Take Review

Prior to hitting it big with The Hurt Locker and propelling himself into superstardom/back into obscurity with the enormous success/spectacular failure of Avengers Assemble, Jeremy Renner starred in this fairly low-key drama about a man on death row and the woman he wronged. Minnie driver plays Ana, a woman struggling to make ends meet and raise her son, who has additional support needs. Renner plays Saul, a man whose gambling debts have force him into a life of crime. These two people’s lives collide in a dramatic, tragic and highly predictable manner.

The problem with Take is that for all its worthiness and decent performances, it is unfortunately very dull. I finished watching it not three hours ago and I’m already struggling to remember much of it. The Big Important Climatic Crime Scene is pulled off pretty well, but why does it come so late on, towards the final third of the film? The narrative is constructed in a nonlinear manner and it seems to me that to have The Big Important Climatic Crime Scene happen much earlier would have ultimately made me care more about the characters’ fates. It’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen anyway, so they might as well have got it other with.

The most interesting thing about the film is the title card at its end which discusses Restorative Justice, a charity that seeks to make criminals and victims and the public at large more aware of the human damage of crime and seeks to create meetings between criminals and victims to discuss their crimes to much great affect, apparently. This is all well and good, but personally it was difficult to sympathise too heavily with this cause whilst the film maintains an apparently nonchalant position on the death penalty, the abolition of which, I feel, is a much higher priority.

Still, at least Saul was humanised and while there was a certain amount of catharsis, there was no cut and dry resolution for the pair at the film’s end. It’s nice to watch a film with some thought behind it, so it’s a shame that Take is delivered so weakly.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol Review

Tom Cruise is back for a fourth outing with the IMF. That’s Impossible Mission Force, obviously, not International Monetary Fund, as any sensible person would naturally assume. The film kicks off with Cruise being busted out of a Russian prison for crimes unknown. He and his team (Pegg, Renner, and Patton) are then sent on the trail of Michael Nyqvist’s nuclear terrorist via the Kremlin, Dubai and Mumbai. En route, the Kremlin gets a bit blown up in what is incorrectly assumed to be an American attack and Team Tom are formally disavowed and must go rogue in order to save the day.

MIssion Impossible: Ghost Protocol is inherently, inexcusably and spectacularly ridiculous. It’s overlong, makes baffling logical leaps and in Tom Cruise, boasts a lead actor who may just be getting too old for this shit. It is also a heck of a lot of giddy and occasionally breath-taking good fun. It is likely to make you happy; and for this it must be commended. The ‘good bits’ come fairly frequently. Some are eye-boggling set pieces, such as the outstanding (and arguably pointless) free climbing section on the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. Others are smaller moments, such as the witty exchange between Cruise and a pursuer as he thinks twice before jumping from a window ledge; “it’s higher than it looked!” (This sequence is undermined somewhat by the vaguely grotesque sight of Cruise’s forty-nine year old bare chest; he’s escaping from a hospital and would frankly look more dignified in a backless surgical gown).

Whilst it is rollicking good fun, there are some disappointing elements. Nyqvist is largely wasted – there are product placement items that get more screen time than he does (notably the iPad). In his white suit, he also looks like a psychotic Colonel Sanders in the film’s climactic fight sequence, which is unintentionally hilarious. Director Brad Bird is similarly absent from the picture. I was interested to see what the Pixar guru’s take on the franchise would be but the direction leaves little impression. It would seem that Bird’s biggest influence on the film was getting it shot (partly) in the IMAX format rather than in 3D, for which I personally am rather thankful.

It’s also a little disillusioning that Pegg must play the bumbling goofball to Cruise’s cool dude when in real life, I’m fairly certain the opposite is true. But then if you can buy that, you’ll probably also be able to handle some of the Die-Another-Day-Invisible-Car levels of gadget ridiculousness (the pretend corridor screen, the hovering magnetic suit) and the fact that at one point, Cruise attempts to outrun a sandstorm.

Despite these things, I still enjoyed the film a great deal and when I say that occasionally it was at the film’s own expense, I don’t wish that to come across as too mean-spirited. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is the ideal popcorn movie. It may be stupid, it may be brash, but it’s also good clean fun. And if you go to see it at the IMAX, you’ll also see some of the new Batman; what further recommendation do you need?

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol Review

Tom Cruise is back for a fourth outing with the IMF. That’s Impossible Mission Force, obviously, not International Monetary Fund, as any sensible person would naturally assume. The film kicks off with Cruise being busted out of a Russian prison for crimes unknown. He and his team (Pegg, Renner, and Patton) are then sent on the trail of Michael Nyqvist’s nuclear terrorist via the Kremlin, Dubai and Mumbai. En route, the Kremlin gets a bit blown up in what is incorrectly assumed to be an American attack and Team Tom are formally disavowed and must go rogue in order to save the day.

MIssion Impossible: Ghost Protocol is inherently, inexcusably and spectacularly ridiculous. It’s overlong, makes baffling logical leaps and in Tom Cruise, boasts a lead actor who may just be getting too old for this shit. It is also a heck of a lot of giddy and occasionally breath-taking good fun. It is likely to make you happy; and for this it must be commended. The ‘good bits’ come fairly frequently. Some are eye-boggling set pieces, such as the outstanding (and arguably pointless) free climbing section on the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. Others are smaller moments, such as the witty exchange between Cruise and a pursuer as he thinks twice before jumping from a window ledge; “it’s higher than it looked!” (This sequence is undermined somewhat by the vaguely grotesque sight of Cruise’s forty-nine year old bare chest; he’s escaping from a hospital and would frankly look more dignified in a backless surgical gown).

Whilst it is rollicking good fun, there are some disappointing elements. Nyqvist is largely wasted – there are product placement items that get more screen time than he does (notably the iPad). In his white suit, he also looks like a psychotic Colonel Sanders in the film’s climactic fight sequence, which is unintentionally hilarious. Director Brad Bird is similarly absent from the picture. I was interested to see what the Pixar guru’s take on the franchise would be but the direction leaves little impression. It would seem that Bird’s biggest influence on the film was getting it shot (partly) in the IMAX format rather than in 3D, for which I personally am rather thankful.

It’s also a little disillusioning that Pegg must play the bumbling goofball to Cruise’s cool dude when in real life, I’m fairly certain the opposite is true. But then if you can buy that, you’ll probably also be able to handle some of the Die-Another-Day-Invisible-Car levels of gadget ridiculousness (the pretend corridor screen, the hovering magnetic suit) and the fact that at one point, Cruise attempts to outrun a sandstorm.

Despite these things, I still enjoyed the film a great deal and when I say that occasionally it was at the film’s own expense, I don’t wish that to come across as too mean-spirited. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is the ideal popcorn movie. It may be stupid, it may be brash, but it’s also good clean fun. And if you go to see it at the IMAX, you’ll also see some of the new Batman; what further recommendation do you need?