments in this movie. Cassius Green (Stanfield) is living in his uncle’s (Terry Crews) garage, looking for a better life and a job. His performance-artist girlfriend, Detroit (Thompson), encourages him to pursue whatever but not to lose his sense of self. After procuring a job at a telemarketing agency, Cassius finds himself striking out call after call. It’s here that Riley employs an ingenious visual trick, with Cassius physically showing up in the lives of the people he interrupts with his telemarketing nonsense, dropping his desk into one situation after another (people having sex, people mourning, etc.). This does a solid job of conveying the intrusiveness of that particular sales tactic. Thanks to a seasoned coworker (Danny Glover), Cassius is advised to use his white man voice (supplied by the great, and very white, David Cross). This brings immediate success and catapults Cassius up the ladder to the hallowed upstairs office where the “power callers” reside. The road to success involves him becoming more of a douchebag and, ultimately, a revolutionary.

1Skyscraper I’m all for giving Dwayne Johnson a chance to really act and emote. I think he can do more than just run around and raise that eyebrow. (I loved him in Pain & Gain.) But asking him to be solemn and humorless in a movie about a crazy skyscraper catching fire, Towering Inferno-style, is a massive mistake. This movie sucks the life out of Johnson as he plays Will, a high-dollar security man who lost a leg in his prior occupation. He takes a job in Hong Kong as head of security in the world’s tallest building. Shortly after getting the gig, an evil crime lord sets the building on fire, a building that is largely unoccupied save for its owner (Chin Haun), his entourage, some nasty European criminals, and Will’s wife (Neve Campbell) and children. Will, outside of the building, races to save his family’s life, which leads up to that already infamous, hilariously silly jump from a crane into the burning building. Why? Why take a serious approach to this subject matter? Why not have Johnson do his usual shtick and make this more fun?

2Sicario: Day of the Soldado Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin show up for this nasty film plotted in such a way as to assure it would give the likes of Sean Hannity a monster boner. The timing of this movie is, shall we say, interesting. As real-life tensions build along the Mexican border, with families being separated and humanitarian water jugs being poured out, along comes a movie that shows ISIS terrorists crossing over the Mexican border and blowing up strip malls. Wait a minute, isn’t Sicario supposed to be about America’s beef with drug cartels? This ISIS stuff feels, well, tacked on. While the terrorism element introduced near the beginning of the movie looks to be the driving force of the plot early on, it all but falls away in favor of a kidnapping subplot intended to start a war between the Mexican and U.S. governments. Brolin returns as agent Matt Graver, a nasty guy who will blow up your brother as you watch on a laptop if you don’t tell him what he needs to hear. Del Toro is also back as Alejandro, an operative once again hired by the U.S., this time to stir up trouble with the cartels and eventually kidnap Isabel (Isabela Moner), a drug kingpin’s daughter. Moner is a big star in the making. She gives the kind of performance that breaks your heart because it is something so good in service of something so mediocre.