‘F1’ Down, None to Go

July 2, 2025

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An F1 Smirk (CREDIT: Warner Bros./Screenshot)

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damon Idris, Javie Bardem, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia, Sarah Niles, Will Merrick, Joseph Balderrama, Abdul Salis, Callie Cooke, Samson Kayo, Shea Whigham, Layne Harper, Luciano Bacheta

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Running Time: 156 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: June 27, 2025 (Theaters)

Did seeing F1 (the movie) make me want to rush home and start training to become an F1 driver myself? No!

But I suppose that to be fair, it didn’t exactly need to do that to be successful cinematically.

Did it at least make me want to check out some real Formula 1 races? No, not really.

Am I happy that I spent my Sunday afternoon watching it? Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a good movie.

At least Brad Pitt delivered sufficient Thoughtful Scoundrel Energy.

Grade: 3 Milliseconds out of 5 Warning Flags

Please, One More Reckoning Before We Go! Okay, But This is ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’

May 14, 2025

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The Impossible Man (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Skydance)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Running Time: 169 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Near-Death Experiences

Release Date: May 23, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s all come down to this. All those previous impossible missions that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) pulled off over the decades? We thought they were more or less self-contained. But instead, it turns out that they were all part of a vast global conspiracy to sow widespread confusion and establish a new world order. This is set to be established by an artificial intelligence entity known as, in fact, “The Entity.” It is apparently going to accomplish this by infecting every connected device on the planet and then – as far as I can tell – launching every nuclear weapon and also just generally making everyone distrustful of everyone else. Some guy named Gabriel (Esai Morales) is trying to usher The Entity along to its destiny, while Ethan and his IMF crew attempt to do the opposite with their precision timing and the latest batch of stakes-raising, death-defying stunts.

What Made an Impression?: They’ve Got So Much to Say: The Final Reckoning definitely gives off end-of-the-series vibes, although I’m sure Cruise and the rest of the creative team are open to future installments for as long as he remains ageless. In the meantime, though, this chapter definitely closes the book on something. And it’s a big ol’ slam, clocking in at nearly three hours. Those minutes are filled with a trio of major set pieces, and plenty of talking in between about how those set pieces will be accomplished. And when I say “plenty,” I mean, “oh so very many plenty.” I really don’t think there needed to be this much dialogue for such an action-oriented flick. That’s not to say that the Mission: Impossible flicks ought to be silent (although that might be kind of cool if they were), but I personally would have advised a sleeker design.
Hey, Remember Those Times Way Back When?: When it comes to long-running action series, M:I is kind of the antithesis of Fast & Furious, insofar as the former sheds several of its supporting characters in between installments without any fanfare, whereas the latter seems to just collecting them for perpetuity until it’s bursting at the seams. To be fair, there are still a few IMF mainstays hanging around, although Ethan’s female counterparts have a tendency to disappear no matter how beloved they are by fans. The Final Reckoning takes a somewhat different approach by explicitly drawing upon some of the earlier entries in ways that would have felt impossible just a few years earlier. And that’s kind of thrilling for those of us whose favorite M:I chapters seemed like they’d been completely forgotten.
Timely Gobbledygook: Cautionary tales about artificial intelligence are so hot right now. But frankly The Entity doesn’t have anything to do with any real-life A.I. On the contrary, it’s just a profoundly vague MacGuffin. Or should I call it the villain? Can the MacGuffin be the villain? I think it is in this case. Anyway, it’s all just an excuse for the most baroque modern blockbuster action around, so whatever.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is Recommended If You Like: Parking your butt while the obsessive man does his thing

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Entities

It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ Feels Fine

July 5, 2023

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Which one’s Dead and which one’s Reckoning? (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Skydance)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Running Time: 163 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for A Reckless Relationship with Gravity

Release Date: July 12, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: This might just be the most impossible mission yet! That may sound like hyperbole for a series that’s famously death-defying, but honestly it lives up to the hype. Ethan Hunt (the freakishly indefatigable Tom Cruise) and his pared-down IMF team must somehow figure out how to dispatch a new enemy that threatens to wipe out humanity as we know it by reverting society to an analog dystopia. Of course, that premise is just a setup for the shameless stunts and sizzling globetrotting. In addition to this all-encompassing terror, Ethan is also being chased down by some law enforcement types who aren’t so sure he should be able to operate without impunity anymore.

What Made an Impression?: What’s All This Now?: The Mission: Impossible series combines elements of espionage, big budgets extravaganza, and practical stunt work, all genres that are notorious for being accompanied by nonsensical plots. And Dead Reckoning Part One might just be the nonsensical one yet! As far as I could tell, the enemy wasn’t exactly human, but it could take human form. Or maybe I misunderstood that. But I don’t think I did! The opening scene provided a very thorough explanation, after all. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that Esai Morales plays the villain in question, but confusion still lingered with me by the end. If you find yourself just as confused as I was, you can still enjoy the movie, though you’ll also probably find yourself mulling it over more than you need to.
New and Old, Which One’s New?: In terms of character carryover, Mission: Impossible is kind of like the hall-of-mirrors version of Fast & Furious, if some of those mirrors were covered by blackout blinds. In addition to Cruise as Hunt, you can rely on Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg to be there as his regular IMF buddies. But on the flip side, you could have a love interest like M:I 3‘s Michelle Monagahn just unceremoniously disappear. There’s also a little bit of room for new favorites like Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby to remain after their initial appearances, and for new recruits like Hayley Atwell to seamlessly find their place. And we can even reach way back for originals like Henry Czerny who were there in the beginning but have taken most of the sequels off, and you can be tricked into thinking that they’ve been there all along. Basically, the casting in this franchise is a magic act.
So Much Delivered, So Much More to Come: But let’s finally get down to the bread and butter. The best setpieces all involve a climactic train ride. There’s a cliffside jump to arrive on the train, fights within and outside the train, and a desperate scramble to stay alive and not fall off the train. Before that choo-choo checks in, you might actually wonder what’s taking so long for Dead Reckoning to go for broke as much as usual. But once it does, the massively wound ball of tension lets loose and doesn’t give you any time to catch your breath. And this is just Part One! A nearly three-hour opening chapter, after that. (Or the first half of the seventh chapter, from another point of view.) This is just the latest 2023 blockbuster that forces you to wait another year for the end of the story, but you won’t feel deprived. Dead Reckoning Part One can stand fully on its own, and quite frankly, you’ll need all those extra months to recover.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is Recommended If You Like: Saying “Huh?” and “Woo-hoo!” at the same time

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Trains

Scorsese Influences + Clown Makeup = Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’

October 2, 2019

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CREDIT: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Frances Conroy, Zazie Beetz, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Bill Camp, Shea Wigham, Marc Maron

Director: Todd Phillips

Running Time: 122 Minutes

Rating: R for Inappropriate Laughter and Shocking (in Many Senses) Violence

Release Date: October 4, 2019

Can’t a man just get attention for wearing a wonderfully colorful suit without having to also go through the trouble of becoming an unpredictable, violent criminal? With his forest green shirt and tie, goldenrod vest, and maroon jacket and pants, Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime has never looked better than he does in Todd Phillips’ Joker. That outfit is a welcome bit of unique playfulness in a film that easily could have been a thoroughly dark slog. I’m very ready to embrace Joker’s continued relevance as a style icon, but as for what this particular origin story has to say about him, I’m a little conflicted, though generally impressed by everything that made it to the screen.

All new Joker portrayals now live in the shadow of Heath Ledger’s rendition in The Dark Knight, which I, and many others, consider to be the epitome of the character. That chapter may be the best way to tell a Joker story, but it’s not the only way to tell a story about a villain, and by corollary, it’s not the only way to tell a Joker story. But the prospect of a Joker origin is nonetheless concerning, as his most striking power lies in the nihilism matched with his thoroughly ambiguous beginnings. Ledger played him like an elemental force who was somehow also a human being even though it felt like he sprung from nothingness. Any origin would seem to be the antithesis of that, no matter how much mystery Joaquin Phoenix might bring to his performance.

Ultimately, though, Joker somehow mostly works despite all this baggage. That’s mostly because by the end it rejects its own origin story, or at least the one-to-one explanation of “difficult upbringing = supervillainy.” True, Arthur Fleck, the man behind the persona in this iteration, has been beaten around by a thoughtless society that doesn’t understand him, but his propensity for violence isn’t about revenge or the fame that comes with notoriety, or at least not only and not primarily those things. No, he just has an insatiable appetite for crime, the more shocking and well-timed the better. He gets his first lick almost by accident, when he protects himself against some fratty Wayne Enterprises employees with a pistol that a co-worker lent him. From this moment on, you can see the euphoria rising within him as he begins to shed any desire for normal human connection.

I am thoroughly impressed by Joker‘s craft, though I’m a little hesitant to embrace it fully. That’s not out of any discomfort with the message of Arthur’s transformation. It’s clear that he’s not meant to be emulated, despite how intoxicating his act can be once fully embraces his true self. What’s really nagging me is that this is a film that is a little too indebted to its influences. The premise is very much “What if Joker, but Taxi Driver?” Although, unlike Travis Bickle, Arthur isn’t interested in cleaning up the streets so much as making them his own. That’s different enough that Joker can fairly say that its overall tapestry is a new creation, but it never breaks fully free of its constituent parts. It’s like one of those magic eye posters, but in this case you can see the individual pieces whether you’re looking close or from a distance.

Joker is Recommended If You Like: It If Every Movie is a Direct Response to Taxi Driver

Grade(s): 4 out of 5 for the Craft/3.5 out 5 for the Message

This Is a Movie Review: ‘First Man’ Captures All the Stresses of Neil Armstrong’s Trip to the Moon

October 10, 2018

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CREDIT: Daniel McFadden/Universal

This review was originally published on News Cult in October 2018.

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit, Lukas Haas, Shea Wigham, Brian d’Arcy James, Pablo Schreiber, Olivia Hamilton, Ciarán Hinds

Director: Damien Chazelle

Running Time: 141 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for the Psychological Fallout of Preparing for Space Travel

Release Date: October 12, 2018

There are a few things I want to say about First Man, Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic. First of all, it’s the best I’ve ever seen a film portray the stresses of going up into space. That certainly is not to say that the likes of The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 have made takeoff and its aftermath look like a cakewalk, but in focusing on one individual, First Man burrows in and exposes so many extra levels of intensity. We’re right there with Neil as he staggers to the bathroom following a stint in a g-force simulator, and when he endures multiple tragedies. This is a man who must deal with the accidental deaths of multiple colleagues as well as the loss of a young daughter from disease. Accordingly, Ryan Gosling plays him as a man wearing the weight of the world on his face for basically 2 hours straight.

Next, I have plenty to say about Claire Foy as Neil’s wife, Janet. She gives a hell of a performance, displaying the sort of fiery emotion and desperate toughness that you can’t look away from. She is definitely enough of her own person that we can clearly see her as more than just a wife and mother. But this is very much Neil’s film with everyone else orbiting around him, and as such, Foy is playing The Wife. One example of such gender disparity between lead and supporting roles is not in and of itself a bad thing, but it is part of a Hollywood history that favors men’s over women’s stories. This is an issue that is better discussed than pontificated upon, so please, let’s continue to have these conversations. And let’s not place too much blame on First Man in the meantime, but instead work to expand what stories are valued by the historical record.

Finally, a note on some technical matters. Composer Justin Hurwitz triumphs with a quiet, but forceful score that gives First Man the stamina it needs to maintain its intensity over 2-plus hours. It is a bit of a lullaby that plants the expanse of space right into our souls in a way similar to how it surely felt for Armstrong. Linus Sandgren’s cinematography, on the other hand, while similarly technically accomplished, is more than a little exhausting. A constant (subtly vibrating) handheld setup is just too much to bear for such a significant running time. That’s just one little bit of too much intensity in a film that’s otherwise so acutely calibrated.

First Man is Recommended If You Like: Intimate Biopics

Grade: 3.75 of 5 G Forces

 

Watch And/Or Listen to This: Run the Jewels ft. Zack de la Rocha’s “Close Your Eyes (And Count to F**k)”

March 26, 2015

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This video features a wrestling match between Shea Whigham, who you may know from Silver Linings Playbook or Take Shelter,  and Keith Stanfield, who you may know from Short Term 12 or Selma.

This Is A Movie Review: Non-Stop

March 25, 2014

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Non-Stop-Liam-Neeson
When Liam Neeson entered the action star portion of his acting career, my reaction was, “Yes, of course.”  Actually, I may not really have had any reaction at all because the one-man army role suited him so well that I hardly noticed any difference.  This is partly a way of getting at the fact that Neeson’s action stardom has been more successful than the actual movies have been.  He made Taken work as well as it did by sheer force of will, but I found that movie to be too distressing and overly tidy to be able to embrace it completely.  His subsequent lone hero actioners have for the most part been variations on Taken.  No doubt about it, Non-Stop is Taken on a Plane, but I preferred it to the kidnapping thriller because it was just so insane that I might have had to lose my mind, and I was happy to.

(GENERALLY SPOILER-ISH INFORMATION FROM HERE ON OUT, BECAUSE I FEEL THE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS MOVIE IN SPECIFIC TERMS.)  Non-Stop is filled with improbabilities right from the get-go.  Neeson plays Bill Marks, a federal air marshal who has turned to the bottle to deal with his daughter’s death.  The fact that Marks still gets assigned jobs despite obviously being affected by his drinking and the cause of his alcoholism being overly pat strain credulity, but it is actually purposeful to the narrative that his competence is suspect and that information about his troubles could be public knowledge.  Anyway, though, Non-Stop gets away with most or all its implausibility by being upfront about it.  A movie that crosses a classic mad-villain extortion scheme with a cat-and-mouse game at 30,000 feet is not aiming for everyday verisimilitude.

In addition to reveling in its absurdity, Non-Stop excels in its suspense by establishing just about every character as a legitimate suspect.  Julianne Moore, as Marks’ seat neighbor, is overly talkative.  Scoot McNairy, who excels at playing slimy (check him out getting into deep shit in Killing Them Softly) plays a punk who is rather inquisitive about what plane Marks will be getting on.  Certain traps and killing maneuvers suggest action in areas of the plane that only the pilots and flight attendants would have access to.  A second marshal is the only other one who should be on the cellular network that Marks is receiving the threatening texts from.  Corey Stoll is an overly aggressive New York City cop who questions why Marks doesn’t give the Muslim passenger as thorough a shakedown as he gives everyone else.  This seems like a typical moment playing on post-9/11 paranoia, but it may actually be a matter of class or profession bias, as Marks may have overlooked him because he is a doctor.

(THINGS GET EVEN MORE SPOILERY IN THIS PARAGRAPH.)  The nature of the manhunt suddenly changes in the final act when it is revealed that the killings are not just going to be those happening one by one every 20 minutes due to the revelation of a bomb, which had earlier been disguised by cocaine.  This new crisis prompts Marks, who has been backed into a corner by passengers suspicious of him, to reveal everything about his previously secretive investigation.  This sequence sets quite a benchmark for excitement that the rest of the 2014 film slate will have a tough time matching.

If you are worried that too many twists and turns have been spoiled by the promotion of this movie, don’t be.  While the trailer does include a fair amount of footage from the final act – and, admittedly, does feature as its centerpiece the most memorable shot of a pivotal struggle – there is actually a fair amount of misdirection.  The first death in particular does not go down exactly as the previews would lead you to believe.

Non-Stop falters a little bit with its ending, as the motivation for the extortion is revealed – it tries to be straightforward, which is difficult amidst all the insanity.  I did not have a problem with the spirit of the motivation itself, or how it went about being explained, so much as the fact that it was a bit too simplistic.  Still, that does not take away from all the highly pressurized excitement that precedes it. A-