Film Review: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

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Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Rated M (action violence). 132 minutes. Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie.

When an action-packed adventure story about undercover secret agents racing against time to save the world works well, the result is often irresistible. When it works as well as it does in this fifth film in the Mission: Impossible series, it’s also a fantastically entertaining night at the movies.

Even though Rogue Nation is just shy of two and a half hours long, McQuarrie’s involving screenplay, his incisive direction and Eddie Hamilton’s (Kingsman: The Secret Service) superb editing, ensure that almost every perfectly-paced sequence delivers high stakes suspense and thrills in equal measure.

Following on from Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), Impossible Missions Force (IMF) special agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) believes he can prove the existence of the Syndicate, a top secret terrorist organisation that is wreaking havoc around the globe.

With his trusted colleagues Benji (Simon Pegg), William (Jeremy Renner) and Luther (Ving Rhames) joining him in the hunt for the Syndicate’s leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), Hunt also finds himself in the company of mysterious special agent Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), whose task is to either help Hunt succeed, or kill him before he can.

The role of Ethan Hunt fits Cruise like a glove. He first played the ingenious, never-say-die Hunt in Mission: Impossible (1996), and any doubts about whether he is still up for it are instantly dispelled in Rogue Nation’s astonishing opening sequence.

Pegg’s Benji gets all of the comedy, which he delivers with his now trademark, engaging goofiness, but it is the little-known Ferguson whose performance as the elusive Ilsa is fabulous. The script ensures that you never really know whether the formidable Ilsa can be trusted, and the captivating Ferguson will keep you guessing through each of the film’s entirely rewarding plot twists and U-turns.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron

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Avengers: Age of Ultron. Rated M (action violence). 141 minutes. Written and Directed by Joss Whedon. Based on the comic books by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Verdict: An exhausting, action-packed sequel that barely stops to draw breath.

Avengers: Age of Ultron, the long-awaited sequel to The Avengers (2012), pits our heroes against arch foe Ultron (voiced by Boston Legal’s James Spader), who has harnessed the power of vibranium to create a weapon of mass annihilation. The other new villains are the results of Baron von Strucker’s (Thomas Kretschmann) human experiments – twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who has the gift of superhuman speed, and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) who can control the minds of everyone she comes in contact with.
 
From the chaotic opening sequences, Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Avengers) slams his foot onto the accelerator and rarely lets up. Apart from the spectacular big action set pieces, there are some great laughs (mostly at the expense of Chris Hemsworth’s mighty Thor), and a delightfully played romance between Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/The Hulk.

Also back in the mix are the duplicitous Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) up to his usual tricks, and the ever-earnest Captain America (Chris Evans) who still pines for the love of his life, Peggy Carter (a neat cameo from Hayley Atwell). Thor is beginning to feel more and more distanced from the uncontrollable mayhem on Earth, while Clint (Jeremy Renner) is also becoming less enamoured with the dangerous life of a super-hero, which only serves to take him away from his wife Laura (Linda Cardellini) and their two children.

Ultimately, like a long overdue catch-up with a gang of old mates, the time we spend with our ever-reliable superheroes gives us the precious opportunity to step outside our increasingly unpredictable and demanding world, and into a time and place where everything is almost exactly as it should be.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: American Hustle

American Hustle. Rated M (frequent coarse language). 138 minutes. Directed by David O. Russell. Written by David O. Russell and Eric Singer.

Verdict: A fashionable account of a very ordinary tale.

The trust gained as a result of successful collaboration can create memorable screen outings – films that function on an entirely different level, purely because the artists involved understand each other’s creative processes in ways that those working together for the first time might not. The pairing of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart is just one classic example, where audiences flocked to watch them regardless of what they were doing.

Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter, I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings) obviously values the art of collaboration with his actors. In American Hustle, he is reunited with Christian Bale and Amy Adams (The Fighter) and Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook). And the dividends it pays are great – for Lawrence, in particular, whose performance in a secondary role as con-man Irving’s (Bale) disenchanted wife, is stunning. Lawrence is one of the most singularly interesting actors at work on film today, and if her Katniss Everdeen re-wrote the rules of engagement for onscreen heroines, then this performance reveals an extraordinary, big-hearted versatility.

The only problem is that the story about Irving and his partner in business and romance Sydney Prosser (Adams) falling for an FBI sting against a politician Carmine Polito (a never entirely comfortable Jeremy Renner) – led by rogue agent Richie DiMaso (Cooper being zany again) – just doesn’t have the legs to last its long running time. Sydney-born and NIDA-trained costume designer Michael Wilkinson contributes a magnificent array of costumes that not only perfectly encapsulate the late 1970s/early 1980s era in which the film is set, but are more often than not the most memorable onscreen element. And when you are not marvelling at how great everyone looks and Lawrence’s performance, there’s the soundtrack, which boasts a songbook of greatest hits from the era.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Bourne Legacy

The Bourne Legacy. Rated M (violence and mature themes). 135 minutes. Directed by Tony Gilroy. Screenplay by Tony Gilroy and Dan Gilroy.

Verdict: A nail-biting good time as the charismatic Jeremy Renner picks up where Matt Damon left off.

Like any good spy thriller, this fourth instalment of the celebrated Bourne film series that began with The Bourne Identity (2002), is laced with deception, endless double-crossing, spin-the-globe locations, lots of shooting and explosions, and the requisite big car chase scene at the end. Gilroy (who wrote the first three films in the series and co-wrote this one) obviously knows his way around the formula – and the end result is a nail-biting good time from start to finish.

When Jason Bourne (Matt Damon’s photo) turns up in New York and risks exposing the CIA’s entire covert ‘Outcome’ intelligence operation of which he is the key element, the decision is made to eliminate all the project’s ‘assets’ and shut the program down. What those responsible didn’t count on, was one of their assets – Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) – taking them on at their own game in an attempt to come in from the cold (both literally and metaphorically).