brandon ledet

Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (1991)

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three star

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As a fan of both Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot ’em ups and films of questionable quality starring pro wrestlers, I had very little choice but to partake in the doomed-from-the-start prospect of watching Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe when its cheap DVD sleeve caught my eye at the second-hand store. As a Z-Grade Terminator knockoff starring Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Abraxas had almost zero potential to be a decent sci-fi cheapie, but almost all of the potential in the world to be a fabulous trainwreck. Its plot synopsis of about “intergalactic police officers” & “a hybrid being that has the power to destroy the universe” boasted a special sort of promise for a campy mess. What was most surprising about Abraxas, however, was not exactly how irredeemably bad it was (it was pretty bad) but what it happened to get right & wrong about the Terminator franchise.

The original Terminator film from 1984 has a lean efficiency to it that makes it feel like an especially well-funded Roger Corman production, right down to the Dick Miller cameo in the gun shop. Part of what James Cameron does so well in that film is keep his audience in the dark. He allows questions about the exact nature of Schwarzenegger’s time-traveling robot assassin to hang in the air until they need to be answered. The gradually unfolding plot creates an feeling of dread & mystique that makes the original film a fun watch to this day (four sequels later), at the very least in admiration of how a familiar, but complicated story gets laid out in an unfamiliar, but understandable way in its initial telling. Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe has no patience for this sort of gradual roll-out & instead blurts every idiotic idea it his on its mind directly to the audience in its opening exposition.

In just a few short minutes of Jesse Ventura’s helpfully explanatory grumbling we learn that his protagonist (the titular Abraxas, of course) is an 11,000 year old intergalactic supercop, known as a “Finder”, who has to renew his vows to “defend all life” every 100 years. His latest mission is to “find” (read: “terminate”) an ex-partner, Secundus, who has gone renegade. Secundus’ evil plan involves impregnating an “Earth woman” in order to give birth to some sort of cyborg anti-Christ with the power to destroy the universe. Before Abraxas can leave for this mission, however, he must undergo a painful “reinforcement” of his skeletal & muscular structure through “short-wave irradiation” & “ozone layering”, a highly risky process that requires him to (I’m not kidding) play word association games with an A.I. surgeon (that helpfully give us some background info on his home planet of Sargacia) so he doesn’t lose his mind from the pain. If this sounds like a lot of info to lay on the audience in a single soliloquy, that’s because it is. The whole ordeal is nearly as exhausting as the restructural “ozone layering” or whatever the Hell he was babbling about.

As wrongheaded as Abraxas is about rolling out a Terminator-type plot in an understandable way, it’s also oddly prescient about where the series would go in its second installment, T-2: Judgment Day. Released just weeks before T-2, Abraxas has way too many similarities to the cult classic to not have been a direct mockbuster version of it. It’s as if the entirety of the film were written based on the promotional materials of what Judgement Day was going to be about. For some strange reason, the ad campaign for T-2 made no bones about the fact that Schwarzenegger was going to be returning as a “good guy” in the second film, despite that twist’s potential to make for a fun shock for an unsuspecting audience. Abraxas mirrors T-2‘s basic structure of two superhuman warriors fighting over the fate of a young child, except that it muddles the details of which warrior (good or bad) would be structurally superior & what the good guy’s relationship with the would-be victim’s mother would look like (I don’t remember Schwarzenegger’s cyborg falling in love with Sarah Conner, but Abraxas totally falls for her thousands-of-years-too-young-for-him equivalent in this dreck; typical male-female Hollywood age differences, right?).

Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe certainly does very little to hide the fact that it exists solely to wean off some of those sweet, sweet Terminator bucks. The film shamelessly uses the word “terminate” at least three times, there’s a scene where the evil “Finder” Secundus vaporizes a dude just to steal his clothes, and both Secundus & Abraxas are more or less directly impersonating Arnold’s very recognizable accent throughout the film (with Secundus’ attempts being a much more accurate interpretation than Ventura’s). Given the obscene cheapness of the film’s sets (warehouses, camp sites, offices, wilderness, etc.), the fact that the futuristic laser guns that don’t shoot visible lasers (they just set off sparks & explosions), and the batshit insane repetition of certain (costly, I’m guessing) identical explosions shots in the film’s montages & final conflict, it’s entirely believable that Abraxas was created in a rush as a composite of ideas from the original Terminator film & ideas lifted from the promotional material for the second. Their weeks-apart release dates pretty much seal that thought completely.

As for the film’s camp value outside of a Terminator-imitator, there are several things worth a chuckle. The repetition of the identical explosions is maddening, but also amusing. There’s also a completely needless side plot about space alien bureaucrats bitching about being assigned to “a planet no one’s ever heard of,” an over-the-top scene where not-Sarah Conner becomes pregnant & gives birth in the span of a minute at the wave of a hand, and an out-of-nowhere cameo from Jim Belushi as a befuddled principle that left me scratching my head. Most of the film’s non-Terminator camp value comes from “The Body” himself, though. Ventura could be a menace in the ring & on the mic ringside in his heyday, but in the early 90s he looked more like a bald stepdad confused with what to do with his gigantic body. As he tries to reconcile the super-serious “finding” mission at hand with his newfound tender feelings for an Earth woman, it’s pretty funny to watch Ventura try to make Abraxas out to be anything but a coldhearted robot, which the film often forgets he’s not. It’s not a knee-slappingly funny performance, but it’s definitely a fascinating one & definitely worth a look for a bored Terminator or oldschool WWF superfan looking to kill 90 minutes on an especially boring afternoon.

-Brandon Ledet

The Independent (2000)

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fourhalfstar

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In our attempts to crack open the mysteries behind our current Movie of the Month, Ate De Jong’s basic cable oddity Highway to Hell, Britnee mentioned that it was the only film she could recall that featured all four members of the Stiller clan. Thanks to a helpful recommendation from a reader (thanks Tom!) we now have another entry to add to that list. Jerry Stiller, his wife Ann Meara, and their children Ben & Amy also all appear in the 2000 indie comedy (appropriately-titled) The Independent. To discuss The Independent solely in terms of its relationship to Highway to Hell, however, would be doing the film a huge disservice. It’s so much better than that. I went into the film expecting a few decent one-off gags from the always-dependable Jerry, but I left completely in love.

In The Independent, Jerry Stiller plays Morty Fineman, a Roger Corman archetype who’s made a career out of schilling an endless stream of schlock for decades on end. Unlike Corman, who is generally calm on the surface but expressive in his filmmaking, Stiller is on the same violently explosive vibe he brought to his role as Frank Constanza on Seinfeld. He also (for the most part) lacks Corman’s thirst for making art films, like The Masque of the Red Death, and sticks mostly to genre fare that’s main selling point is “tits, ass, and bombs”. Although Corman himself appears in the film (along with former cronies Peter Bogdanovich & Ron Howard) to offer the film a touch of credibility, Stiller’s protagonist is less of an homage to that single filmmaker, but more of a ZAZ-type spoof of the entirety of schlock directors from Russ Meyer to The Golan-Globus folks to anyone who’s ever made a blacksploitation film (and even Fred Williamson appears in the film to afford credibility on that end). Morty Fineman is the entire B-movie industry wrapped up into one convenient, hilarious package.

A lot of the soul of The Independent is in the brief clips & promotional material for Morty’s work. There’s a Meyer-esque sexploitation pic about an eco-friendly biker girl gang, a wonderful mushroom cloud pun mockup for a film called LSD-Day, a Fred Williamson-falls-in-love-with-a-soul-sister-robot blacksploitation flick called Foxy Chocolate Robot, etc. I counted at least fifteen of these schlock spoofs represented in brief clips & there are endless dozens of more ideas listed in a “complete filmography” that rolls in tandem with the end credits. Each idea plays just as well as you’d expect from a film that boasts a cast with its roots both the cult sketch comedy legends The Ben Stiller Show & Mr. Show (Bob Odenkirk, Andy Dick, Janeane Garafalo, Brian Posehn, etc.). I don’t think there was a two minute stretch of the film when I wasn’t at least chuckling & a large part of that success was due to how well disperser these schlock spoofs are. They’re evenly spaced from beginning to end with only the flimsiest of narrative glue about Fineman’s struggle in his old age to climb out of financial ruin either by filming a morally-reprehensible musical about a serial killer or accepting a film festival gig in a shithole town he dubs “Blowjob, Nevada.”

At the time of its release, reviews on The Indepenent were mixed at best, but I honestly believe it was ahead of its time. If pitched in the current climate, it would make for a knock-out HBO comedy series. Its mockumentary format, improve-based looseness, tendency towards one-off gags & celebrity cameos, and loveable reprobate of a protagonist would all play perfectly into the modern HBO comedy. It’s likely that the other Stiller clan affair, Highway to Hell, will remain in obscurity for the foreseeable future, but I like to imagine that The Independent still has a chance to achieve a cult classic status. It’s a wonderful little love-letter to the shlock movie industry that recognizes its faults (like the literally fatal risks of some of the less-than-safe sets) as much as its glorious heights. I’m not going to pretend to know the entirety of Jerry Stiller’s career, but I will say this is the best feature-length vehicle I’ve ever seen for his brand of comedy. Out of respect for the comedian & respect for schlock as a medium, I plan on making this film a frequent recommendation to help keep its name alive. So, if you also have respect for either or just love a well-executed comedy sketch (or a dozen), I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. It’s damn funny.

-Brandon Ledet

From The PG Era to a Solid R: John Cena’s Promising Career in Raunchy Comedies

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There weren’t that many surprises for me in the new Amy Schumer-penned romcom Trainwreck. As was typical with almost all Judd Apatow comedies, the film was generally pleasant and supported a wealth of great gags & a wonderful cast, but also was in desperate need of some third-act editing. Recent over-exposure to Schumer’s more unrestrained writing on her sketch comedy TV show had me looking for something a little more (excuse the pun) off the rails from Trainwreck than the usual Apatow fare, though, so my expectations for something more unconventional were more than a little off base. I liked it; I just wasn’t caught unprepared for most of its content.

However, I was taken aback by the comedic performance of pro wrestler/in-the-flesh superhero John Cena. My surprise with Cena began before even the opening credits, when a trailer for an upcoming Amy Poehler/Tina Fey comedy called Sisters featured the typically clean-cut wrestler decorated in neck tats & a beanie, informing a hot-to-trot Fey that his safe word is “keep going”. That was just the start. In Trainwreck itself, Cena is even more subversive in dismantling his squeaky clean persona by appearing as he normally would in public, but with much raunchier content backing him up. It was difficult to determine from the film’s trailer how just how much of Cena we’d be seeing outside of that quotable “Mark Wahlberg” one-liner, but it turns out that we get to see way more of him than most people would’ve asked for. His character, Steven, engages (with varying degrees of success) in dirty talk, fully-nude on-screen lovemaking, undercutting questions about his own sexuality, and an intense pantomime of an ejaculation that will . . . not . . . end. As a fan of raunchy sex comedies, I found these gags just the right tone of playfully amusing. As a pro wrestling fan, I found them downright shocking.

For anyone who (understandably) has not been paying attention to the WWE since the creative heights of its so-called Attitude Era of the late 90s/early 00s, John Cena has more or less dominated the company’s narrative for the past decade. Shifting away from some of the more gruesomely violent & overtly sexual content of yesteryear, WWE sorta-unofficially promoted Cena as the face of the company. With his classic military looks & his character’s (almost) forgotten beginnings as a white rapper, Cena has been scripted within the ring to be more or less a superhero for young children to look up to. His stubborn refusal to “turn heel”, constant sloganizing about never giving up & always being respectful, and his never-ending championship victories appeal directly to younger fans, which drives a lot of older, nerdier smarks to disgust, deeming his reign as The PG Era. This behavior has spilled outside the ring as well. In his WWE Studios movies, Cena has always played the unblemished hero, like in his action movie vehicle The Marine, or a superhero version of himself, like in the Scooby-Doo/WWE crossover where he defeats a robotic ghost bear & an Indiana Jones style bolder with his bare hands. Then, there’s the fact that he in “real life” has more Make-a-Wish Foundation charity work than any other celebrity on record. In short, he is a ludicrously wholesome persona inside the ring & out.

The thing about Cena is that he really is likeable. There’s just way too much content out there about him being likeable. If you religiously follow WWE’s two flagship shows, Raw & SmackDown, (God help you) then there’s six hours of content on a weekly basis about how likeable John Cena is. And that’s not even counting the monthly Pay-Per-Views or the reality shows. That’s gotta wear even the most enthusiastic viewers down after a few years. Fortunately, though, things seem to be (gradually) changing. Cena’s niche at the company has been looking more like a respectable midcard position for the past few months (although, as I’m typing this now it looks like they’re pushing another championship match for him at this year’s SummerSlam) and he’s been putting in some of the best in-ring work of his career & helping get over lesser-known talents through his recent John Cena’s U.S. Open Challenge angle. What’s even more remarkable, though, is how he’s subverting his spotless image through comedies like Sisters & Trainwreck.

I first noticed this shift during the last few episodes of the now-legendary NBC comedy Parks & Recreation, where Cena appeared as himself on the episode “The Johnny Karate Super Awesome Musical Explosion Show” (one of my favorite episodes of the series). Cena did little to taint his superhero image in that appearance, but there was a spark of hope there in his willingness to make a fool of himself, when he so often manages to land on top. It also helped that Parks boasted a deep roster of talented comedians that could land Cena bit parts in worthwhile bigscreen comedies through networking. It’s tough to say whether it was Poehler’s Parks connection that helped Cena land his part in Sisters or the odd fact that Amy Schumer once dated pro wrestler Dolph Ziggler that helped him land his persona-shedding role in Trainwreck, but it couldn’t have hurt in either situation. No matter what the cause, Cena now seems to have his foot in the door for a life on the bigscreen (as opposed to WWE Studios’ straight-to-VOD dreck) and his career could be at a pivotal point because of it.

It’s a very rare feat for the WWE to successfully launch a career in Hollywood. Hulk Hogan is certainly the earliest example, but even he had a tough time making a lasting go of it after his ridiculous start in titles like No Holds Barred & Rocky III. Outside of a couple 90s goof-offs like Suburban Commando & Mr. Nanny, he hasn’t made much of a memorable mark outside the ring. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, on the other hand, has been a much clearer success story with his roles in franchises like The Fast & The Furious and G.I. Joe. Even The Rock’s been struggling to branch out & express himself as an artist, though. Despite a few wildly off-the-wall turns in films like Southland Tales and Pain & Gain, he’s been landing a lot of roles he would have been typecast in over a decade ago. Schlock like Hercules & San Andreas aren’t nearly enough of a step-up from his days as The Scorpion King, considering the talents he’s put on film in his his stranger roles.

Both The Rock & Hulk Hogan have long struggled to expand the scope of their acting careers once they got their foot in the door and now it’s John Cena’s turn to fight that battle. Starting his career in major films by degrading himself in raunchy comedies is honestly a brilliant first step in that direction. Cena’s showing us that his spotless superhero persona does not necessarily define him as a talent. Let’s face it; a lot of the kids who would’ve latched onto the original version of his current “Hustle, Loyalty, Respect” routine in its initial run would be in at least their late teens now, so it makes total sense that his content would grow up with them. I could be wrong & Cena could be slipping back into his old ways (starting as soon as SummerSlam next month), but there’s at the very least a glimmer of hope for change in his roles in Sisters & Trainwreck.

I’ve recently grown to like Cena despite my initial misgivings. His repetitive nature really isn’t all that unique within the world of pro wrestling, after all, and he can be really entertaining when he puts in his best work. Besides, it’s really difficult to deny the power of those Make-a-Wish numbers. I’d just also like to see him continue to branch out into these filthy, degenerate characters in goofy comedies until it’s no longer jarring to the audience. It might be his best chance at establishing himself outside of his roles as a “sports entertainer” and an eternal “good guy”. As Hogan & The Rock have proved time & time again, the WWE ring will always be there with open arms for whenever he needs it. There’s no reason, then, not to go out there & make himself vulnerable in a gross-out comedy or two. Judging by his work in Trainwreck alone, he’s already off to a great start.

-Brandon Ledet

Hot Rod (2007)

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fourstar

Although I’ve only ever heard good things about the Andy Samberg vehicle Hot Rod, I’ve been avoiding actually watching it, because, you know, Andy Samberg. I used to find Samberg occasionally funny on Saturday Night Live, but it was difficult to imagine him being tolerable for more than just a few minutes at a time. With the enthusiasm & self-restraint of a toddler hopped up on sugar, Samberg sounded like he could be a chore (babysitting, specifically) at a 90 min stretch. Having now actually seen Hot Rod, I can confirm that Samberg can be occasionally exhausting within the film, but his antics are broken up & balanced by enough other comedic voices that it’s not really a problem. Also, it helps that the movie is damn funny from start to finish.

It’s tempting to attribute Hot Rod‘s success to its supporting players (scene-stealing doofuses Bill Hader & Danny McBride, a ludicrously violent Ian McShane, Will Arnett as a perfect 80s cad- right down to the sunglasses & convertible, etc.), but this is unmistakably Andy Samberg’s movie. Playing an overgrown man-child who wants to be a daredevil just like his deceased father, Samberg’s general mode here is slapstick comedy. Often missing jumps on his dirtbike & puking from the pain, Samberg’s titular Rod is far from the Evil Kineival Jr. he imagines himself to be. There’s a lot of solid humor derived from the disparity between Rod’s confidence & his actual abilities, which allows you to have a good laugh even while he drowns, catches fire, or explodes. I went into the film not sure that I could handle a feature length project from Samberg, but I left wishing there were more just like it.

If I had to pinpoint Hot Rod‘s exact subgenre, I’d place it somewhere in the self-aware dumb comedy category. Titles like MacGruber, Tammy, and Gentlemen Broncos all come to mind in consideration of just how dumb & low class the film intentionally is. More than aware that it’s mostly good for a long string of non sequitur gags, Hot Rod tends to poke fun at itself whenever it has to actually become a real movie. For instance, most of the film boasts a killer 80s synthpop soundtrack, but towards the climax when Rod’s crew has their inevitable third act falling out, the score suddenly switches to melodramatic string arrangements. There’s also lines like “Have I ever shown you a picture of my dad? You gotta see it. He’s super dead,” and the fact that the entire plot is anchored in Rod’s attempts to raise money for his stepdad’s lifesaving surgery, just so he can get healthy enough to get his ass kicked. With Hot Rod, Samberg found the perfect vehicle for his manic toddler aesthetic and what could have easily been a chore turned out to be a thoroughly hilarious & surprisingly self-aware comedy I can see myself rewatching way more often than I should.

-Brandon Ledet

Creep (2015)

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threehalfstar

Newcomer Patrick Brice is having one hell of a year. His super uncomfortable black sex comedy The Overnight was the perfect mix of terrifying & hilarious and now his only other feature to date, Creep, has also reached its wide release the same year, revealing that Brice is far from a one-trick pony. If anything, Creep shows that Brice can achieve the same uncomfortable, but darkly funny intimacy of The Overnight with even less resources. Creep is a found footage horror film with an on-screen cast of exactly two: a wonderfully deranged Mark Duplass & Brice himself, who operates the camera & narrates when necessary. There’s no other way to put this, really: Creep is an inspiration. It’s one of those small-scale movies that remind you just how much you can accomplish with two (immensely talented) people & a camera.

Mark Duplass takes on most of the film’s acting burden, playing the titular creep with an alarming sense of dark humor. Duplass’ character is a collection of off-putting details. Behind his awkward smile, haircut, track pants, awkward everything really, it’s obvious from the get go that something is deeply wrong with the man. He claims to be a relapsing cancer survivor who hired Brice’s cameraman to document the last days of his life for his unborn son, but there’s something off about his performance that gradually begins to alarm Brice that he is not what he seems. Despite Duplass’ character’s relentless positivity that requires constant hugs, high fives, and baby talk (or maybe because of that positivity), the film’s title keeps you anticipating the moment the hammer will fall. When will the Creep reveal himself for what he truly is? By the time Duplass is asking his unsuspecting, newfound buddy questions like “Have you ever done anything you’re really ashamed of?” and introducing him to the third character of the film (and the movie’s true star), a werewolf mask named Peach Fuzz, the tension becomes almost unbearable. And then it gets worse.

Creep is not only a found footage film; it’s a found footage film set mostly in the woods, so it’d be understandable if it initially comes across as yet another Blair Witch knock-off, like say the goofy sasquatch movie Exists, but it’s much stranger than that. Just like with the haunted boat nightmare Triangle, Creep doesn’t let its genre or set location define its parameters. It isn’t until the film leaves the woods that you begin to understand just how strange the story Brice is telling truly is. Duplass does an excellent job of anchoring a film that asks a lot of him, and it’s refreshing to see his menacing side from last year’s The One I Love return to the screen, but it’s truly Brice’s triumph that’s the story here. In just two features, the relative unknown has found new ways to subvert intimacy & humor in a way that, well, creeps you out. It’s going to be interesting to see where his career goes in the future with larger casts & bigger budgets, but for now it’s incredible how much he’s been able to accomplish with so few moving parts.

-Brandon Ledet

Mr. Holmes (2015)

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threehalfstar

Director Bill Condon’s name isn’t one you’re likely to hear often. He’s not a particularly flashy director; his films have a sort of low-key level-headedness to them that feel entirely different from the likes of visually overreaching auteurs like a David Lynch or a Wes Anderson. Very early in his career, however, he did helm two fantastic costume dramas that both packed a surprising punch considering their calmly handsome exteriors: Kinsey and Gods & Monsters. Due mostly to their superbly talented casts, a generally pleasing visual palette, and an unusually frank take on the grey areas of human sexuality, both Kinsey and God’s & Monsters are real emotional powerhouses that subvert the low-key vibes they boast on the surface. Condon has an elegant, adult touch to his costume dramas & biopics that make them alarmingly rewatchable & lingeringly poignant in a way you wouldn’t expect considering the basic confines of their structure.

After a brief foray into the business of Twilight sequels (a venture I can only hope paid nicely), Condon is seemingly getting back to what he does best. His latest film, Mr. Holmes, brings in Ian McKellen & Laura Linney, who were both fantastic in their respective roles in God’s & Monsters and Kinsey, for yet another low-key costume drama that initially seems suspiciously run-of-the-mill, but actually packs an emotional wallop. In Mr. Holmes‘ portrayal of what is probably the world’s most famous detective (and easily the world’s most famous Sherlock) struggling to reconcile his unusually sharp observational skills with the encroaching doom of senility, Condon has found a way to add another unexpected layer of depth to a character that has become perhaps overly-familiar at this point in pop culture. Just like how the costume dramas & biopics of Condon’s past have complicated & subverted their audience’s genre expectations, Mr. Holmes plays with what you would expect out of a Sherlock Holmes movie by slowly removing the elegance & mental facilities you would expect from Holmes himself.

Of course, this is just as much Ian McKellen’s triumph as it is Condon’s. The idea of McKellen playing an aging Sherlock Holmes will obviously be a major selling point for a lot of people tuning in to this humble indie drama & Mr. Holmes does not disappoint on that end. In three separate, but narratively interwoven storylines McKellen plays the infamous gumshoe at varying times of his waning life. In some scenes he’s as keen as ever & in others he struggles to walk the short distance across his study. Unlike with traditional Sherlock narratives, the point of Mr. Holmes is not to solve the mystery of a specific crime, but for the detective to solve both the mystery of human nature & the more haunting mysteries that the daily battles with a fading mind present. As Holmes slips into senility he begins to regret his life-long dedication to facts & logic and forces himself to learn how to connect with people on a more empathetic & emotional level before he loses the ability to connect at all. McKellen can be absolutely heart-breaking in these dual struggles, his piercing blue eyes calling for help from behind an eerily aging face.

This doesn’t mean that the movie can’t be fun as well. When Holmes is having one of his “good days”, McKellen shines as a comic talent. He’s got a bitchy, effete, intellectual air to him that can make you snort with laughter with the mere roll of an eye or an off-hand joke about death. This is especially true in scenes where Holmes is interacting directly with his own celebrity, scoffing at the novelized & feature film versions of his life and poking fun at the costume he’s typically depicted wearing. It’s McKellen’s tender, but catty approach to comedy that lures you into a comfortable lull that suddenly hits you right in the heart once all three of the film’s storylines culminate in a tidy, but satisfying conclusion. Condon & McKellen (along with a top-notch performance from an always-welcome Linney) have together crafted a rare thing: the well-behaved, but emotionally potent indie costume drama with only rare visual showiness (mostly in the occasional period-specific artifact: a worn book or photograph, bee-keeping gear, an ancient glass harmonica, etc.). Mr. Holmes might not be the best or most ambitious work of either Condon or McKellen’s careers, but it is a special treat watch something so simple shine so brightly– even if it is, in Sherlock’s case at least, the last time around.

-Brandon Ledet

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

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threehalfstar

If the third Mission: Impossible movie was an instance of the series suddenly pulling its shit together by making its protagonist Ethan Hunt out to be a real human being, the fourth film takes that cohesion a step further by helping define the team behind Ethan’s success. There have been so many face-removing, duplicitous double crossings in the series’ past that it’s been difficult to trust anyone at all, but Ghost Protocol finally eliminates that sense of distrust by shrinking Ethan’s team into a core group of murderous super spies with hearts of gold. Unfortunately, Ving Rhames is missing from this team almost completely (he at least drops in for a last second cameo), but picking up the wisecracking slack are Simon Pegg & Jeremy Renner, who both deliver some great tension-relieving one-liners, sometimes in unison. Besides these two sarcastic goofs, Cruise’s also backed by Paula Patton, the badass lady antidote to the franchise’s serious damsel-in-distress problem of the past. Once Rhames (hopefully) rejoins this ragtag crew in future installments, the series will almost certainly hit its pinnacle. Honestly, it’s kind of exciting to think that the best is still yet to come.

Besides honing in on the perfect small crew to back up Ethan’s world-saving espionage, Ghost Protocol also tightens up the series’ action. After the grossly excessive shoot-em-ups of the Limp Bizkit-soundtracked second film, the series has been moving more towards the large-scale, remote warfare that makes a lot more sense for international super spies to be wrapped up in. The attacks of violence in Ghost Protocol are unexpected bursts of terror that serve as shocks to the system, with or without Renner & Pegg’s nervous joking to break up the tension. There are some ridiculously over-the-top sequences that feature Cruise running down the side of a skyscraper in Dubai or somehow outrunning a sandstorm or Renner physically hacking into a gigantic supercomputer, but those more fanciful tangents are mixed in the real life dangers like car crashes & embassy bombings.

One element that got way less real (but very much appropriate for a throwback espionage franchise) was the film’s supervillains, which shifted from Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s nightmarish turn in Mission: Impossible 3 to a stunningly beautiful super model assassin & a “nuclear extremist” who wants to achieve peace on Earth by obliterating the human race. These cartoonish elements, along with more overreaching gadgetry (like a real-life invisibility cloak), clash very well with the movie’s more gritty, violent sequences and leave the impression of a well-rounded, but highly ridiculous action flick in their wake.

Cruise continued his hiring of disparate, auteur directors here by giving the project to Brad Bird (who is typically associated with children’s media like Ratatouille, The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Tomorrowland). The list of directors who’ve worked on the Mission: Impossible films so far (Bird, Abrams, Woo, De Palma) have all brought unique (and varyingly successful) takes on the series to the table, which is highly unusual for this type of popcorn action flick. It’ll certainly be interesting to see where the director of the fifth installment, Christopher McQuarrie, will take the direction of the franchise when Rogue Nation hits the theaters. McQuarrie is a relatively unknown director, but he has worked with Cruise before on two of his more interesting recent projects – the Werner Herzog as a fingerless villain Jack Reacher & the Groundhog’s Day meets Starship Troopers sci-fi action flick Edge of Tomorrow.

It’ll also be interesting to see what haircut Cruise brings to the next flick (I’m serious!), because it really makes a difference. He did slip back into his awful M:I 2 hair in Ghost Protocol, but since he begins the film in a Serbian prison & Bird did a much better job with the material than Woo (I’m serious!) I’ll let it slide for now. Adjusting some major problems in a relatively short amount of runtime, Mission: Impossible 3 & Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol have together unmistakably set the series up for future success. It has so much potential to reach new heights in the next installment that I’m hoping with the right amount of Ving Rhames, the perfect over-the-top villain, and a tasteful length for Cruise’s hair, Rogue Nation just might be the best in the series so far. We’ll see.

-Brandon Ledet

Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)

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It’s difficult to imagine a better corrective for the rap rock shit show that was Mission: Impossible 2 than the third installment that followed it a whopping six years later. Mission: Impossible 3 opens with a beyond terrifying Phillip Seymour Hoffman moving Tom Cruise’s super spy hero Ethan Hunt to tears while torturing him for information. This moment of intense vulnerability is a far cry from the second film, which was more or less a chance for Cruise to pose as Limp Bizkit-lovin’, motorbike-ridin’, late 90s badass while some slow motion doves flew around him & everything about him was so X-treme that even his sunglasses exploded. In Mission: Impossible 3, Ethan Hunt becomes a real person for the first time. He’s not Tom Cruise dressed up like a handsome super spy like in the first film or a irredeemable hard rock douchebag like in the second. He’s a vulnerable human being locking horns with a nightmare-inducing Hoffman, who knows how to exploit his weaknesses to get what he wants. Like when the fifth Fast & Furious film discovered its heart in Vin Diesel’s longwinded ramblings about “family”, Mission: Impossible 3 finally pushes the series into a sense of cohesion by reducing its protagonist from an action movie god to a regular dude with a dangerous job.

It’s clear how much Mission: Impossible 3 is trying to return to its roots & find itself as early as the opening credits, which bring back the original arrangement of the movie’s theme (as opposed to the rap rock version from John Woo’s film). M:I 3 even brought back Tom Cruise’s more handsome, less cringe-worthy hair from the first film that was absent in the second, a seemingly shallow detail that I promise makes all the difference. What ups the ante here, though, is a one-for-the-record-books performance from Hoffman that elevates the material just as much as Werner Herzog did for that other super soldier Cruise flick Jack Reacher. Hoffman is pure terror here & the movie knows how to put that element to great use. There’s even a scene where, thanks to face-ripping-offing technology allows for two Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s to engage in a fist fight in a bathroom. Two Hoffmans! I wasn’t even expecting one, so that was a genuine treat.

In addition to the strength of its antagonist & the newfound humanity of its central spy, M:I 3 also intensifies the sheer spectacle of its action sequences. The first film in the series was more or less three great action sequences & some dull filler while the second was a slow build that amounted to one really ludicrous third act. Mission: Impossible 3, on the other hand, features at least seven ludicrous action sequences by my count. There’s some ridiculous use of wind turbines, exploding bridges, and missile-dodging that makes this easily the most over-the-top entry of the series so far in terms of action. These escapist, popcorn movie moments clash very well with the more legitimately thrilling performance from Hoffman & some disturbing imagery like Cruise’s mortified face when his fiancé is in danger or a kinky, horse-shaped leather mask that is used to subdue him.

It’s pretty incredible that Mission: Impossible 3 was so adept at bringing the series back to life, when all signs pointed to it being a doomed project. Released soon after the Scientology-ridicule started troubling Cruise’s career after an especially memorable Oprah appearance, the movie went through two directors (one would’ve been David Fincher, which is almost too good to be true) before landing on JJ Abrams, who had never directed a feature film before. Abrams, perhaps confident due to his extensive work in television, succeeded at the very difficult task of not only pulling this series’ shit together, but also rescuing a troubled project already years in the making. It’s pretty incredible the quality & range of directors Cruise has hired as a producer to helm these films, but it’s even more incredible how much Abrams was able to hold his own in that arena, topping even Brian De Palma’s entry in the franchise by making the best Mission: Impossible film to date.

Side note: In addition to being the best so far, this film also featured the most Ving Rhames content in any Mission: Impossible film to date, which I assure you was not a coincidence.

-Brandon Ledet

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

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When I began watching the Mission: Impossible movies recently, I expected a similar trajectory for the series that I experienced with The Fast & The Furious. I assumed that the Tom Cruise super spy franchise would start with an ungodly mess of rap rock era machismo, but eventually find its way into something a little more respectable & cohesive. What I found was that the first film was a surprisingly classy action flick from a precious moment in pop culture that came just before America’s rap rock dark times. The first Mission: Impossible film was campy, sure, but it was also excessive & dated in an entirely enjoyable way that I thought wouldn’t come until much later into the series.

It turns out that the rap rock garbage fire I was expecting from the first film was actually well & alive in the the second installment in the series, Mission: Impossible 2. M:I-2 ditches the Brian De Palma sense of 60s chic for a laughably bad excess of X-treme 90s bad taste helmed by John Woo. The drop in quality from the first film to the next was so drastic that it’d almost be more believable if M:I-2 were a spiritual sequel to Woo’s ludicrous Nic Cage trashterpiece Face/Off than it having anything to do with Brian De Palma’s film at all. He even recycled the slow-motion dove flapping from Face/Off, which was released just a few years before this stinker.

Almost everything pleasant about the first Mission:Impossible film is absent in the second. De Palma’s over-the-top abuse of camera trickery is replaced by straight-faced action movie blandness accompanied by non-sarcastic record scratches. Any enjoyment derived from the removal of faces in the first film is ruined here by an unrestrained overuse of the gimmick (this really should’ve been a second Face/Off film). The Danny Elfman score from the first film was supplanted by (I’m not kidding, here) a goddamn Limp Bizkit cover of the film’s original theme. Even Tom Cruise’s hair got douchier. He’s got these awful, long-flowing locks that swing in the breeze as he shows off his leather jacket on his super cool motor bike that he slides around on while shooting his gun with wild abandon. God, I hate this movie. Pretty much the only element of the first film that comes through unscathed is Ving Rhames, who remains a delight in every scene he’s afforded.

Here’s to hoping that the series bounces back from what has got to be its darkest hour. In the year 2000, when this film was released, I was a dumb kid who probably would’ve loved a Limp Bizkit soundtracked love letter to late 90s X-treme marketing & Tom Cruise’s shitty, shitty hair, but fifteen years later I’m desperately missing the campy, but classy 60s super spy homage of the first film. If the series somehow keeps spiraling down in quality this drastically (an Impossible proposition if I’ve ever heard one), I don’t think I’m going to make it to the other side.

-Brandon Ledet

Amy (2015)

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Earlier this year the Kurt Cobain documentary Montage of Heck struggled to navigate the difficult task of having something new to say about a story that was already familiar to most of its audience. The first half of the film was pretty successful on that end, creating an impressionistic view of Cobain through a highly energetic montage that tried its damnedest to portray him as a regular dude instead of a rock god. The movie fell apart for me in the back half, though, when its preference for raw footage over actual information became much less compelling as Cobain nodded off into a life (and death) of heroin addiction. In my original review I wrote “In a lot of ways this mirrors Cobain’s actual life: a burst of creative energy stopped short & made less special by substance abuse. As an anti-drug PSA, Montage of Heck is pretty damn effective, but as a documentary it’s very thin on the information end, so when it loses its momentum to heroin addiction, there’s not much else to hold onto,” a sentiment I still feel holds true.

The Amy Winehouse documentary had a much less familiar story to work with than Montage of Heck (less familiar to me, at least), so it more or less got away with playing its material straight. All I knew of Winehouse going into the film was the shape of her hair, the single “Rehab”, and her history of substance abuse. It turns out her & Cobain’s lives were remarkably similar in a lot of ways, although her talent was cut short even sooner than his. There’s nothing particularly flashy about the way Amy tells its subject’s life story. With the exception of a couple details that are withheld until late in the film, her story is pretty much laid out here in an exactly linear progression. There’s some context of her upbringing early in the film & then a year by year recap of her too-fast rise to stardom, followed by a deeply sad unraveling & list of what-could’ve-beens. What’s interesting about the film is not exactly how the story is told, but more of what goes unsaid. Much like with Cobain, Winehouse was not built for fame & mass attention emotionally, so it becomes apparent throughout the film that the audience (including those of us at the cinema at that very moment) played just as much of a part in her demise as the three men the movie explicitly points a finger at (her greedy father, her junkie ex-husband, and her shady tour manager).

This lack of stylistic flourish makes Amy an aesthetically ugly film in an (also unspoken) way that draws attention to Winehouse’s relationship to class. Cheap digital photographs & short clips of Winehouse joking with friends & shooting pool are very much uncinematic, especially when they clash with the crisp drone shots that establish setting & act as chapter breaks. Winehouse was a working class girl with a inordinate amount of talent for singing & writing songs. She states plainly through interviews & home video that she does not want mass attention & that if she becomes famous she will likely kill herself. Winehouse’s ideal career was to sing to small crowds in jazz clubs & small-scale festivals, not to drown in a sea of screaming fans that desperately want to hear her every word just as much as they want to pick apart & ridicule her personal life. By the time Winehouse is famous in Amy, it’s disturbing how much the imagery of the film changes. It jumps from humble home photographs, mostly of Winehouse acting camera-shy, to an intense onslaught of high quality paparazzi footage that makes a spectacle out of the simplest of things like a walk down the street & much more personal moments, like the struggle to kick her heroin habit. It’s incredible that Amy didn’t come with an epilepsy warning, considering the strobe effect of the paparazzi cameras, which were disorienting to me even in brief glimpses. I can’t even imagine what it was like for her to deal with that every moment she was outside her house.

Speaking of the paparazzi footage, that was easily the element of the film that I found most haunting. Not only did photographers (as well as comedians & talking heads) make a literal killing off of exploiting Winehouse while she was still alive, but because the footage was valuable to telling her story, those snapshots are still making money today merely by appearing in the documentary. One shot of her estranged best friend weeping at her funeral particularly stuck with me. Someone filmed that intimate moment without permission & sold it to a publisher, who then printed it for a profit and now can sell it a second time for the purposes of a documentary. Again, although the active parties are obviously skeezy for doing this, there’s an unspoken implication that the audience is largely to blame as well. By giving so much attention to a person who obviously did not want it, Winehouse’s unwitting fans made a market out of her gradual death. Again, it’s very similar to what slowly killed Kurt Cobain as well & I’m sure there are to be more examples in the future.

A lot of what makes Amy interesting as a documentary is not necessarily the details of Winehouse’s personal life that it turns into a fairly straight-forward narrative, but rather the way it subtly makes you feel like a murderer for wanting those details in the first place. As I mentioned before, there are several people that the movie scolds for not doing something to save her while they still had a chance, but the audience is far from innocent on that account either. While a real life person was hurting & intentionally destroying herself in the public eye, she was met with jokes at her expense instead of sympathy. She was booed offstage & harassed by the press, despite the blatant signs that something wasn’t right. It’s a disgusting instinct, but it’s also powerful enough to support a market. Even now, years after her death, we’re still giving her more attention than she ever wanted. It’s difficult to shake that feeling while watching her hide her face & drink herself numb in a documentary that continues the very thing it’s condemning.

-Brandon Ledet