Pick of the Week:
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (Paramount)
The Mission: Impossible series didn’t always look like one destined to go the distance. In 1996, its first installment earned mixed reviews after a difficult shoot that reportedly frustrated director Brian De Palma. But audiences embraced it and, in time, the magnificence of its setpieces eclipsed the (overstated) confusion of its plot. Its first sequel disappointed both fans of the original film and of director John Woo, whose personality wasn’t as evident as it had been in previous Hollywood films like Face/Off. It performed well, though, which led to the highly entertaining Mission: Impossible III from J.J. Abrams and the superb Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol from Brad Bird, one of the best action films of this century.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, directed by Christopher McQuarrie, lands a notch below that last entry, but not a huge notch. It makes the most of star Tom Cruise’s easy charisma and a rich supporting cast that’s grown over the years as it engages in the series’ trademark twists and globetrotting adventures. McQuarrie, who also scripted, throws in generous amounts of humor and, perhaps best of all, the film gives a lot of time to Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson, a winning (relative) newcomer who more than holds her own in the middle of all the action. It’s a good sign when an action movie opens with what would be other such films’ biggest scene and then doesn’t worry about topping itself.
Also New
Burroughs: The Movie (Criterion)
By the early 1980s, William S. Burroughs was — as Luc Sante observed in his 1984 half-appreciation, half-deflation “The Invisible Man” — living at the intersection of celebrity and literary elder statesmanship. He was as much character as author, a stonefaced Beat Generation legend as known for his life and for his tendency to pop up places like Saturday Night Live as his books. Yet, with the life Burroughs lived and with his hypnotic, Midwestern Grim Reaper presence, it wold be hard not to let the life overwhelm the work.
First released in 1983, Howard Brookner’s Burroughs: The Movie resulted from years spent hanging out with Burroughs and his circle. Long unseen, it was restored in recent years thanks in part to crowdfunding. It’s both compelling as a film and invaluable as a record of Burroughs’ life — both the years that made him famous and his day-to-day existence in as he entered his twilight. Brookner let the camera roll as Burroughs talks about establishing a gay state, plays with weapons, talks to his doomed son William S. Burroughs Jr., and reminisces with Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke and others. The Criterion Blu-ray and DVD provides a lot of welcome extras, including outtakes found in Brookner’s archives and a commentary by Jim Jarmusch, who served as the sound operator for much of the shoot.
Fantastic 4 (Fox)
Yes, it’s as bad as you’ve heard. In fact, it’s kind of fascinatingly bad. Maybe years from now we’ll get a director’s cut and the whole, messy story behind Josh Trank’s film. Until now we just have the movie itself, which is full of dead ends and weird leaps and
caps an already-miserable film with an even worse ending.
Ted 2 (Universal)
Seth MacFarlane’s cute/obscene toy bear returns in this sequel. It didn’t draw the crowds its predecessor drew a couple of years ago, but chance are it will find a more appreciative audience in the lower-stakes world of the living room.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (Fox)
The best-liked of the Hunger Games wannabes gets a sequel with this adventure through the post-apocalyptic wasteland. If nothing else, it features one of the year’s most joke-inspiring subtitles.
The Car (Shout! Factory)
A relic of a more modest time, The Car attempts to wring scares out of a mustachioed James Brolin getting menaced by a possessed Lincoln Continental. It doesn’t work, but the film is definitely one for the so-bad-it’s-good crowd.
