Story

But it doesn’t start that well for Ethan Hunt. After he receives mysterious package which informs him of his mission (should he choose to accept it) and self-destructs in five seconds, Ethan faces big dilemma. He needs to choose between life of his friend and lives of possibly billions of people. Ethan without much deliberation decides to save his buddy. In result, he now has to live with consequences of this choice which leads to his own government berating him and forcing to fix his mistakes. Now he and his team of IMF operatives and such have to race against the time. They travel to Paris to meet with mysterious arms dealer, White Widow, who might or might not be able to help Ethan with his problem. But it the world of spies, Ethan should remember that nothing is what it seems to be.

Writing

Christopher McQuarrie returns to write and direct “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”. And if you thought that previous installments were getting all “Fast and Furious”, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” is “Fast and Furious” on steroids, but without any ridiculousness. I like how Ethan Hunt’s character is more tamed in this film. Yes, he still punches walls and survives all kind of transportation accidents, but all these are not as stupid as it was in previous films. Main selling point of “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” is, of course, relentless action sequences. But even without them film is satisfyingly good to watch. There is a coherent script, that seems more fluid than previous films. Screenplay no longer throws Ethan to random exotic locations just for the sake of it, just like in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol“.

Spy games

But there are several things I didn’t like about screenplay. Firstly, the whole film’s premise is built on Ethan’s decision to save his friend instead of saving millions of people. In the world of spies, secret agents and operatives it is so unbelievable and inconceivable that an operative as experienced as Ethan Hunt will choose to save his friend and risk deaths of millions. Film justifies this choice by painting Ethan as humane operative. And making everyone care and like Ethan more. Even his boss understands and commends him for his choice. It was so stupid, it almost ruined the whole movie, because I kept saying to myself “well, this is good BUT it wouldn’t have happened have Ethan made the correct choice”.

Then there is weirdly complex plot. I left theater thinking I understood everything, but when my father (whom I’ve seen this film with) asked me who is White Widow and what exactly she was doing there, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t give him a coherent answer. And for next fifteen minutes of drive home I was trying to remember what happened and who double-crossed whom and who is secret agent and who is bad guy and realized that I literally couldn’t make any sense of the plotline. It’s not that it is overly complicated, vice versa, it seems pretty straightforward but just then doesn’t make much sense.

Hunt (Cruise) hangs for his life

Directing

“Mission: Impossible – Fallout” hides all these shortcomings with over the top action scenes. And what action scenes are these! Beautifully staged, intricately choreographed, generously filmed and elegantly presented. In the era when CGI and green screens dominate the films, it is a miracle to see “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” which uses a lot of practical effects and rely on incredibly complicated stunts. The motorcycle chase through Paris and helicopter ride through Himalayas, I am sure will stay in memories for long time.

Besides crazy stunts, McQuarrie manages to get viewers on the edge of the seat and keep him there from first scene all the way to the end credits. “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” boasts 2.5 hours runtime, but it NEVER bores you. I have to compliment McQuarrie that even in the slower scenes he keeps everyone entertained.

Hunt (Cruise) and Walker (Cavill) trying to find White Widow

Acting

Unlike previous films I actually did enjoy Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. He doesn’t dominate the screen time as before and his portrayal is more down-to-Earth. Yes, he is still same James Bond, macho guy, but he feels like more matured, evolved version of himself. Cruise did his own stunts, as usual, and it only magnifies his performance. Hunt’s team members are Ving Rhames as Luther and Simon Pegg as Benji. Both of them bring nothing new, albeit serving as much needed relief from the Cruise. Rebecca Ferguson reprises her role as MI6 operative. But she looks SO much alike Michelle Monaghan, who returns as Ethan’s wife, Julia, that I honestly confused them several times during the film. Henry Cavill appears as CIA operative August Walker and he makes more believable agent than a Superman. Maybe he should stick to this kind of roles.

Summary

“Mission: Impossible – Fallout” is clearly not only the best film of the series, but also one of the best action films since “Mad Max: Fury Road”. It is amazingly well-made action film, that will keep you biting your nails through its long runtime. Intricate stunts that are masterfully filmed and edited are a wonder to watch and manage to mask out ridiculousness and complexity of the plot.

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Story

Drug trafficking is no longer a main source of income for Mexican cartels. People are. Indeed, you don’t need to cultivate, process or worry that you will lose your product during treacherous transport over the border. People are easier to handle, there is no shortage in demand to cross the border and importantly all money is upfront. But when border patrol confronts the group of illegals one of them turns out to be a Middle-Eastern terrorist, who blows himself up. Several days later four men walk into the store in Kansas City and detonate bombs. Government comes to conclusion that they have been smuggled to US through Mexican cartels and that essentially brancs cartels as terrorist organizations. But they have solution for that – they shall instigate a cartel war to wipe out everyone. And government orders CIA operative Matt Graver to fulfill this task. He in return turns to the best hit man in the world – mysterious ex-attorney Alejandro Gillick.

Graver (Brolin) is definitely man for this job

Writing

Author of first film, Taylor Sheridan returns to write “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”. However, this time he can’t really make it shine. The reason first film worked so well was how the narration was presented. Main hero was unassuming FBI agent Kate. She was dragged into an operation under false pretenses and was kept dark for the majority of film. In a way, viewers were Kate. We learned everything in the same time as Kate did. And that created a big tension, uneasiness about what is happening. We were surprised when she was, we were angry when she was angry. And also keeping narrative around Kate helped with multiple twists and turns along the film.

But not as much in “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”. Here the narrative centers around characters of Matt and Alejandro. Film devotes first thirty minutes on day to day operations of CIA operative and frankly loses all the charm of first film right then. When in the first film both Matt and Alejandro (especially Alejandro) were mysterious creatures with seemingly own agenda, in “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” it is no longer so. By putting them into spotlight, we lose that magic of anticipation and wonder. And frankly, without that it feels like just a day of life of your neighborhood CIA operative that you have seen a million of times in such hits like “Mission: Impossible“, “True Lies”, hell even “Burn Notice” (which coincidentally stars Jeffrey Donovan, who plays another CIA operative in “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”).

Then there is a plot. Film bounces back and forth between different scenarios and scenes that don’t fit that well with each other. Without spoiling much, in the beginning there is a terrorism subplot. This (somehow) turns into a hostage subplot which turns to cartel subplot which turns into something completely different. Don’t get me wrong, it is interesting to watch, but looking back at the whole film, it just doesn’t make that much sense.

Helicopters and cars

Directing

What Villeneuve also managed to give with “Sicario” was immense amount of tension. Yes, film also had brainless action sequences, but they were preceded by extremely intense and slow build ups. This, in turn, magnified the effect of said action scenes. Just think about the whole Juarez sequence in the first film. When we just follow a car full of operatives across the border, into the city and back to border and the whole ambush scene afterwards. How masterful was it! The whole movie lived on this fine balancing act.

Director of “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”, Stefano Sollima does try to give the same effect. And while he succeeds in some places, there are scenes he fails. The slow moments are immensely slow and there is no bite to the tension he offers. For example, the scene with sign language was compulsory for the plot and nicely done, but overall was so long it actually dragged the whole pace of the film down. Or the scenes with teenage smuggler.

To give credit where it is due, action scenes were extremely well choreographed and filmed. The scene with helicopters was intense and very well done. Also, every time Alejandro picks up a gun you won’t be able to turn your head, even though in most cases he will just unload that gun in a matter of seconds.

Alejandro (Del Toro) helps Isabela (Moner)

Acting

Since Matt and Alejandro are in the spotlight, screenplay makes them much bigger and more dimensional than first film. It is first time we see Josh Brolin as Matt Graver to give any emotions rather than smart smirk. This works very well, as Brolin has a natural stone face. We can see his emotional struggle under the weight of the circumstances and we can feel his pain even though he tries to hide it as much as he can. Overall Josh Brolin fits much better as this character than Cable or Thanos. Benicio Del Toro tries to stay as enigmatic and mysterious as in first film, but he can’t hide that. He also has to show his emotions. That especially shows up in the bus sequence. 16-year-old Isabela Moner plays drug cartel leader’s daughter and I actually was surprised by the depth this young actress has showed. Rest of the cast didn’t offer anything much and were just compulsory characters coming in and out of narrative.

Summary

While film does give us interesting characters Matt and Alejandro back, it misses some key points that made the first film stand out. Centering the narrative on them diminishes the intensity and mystery surrounding these characters. While film had very well executed action sequences, the slow moments between them dragged and almost killed the pace. In simple words, if “Sicario” was “Casino Royale,” then “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” is “Quantum of Solace”.

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Story

In year 1972, Mason Skiles is top U.S. diplomat stationed in Beirut, Lebanon. A rising star, Mason enjoys lavish life of top politician who (so he thinks) masterfully juggles between different factions that want to grab a piece of Lebanon – Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Christians, Israel, Palestine, France, England, Iran, Syria, USSR. With increasing fear of an impending armed conflict increasing in Beirut, he has a lot on his plate. The intricate balance is challenged by the Palestinian refugees who are fleeing from Israel. But with refugees unfortunately also slips in criminal. That is why he is shocked when his colleague and best friend Cal informs him that the Palestinian refugee child Mason has adopted is actually a brother of biggest known terrorist, Raffik Abu Rajal. Mason doesn’t want to believe him, but suddenly Raffik attacks them to steal his brother. In the ensuing gun fight Mason’s wife gets mortally wounded.

Ten years later, Mason is an alcoholic who lives by negotiating labor contracts. He is totally broken. Then one day, he gets a visit from old acquaintance who informs him that U.S. needs his help again. Reluctant Mason agrees to fly to Beirut. But the city he loved so much has been torn apart from civil war. And arriving to the Embassy he finds out that the reason he is there is because a certain U.S. spy has been caught and that terrorists are requesting to speak to only one person – Mason.

Mason (Hamm) tries to figure the way out

Writing

Mason is probably unlike any recent heroes of spy movies. He is not made of metal, he doesn’t break anyone’s neck. For the majority of film everyone ignores him as an alcoholic burnout and tolerate him only because terrorists requested to speak to him and to him only. He is not very smart either, having hard time figuring out 1+1. He is constantly under pressure of his trauma and he doesn’t want to be a hero at all. Yet he has to, in order to figure the way out of the mess he has stepped into. Story itself tho is not anything out of ordinary. Mason needs to figure out how to help hostage and at the same time he understand that he can’t trust anyone. There are forces on both (or maybe more) sides that would not want the deal to happen. This constant back and forth, spy games a-la “follow me” or chasing each other using transmitters is in every spy movie ever done.

Film shows Beirut as a city in ruins. There is a very stark comparison of Beirut in 1972 and 1982. Literally every single character comments on that. Yet, apparently “life goes on.” What was annoying the hell out of me, was how the characters and film tried to present this destruction and desolation. They are blaming literally everyone in the demise of Beirut, but themselves. See, Beirut for 20 centuries was a cradle of religious and cultural battle. Christians and muslims and jews lived together, but then Palestinians came and ruined everything. And then Soviet came and put oil to the fire and then Israelis have Mossad who wants to revenge death of Israelis. Literally EVERYONE is at blame, but Americans, who actually created this whole mess. Just read the history books.

So in “Beirut” all U.S. diplomats are complaining about how things got bad in Beirut. And writers are not correcting them. Well, what exactly did you expect? You had a big melting pot that you kept adding fire to. Did you think everything will get resolved on it’s own? In film, U.S. forces in Beirut are saviors. And this is actually reiterated in the ending of the film when one of the characters says “well, everyone won by this resolution.” What the hell are you talking about? Literally NOBODY won anything, only Americans did! And by the end of the film, conflict between factions has been deepened worse than ever. Stupid, very stupid. Arrogant and stupid.

Directing

Because the film doesn’t have much cliche spy thriller things it is actually very interesting to watch. There are no long chase or fight scenes. Or cheating each other scenes. Film plays out more like a spy drama, which are usually slow. Pacing, however, is nice. Director Brad Anderson puts cameras far with close-ups for more intimate shots. I enjoyed exploration of personal demons of our main hero. Ruins of Beirut and destruction was shown well and was very powerful. I also would like to commend the terrorist attack scene, which was unexpected, loud and, well, carried a big deal of terror. Overall, I think, except some repetition and redundancy, director did a good job.

Mason (Hamm) and his new “friends” going to negotiation

Acting

Jon Hamm goes an extra mile with his character. As a person who is so separated and disgusted with all that is happening around him, he delivers a very solid performance. He is constantly trying to fight against forces that are trying to undermine him. Rosamund Pike plays CIA field agent Sandy that looks after Mason and also helps him. Her character is so incredibly dull and one-dimensional that I wanted to punch her just to get something out of her. Dean Norris (from Breaking Bad fame), Shea Whigham and Larry Pine play different U.S. State Department officials who are mostly just doing it for their own gain. They are also not very well written.

Summary

“Beirut” is an interesting addition to spy thriller genre, as it portrays main hero not as a deadly assassin like in “Atomic Blonde” or “Red Sparrow“. He is a troubled person who just tries to do best he can to save the hostage. A role that Jon Hamm really shines in. Unfortunately, very poorly written supporting characters and total ignorance of history downgrades otherwise enjoyable overall experience.

The post Beirut appeared first on Kino-AZ.

Story

Several days after the fall of Berlin wall Loraine, a British spy sits in the interrogation room. Her supervisors from MI6 and CIA are trying to get a debrief. Loraine is badly bruised and is in pretty beat up shape. After some hesitation she tells her story. A week earlier her supervisors summoned her to tell that an MI6 operative has been killed while trying to smuggle a “list” from East Germany. Which, as you can understand, is a list of all operatives and their identities both on British and Soviet side. Her orders are to travel to Berlin and locate the list. Moreover, she needs to find out identity of a double-agent code named “Satchel”. For that she will needs help of another British spy called Percival. Percival though has been so long in the East Berlin that he has already gone “local”. And no wonder that as soon as she lands into Berlin Soviets are waiting for her.

Writing

Of all the spy movies I have seen in recent, “Atomic Blonde” stands out as the one with the worst writing. It is so riddled with cliche plotlines and story arcs that it actually made me cringe. In attempt to look smart and spy-ish the film has twist upon twist upon twist. See bad guys are actually good guys, and good guys are bad guys who work for bad guys who are actually good guys, who fight another set of bad guys who are bad guys, but also might be good guys, but they still can’t be good guys, because they are good indeed, but fighting bad guys. Who are good. If you think that I have written bunch of crap, then know that it exactly is exactly like that in the film. It is just pointless and ridiculous. And then after we find the FINAL twist, the whole movie doesn’t make ANY sense. WTF.

Loraine (Theron) will kick ass in skirt and suspender pantyhose, because why not

Film script is bits and pieces from “Mission: Impossible”, “Mission: Impossible 3”, “Mission: Impossible 4“, “John Wick”, “Skyfall”, “Nikita”, “Children of Men”, “Apocalypse Now”, “Basic Instinct”, “The Bourne Identity”, “Body of Lies”, “Bound”, “Femme Fatale”, and numerous others I can’t remember. Problem is all these movies are actually good ones. Some of them are greatest ever. Unfortunately “Atomic Blonde” fails to copy any good parts from them.

Directing

Film is directorial solo debut of David Leitch. He previously co-directed “John Wick” (surprise) and was stunt coordinator on everything from “The Matrix” to “X-Men”. Leitch knows what he is doing. He is all about action and kicking ass and I will give him a proper credit for that. Film does have very well choreographed fights and action sequences. There is one scene a-la “Children of Men” and “John Wick” where the camera follows the fight for good 5 minutes. I am not sure how long they practiced and choreographed that scene. It is so intense and freaking amazing, you just have to see it for yourself. That scene in the whole film is what makes the film at least watchable. Barely, but watchable.

Percival (McAvoy) is amazed by Loraine (Theron)

Acting

You can give me Charlize Theron kicking and slapping and pushing and destroying people and property and I will just watch that all day long. Especially since she does almost all of it in a very short skirt. Sexualization of her character (just like in “Gringo“) is so ridiculous that even she notes that at one point that “had I known police would show up I would have wore something different for fight”. I am not complaining, I am just saying it is a cheap move. Theron is amazing actress, you can see she trained A LOT for this film. It is just unfair putting emphasis not on her fight skills and acting, but on her gorgeous looks. Just saying.

James McAvoy plays is-he-really-good-or-is-he-not-bad Percival. I love this guys with every new movie he makes. He is completely into the role. But we don’t get to see him much, which makes his character on the sideline. The rest of the cast have big names like John Goodman, Toby Jones and Til Schweiger. Unfortunately they each get like probably 3 minutes of total screen time. Why have this amazing actors play such episodic characters? Such a waste of talent!

Summary

“Atomic Blonde” is horribly written, confusing, overly complicated, weird, and irrational film. On the other hand it has Charlize Theron showing her amazing fight skills and elaborately choreographed combat sequences. Watch it on your own risk.

The post Atomic Blonde appeared first on Kino-AZ.

Story

Dominika (really?) Egorova is a prima ballerina. At nights she dances on the stage of Bolshoi Theater. During day she takes care of her sick mother. She is a hardworking girl, who worked her way up from zero. Especially, since she didn’t even use the help of her elusive uncle Ivan Egorov, who works for Russian Intelligence (some weird agency name here, let’s assume something post-KGB). But when she suffers an injury that ends her career, she has nowhere to go, but her uncle, Ivan. He offers Dominika money, of course. But in return he wants her to “seduce” Russian politician. Dominika has a choice and despite it being against her moral values, she decides to go with it. Unfortunately, this mission goes awry and she is left with another choice – she can either die or she can join secret spy program. A spy program that develops “sparrows” – spies specifically trained in psychological manipulation and seduction. And Dominika makes her choice.

In the meantime, CIA operative Nate Nash fails his mission in Moscow. This failure leads Ivan Egorov and his bosses to conclude that there is a mole inside their organisation. And what a better way to find out the identity of the mole, but to send a “sparrow” to seduce Nate?

Writing

Red Sparrow is based on the novel by the same name, written by ex-CIA operative. The practice of using prostitute-spies is not new, by any means. It is not exclusive to KGB, CIA or any other spy organization. I think this professions was created next morning after prostitution was invented in general. What a better way to gain information from a person, but through his bed? The whole mission of “sparrows” is to get close to the target, figure out what the target needs and provide that need. Everybody has a need, it is a matter of figuring out what it is.

Dominika and her fellow “sparrows” ready for graduation

Film gets into the head of Dominika. She is forced to forego her moral and ethical values, all for the sake of show-off patriotism. “Use whatever means necessary, follow any lead and sacrifice all!” is what she is told over and over in her “breafings”. Dominika is conflicted. She doesn’t want to do it. She feels the rope that is holding her and wants to break the rope around here, because she knows that this rope is slowly turning into a noose. But deeper she goes, tighter is the noose around her neck.

Tension works for me. Writing is solid, aside from occasional lazy screenwriting. What I didn’t like are the twists. It is a spy genre, there is no spoiler here, grow up! Of course, there is a new twist element every 17 minutes of runtime. But eventually they start wearing thin. They no longer possess the kick or satisfaction. And the ending is so predictable, I am sure you will figure it out 20 minutes into the film. From this context, “Red Sparrow” is your regular, sub-par spy film. By no means it is “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” or “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy“.

Ivan Egorov, who looks more like Putin than Putin himself

Direction

Taking into account that unless you are kicking ass like James Bond or breaking necks like Ethan Hawke, spy films are usually boring as hell, this movie doesn’t feel like dragging. There is a lot happening on the screen at any time, there is very good tension and plot progresses at a steady pace. What I didn’t like is the runtime of the film. You will spend 2 hours and 19 minutes watching “Red Sparrow”. That is almost 5 minutes shorter than “Casino Royale”, with only a minuscule percentage of action compared to that film. What you have instead are multiple shots of gorgeous Jennifer Lawrence trying to learn art of seduction and manipulation and then proceeding to use that on other subjects. If you are into all that, this film is for you.

What pissed me off a lot was usage of Russian language. The action takes place in Russia (for most part), where, weirdly enough, CIA operative can say “Kofye, podjalusta” in Russian, but whole KGB and everyone else speaks in broken “Rashin Ekcent”. Listening to Lawrence and the cast (by the way, not a single Russian in the cast) say things like “Mama, Ay vill teyk keeir of yu” and “Yor kauntri needz yu” gets annoying very fast. I understand, if they wanted all realism they would have 75% of the film in Russian, with English subs. And nobody wants that. This is no “Inglorious Basterds”.

Something to note here, I salute the director, Francis Lawrence, for making this film R-rated, with blood and gruesome torture scenes. Oh, and also for including a fair amount of nudity. Here also goes a praise to Jennifer Lawrence to accepting being naked (for the first time) on screen. It would have been totally idiotic to have a film about seduction and prostitute-spies without nudity.

Acting

Dominika (Lawrence) tries to seduce Nate (Edgerton)

Jennifer Lawrence makes Dominika a real person. She is able to present Dominika as submissive in one scene and dominant in other. She is seductive and vulnerable. Emotional and cold. Gorgeous and simple. Her ability to achieve all these and more, carries this film through the end. Joel Edgerton plays CIA operative Nate Nash. Unlike his previous movies, he is more convincing as a smart, yet emotional spy. Makes me wonder, did he improve his acting or was he wrongly cast before? From supporting cast, I enjoyed Matthias Schoenaerts, who plays Ivan Egorov. And this was despite the fact that director went for Putin-look-alike. God, he looks SO MUCH as Putin, it was driving me nuts!

Summary

“Red Sparrow” is an engaging spy film, full of tension and plot twists. Jennifer Lawrence carries the film with her amazing performance. But unfortunately, it has a very long runtime and very little action.

The post Red Sparrow appeared first on Kino-AZ.

In 1973 head of MI6 – Control (John Hurt) – believes there’s a Soviet double agent in the top ranks of his organization. He sends one of his operatives Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) to Budapest to discover who the mole is. This operation turns to be a complete failure – Jim is killed and Control, as well as his second in command George Smiley (Gary Oldman), are forced to resign, due to the emerged diplomatic crisis. Following 2 months of forced retirement Control dies, and Smiley is called back out of retirement to found out that new evidence of the existence of the mole has emerged and is being appointed by government to figure out who the mole is. And it turns out that the leaked information could only come from one of 5 people in the new command of MI6 – codenamed “Tinker” (Toby Jones), “Tailor” (Colin Firth), “Soldier” (Ciaran Hinds), “Poor Man” (David Dencik) and “Beggarman” (Smiley himself).

This is indeed one of the best cast I’ve seen last year. Being a British production, creators were able to bring all the top of the British acting talent to the film (plus couple of Russian actors, including Konstantin Khabenskiy). The incredible amount of A-star actors, not only in the lead parts, but also in the supporting roles give truly amazing show. Many people have praised the performance of Gary Oldman, in fact he is nominated for Academy Award this year, however in my opinion he is highly overshadowed by not the less spectacular performances of the rest of cast. Colin Firth proves he can even play cunning and emotionless character. John Hurt provides an interesting insight on the aging chief of the organization.

Special node to Benedict Cumberbatch (yes, “Sherlock” himself from BBC), Tom Hardy (yes, Eames from “Inception“) and Mark Strong (yes, Lord Blackwood from “Sherlock Holmes“). They portray completely incomparable to their previous works emotional characters. In fact, I enjoyed Mark Strong so much I am even sure he would have made much better James Bond than Daniel Craig is.

Directing is done by Tomas Alfredson, who has penned Swedish modern vampire thriller “Let the right one in“. Whereas, that movie was astonishingly done in the era of vampire-romance craze with its own interpretation of vampire girl – human boy interaction and according horror genre specific tricks, he made this movie in completely different style. Interesting thing I noticed, film structurally is close to “Mulholland Drive” by David Lynch. Throughout the film vague and sometimes unexplained scenes are happening, which are supposed to bring the viewer some predicament of future events awaiting us, or trying to explain some memories that supposed to be essential for the plot. So if you are not paying enough attention you might miss an important detail. Or might not at all, since some of the details seemed to me unrelated to the story at all.

It all comes to the good screenwriting in the end. And even if I assume the film is downgraded version of the book it was based on, I believe you need to be a master counter-spy agent or possess some kind of same intellectual abilities to interpret the complicated web of espionage affairs going on to fully understand the intended message. Film doesn’t explain part of it, the viewer is left to deduce (or not) the rest. I’m sure you will make your own interpretation of a random scene in your specific manner, different from mine, or even the director’s or the writers’. You will have to remember incredible amount of names, places, and relations.

In any way, it is a nice and interesting watch if you enjoy this kind of setup. Just bear in mind, you will need maximum attention if you decide to go for this movie.

6/10

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Film, a mixture of all the action movies you and I have seen before, tells a story of a rogue CIA operative Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) who is trying to conduct some kind of secret trade in South Africa (man, why do rogue operatives select these kind of places?) with another rogue MI6 operative, which includes some secret crazy looking microchip (well, they always look crazy nowadays, don’t they?), which by a surprising coincidence is also wanted by a group of other secret rogue assassins or whoever they are trying to be. Anyways, so Mr.Frost, fleeing from these people, has only one exit strategy – entering local US Embassy and surrendering, so that US government can take care of him and save him from whoever is chasing him. He is transported overnight to the nearest “safe house” – another secret location mainly used for interrogations, which is operated (you will never guess!) by a rookie CIA operative Matthew Weston (Ryan Reynolds), who has been babysitting empty walls and basically rotting there for last year due to very little action and who has (oh my god!) a girlfriend who doesn’t suspect anything about his secret objective. And well as you might guess the safe house is attacked by the bad guys again, and everyone starts wondering “mmm, there must have been a rat in CIA!”.

I do love action movies. I really do. And I always look for the action movies. Seeing incredible amount of trailers/teasers/tv spots of Denzel Washington being a badass, and being fed with the thought that when Mr.Washington plays good he is good, but when he plays bad he is even better, you would think that a prolific supporting cast including Ryan Reynolds, Brendan Gleeson, Robert Patrick, and, what the hell, Vera Farmiga should make any film good, but boy this movie doesn’t get any help from them even a bit. And even Denzel Washington delivers probably the worst performance of his career. He is supposed to be badass rogue operative, in reality I was just yawning and waiting for him to do ANYTHING badass.

And then there is directing. I really don’t know where did they find this director Daniel Espinosa, but he tries to jump over his head to make everyone say “wow what a director”. Its an action movie, man, do it properly. There’s not a single steady shot, camera moves in all directions, there’s always someone passing by in front of camera, which with very very very shallow depth of field creates such a blurry image in the foreground and background. Every shot is a close up. Of faces and what not. Sometimes all you see in the action sequence looks really like a footage from Transformers. It also sounds like it. I know gunshot should sound like gunshot – big and noisy, but hell my ears were hurting already. And grain, oh so many of it. I know, degrading a picture quality so that it looks cinematic is a common practice, but why oh why did you do it so much?

Save you time and money. Don’t watch this failure.

3/10

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Mallory Cane (Gina Carano) is the best agent for a non-government “problem solving” company. Regular jobs she conducts range from security to complex hostage extraction. She is best at her job, and doesn’t like keeping loose ends. However, she soon finds out that the people she trusted turned against her and are trying to kill her. Now she is going to take revenge on anyone for burning her.

Gina Carano is a newcomer and ex-MMA fighter. She utilizes every single fight trick she has ever learned. And it hurts a lot. All the kicks doesn’t seem to be choreographed. She performs her own stunts, and spends incredible amount of time kicking assess of the supporting cast. And when I say supporting cast I mean Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender. I don’t know what was the reason of using such a big names in such a small roles, but this is Soderbergh, he likes that.

I’m really glad Soderbergh did move on from Ocean’s 1i (where i = 1,2,3) and tries to improvise in the genre he has never worked in. He uses all his directorial knowledge to make this film a good one. But I think he overdid it. His trademark framing and cinematography is visible in any shots. Film has fast pacing of an action movie and sometimes slower sections as in spy movies.

Unfortunately, unlike “Taken” this film seems boring. And it should be. You need to have super incredible action hero that can withstand super injuries and still be able to kill anyone. This is entertainment, this is what action movie is about. Real life is boring. You can not smash a bottle to a someone’s head and expect him not get a concussion.

6/10

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Essentially it all starts with the first equation – some kind of heroic high octane action scene involving our main hero doing incredible stuff and succeeding in it. The setup in MI4 for this scene is a russian prison, where Ethan is held captive and IMF (NOT to confuse with IMF) operatives are trying to set him free. Well of course this is Ethan Hunt, another incarnation of Chuck Norris, so NOTHING can try set him free, he just can set himself free if he wants. So unlike all the help from outside, Ethan manages to escape mostly on his own. Well, and there’s a mission waiting on him – infiltrate Kremlin to overcome crazy Swedish nuclear analyst Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist from the original Swedish version of Girl with Dragon Tattoo), which of course goes wrong and Ethan (and the whole IMF) gets set up and accused of terrorist attack on Kremlin (2nd equation of the formula). And again Ethan and handful of loyal IMF operatives are left alone with no backing to fight the bad guy and save our precious little world.

I don’t want to comment Tom Cruise’s performance, essentially its the same performance he shows in any film and the performance he has refined over the course of his career to the point where it spills to all his other movies, either he wants it or not.

The presentation of villains is very peculiar. No back story, no justification of wrongdoings. Just the statement, hey these are the bad guys and this is how they look. Go figure it out. I assume Michael Nyqvist is living off his fame gathered during original Swedish run of Girl with Dragon Tattoo. I have nothing against his performance, nor I have anything for it. The assassin so interestingly portrayed by Lea Seydoux was probably the only bad guy (gal?) worth mentioning, but she doesn’t have too much screen time.

The IMF operatives are played by Simon Pegg, Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner, and only Pegg is a returning character. He is given much bigger and more central role this time, primarily due to his rise to stardom in recent years, I suppose. His character is still dorky, but this time he is bigger comic relief in the movie (and the only one), and this actually helps the story a lot. Patton seems rather incompetent as a field operative, proving her “greenness” not less than once. The only role of her is a romantic relief, and that’s was kind of dull too. Usually this kind of role goes to super-sexy bombshell, and I can’t say that about her. But that’s that my personal thoughts. Renner is a nice addition to the team, and I wished there was much more to his character rather than boring back story.

Direction is astonishing. Implementing amazing IMAX cameras helped creating incredible shots. Wikipedia says almost 30 minutes in total are shot using these cameras. Watching this movie in IMAX theater helps this movie a lot and creates a unique representation. Aerial shots and some crazy CGI sequences are really beautiful. Taking into account that Brad Bird used to make Pixar animation features (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) he had a solid first-time live-action film experience. Unfortunately, the amount of head trauma withstood during the course of the whole movie by Ethan puts him into Terminator category and that’s I think is the only weak point of the direction.

Overall I really enjoyed the RIGHT russian translation of the russian part of the movie, which I should say takes 25% of the whole film. Usage of the Russian actors makes the movie much more authentic.

I’m giving the movie 7 stars out of 10. Its an interesting action movie.

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