"Mission:Impossible III" - Not Quite A Dream Cruise

"Mission:Impossible III" Rating: 7/10 Mission: Impossible III (2006) Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and J.J. Abrams Directed by: J.J. Abrams MPAA: Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace, disturbing images and some sensuality). Runtime: 126 min. CAST...Tom Cruise: Ethan Hunt Ving Rhames: Luther Strickell Keri Russell: Lindsey Phillip Seymour Hoffman: Owen Davian Bahar Soomekh: Ms. Kari Lawrence Fishburne: John Brassel Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Declan Billy Crudup: John Musgrave Mission:Impossible III, or "M:i:III," as the poster reads, went through more changes in directors and cast members than Tom Cruise would care to talk about honestly. That's why it took so long for the movie to be released. But somehow, after all the changes and time wasted getting the crew in place, they got a movie out of it. And they got away with it, too, because Mi:III is not bad. It's not great, but it's not bad -- good enough for a 7 out of 10 rating. What they did right is this: they assembled a real crew of special forces mercenaries, just like the TV show did in the 1960s. The previous two M:I films consisted basically of a pretty girl or two, Ving Rhames and Tom Cruise, and a bunch of bad guys and explosions and stuff. Come to think of it, M:i:III consists of a pretty girl or two, Ving Rhames and Tom Cruise and a bunch of bad guys and explosions and stuff. But, in M:i:III we get a group of several more good guys -- enough to form a real team of people working to save the world so we all can live happily and drive around in our SUVs while paying fifty dollars to fill up the gas tank for a week. I didn't care one bit about Tom Cruise's character in M:i:III, Ethan Hunt. The acting just isn't there. The M:I franchise is just a vehicle for Cruise to look cool. But I did care about Ving Rhames' character, Luther Strickell, and the rest of the crew, too, particularly Bahar Soomekh as Ms. Kari and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Declan, who turned in very good performances -- a tough thing to do in a movie filled with chase scenes and Tom Cruise chewing up scenery and doing his own stunts (except, there was no jumping up and down on a sofa in M:i:III). The M:i:III plot doesn't matter, except that there is one and it's not hard to follow. It's the good-guy mercenaries, along with super-evil bad guy Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who turns in a great performance as Owen Davian, working as a team that earn this film a successful rating. Director J.J. Abrams gives us that "Alias" meets "Lost" TV show feel on a steroid-inflated budget (Abrams is the main man behind both TV shows). Most of the chase scenes are good, the explosions blow up real good (why did they have to do that to a perfectly good Lamborghini?! Mama mia!), and the good guys come out on top. That's all you need to know to walk in, grab some popcorn and enjoy a springtime blockbuster. -2001pm -30-

"The Da Vinci Code" - It's Only A Movie

The Da Vinci Code 2001pm Rating: 7/10 Written by: Akiva Goldsman Directed by: Ron Howard MPAA: Rated PG-13 (for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, brief drug references, thematic material and sexual content) Runtime: 149 min. CAST... Tom Hanks: Robert Langdon Audrey Tautou: Sophie Neveu Ian McKellen: Sir Leigh Teabing Jean Reno: Captain Fache paul Bettany: Silsas Alfred Molina: Bishop Aringarosa Jurgen Prochnow: Andre Vernet This is one time I wish I hadn't read the book before seeing the movie. I wanted to have the experience of seeing the movie "cold" without any prior knowledge of the plot twists. Dan Brown wrote the book "The Da Vinci Code": a murder mystery with more hidden clues and codes to unscramble than the National Security Agency could ever think of. The movie, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, tries to throw the entire book at us in about two-and-a-half hours. By being faithful to the book, director Ron Howard has taken on far too much here. But, to his credit, somehow he molded Brown's book into a film that I recommend. The Da Vinci Code sparkles with intrigue -- mostly. But it sparkles in more spots than not, and it comes on strong in the right places. Other directors most likely would have failed miserably trying to make this film. Howard didn't. For example, he uses really cool visual special effects to allow us see exactly what symboligyst/code-breaker Tom Hanks sees while unscrambling anagrams and solving puzzles presented throughout the movie. There are also great visual effects that let us see inside Hanks' photographic memory as he visualizes a group of objects and puts them in the correct order to solve a code. In his mind he sees what you might expect to see a puzzle-solving graphics expert produce on an Apple computer. The film would have been clearer and more fun if Howard would have used more of those cool effects. He had to leave room, though, for (too many) action chase scenes, plus the plundering backstory of a self-flagellating zealot albino monk named Silas, played by Paul Bettany. Howard spends way too much time on Silas. I wanted more code-breaking and less monk-eying around. Audrey Tautou plays Sophie Neveu, the beautiful historian and fledgling symboligyst who is also the victim's granddaughter, who meets Hanks at the beginning of the film in the Louvre. They are summoned there to consult with French police and FBI-like special agents on a murder. They meet standing over the prone, posed body of the elderly murder victim. The victim manages to leave clues that are meant only for Hanks and Tautou. As a matter of fact, the victim took so much time leaving clues for Hanks and Tautou it's possible he went to McDonalds and ate a super-sized meal before going back to the Louvre's parquet floor to die. But it's in the book. Either you suspend your disbelief before seeing the film or you don't. It's best to go in ready to believe anything is possible. Don't think too much. You'll get a headache. The Da Vinci Code tells us of secret societies within the Catholic Church, centuries and centuries old, and of mysteries the societies are trying to protect -- at any cost, including multiple attempts to kill Hanks and Tautou when they get too close to solving the mysteries (the ultimate mystery being the "Da Vinci Code" itself). Hanks and Tautou are wrongly accused of the original Louvre murder, and find themselves being chased by the bad guys AND the good guys. Jean Reno, who may or may not be a good guy, plays Captain Fache, nick-named "The Boar" by his colleagues because he charges ahead without regard to anything in his way until he gets his man. Reno is a great actor who is under-utilized in a role that demands more. Then there's Ian McKellan. McKellen makes this film fun to watch. He plays Sir Leigh Teabing, a multimillionaire eccentric British historian and also an expert on codes and symbols, whom Hanks and Tautou meet up with during their quest to solve the code. Introduced well into the film, McKellan plays his role near, but not quite over, the top. His expertise in codes and the mysteries of the Church provide us with most of the knowledge we need to get us to the end of the movie without confusion. I think he had fun with this role, and it shows. His scenes with Hanks also create a wonderful push-and-shove for the book fans and haters, their dialogue at times speaking for both those who believe everything in the book and those that think the book is blasphemy. In fact, the biggest difference between the book and the film is that, in this film, Howard gives a voice to the book-complainers. So there. There is a supporting cast that includes Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2) as Bishop Aringarosa, a Church zealot and mentor to Silas. But this film is all Tom Hanks, with a healthy dose of Tautou and a smaller dose of Reno. Some people who haven't read Brown's book may be a little confused by all the anagrams, numeric codes and secret societies, because there is not enough time for Howard to present all the proper information. But that doesn't matter. The Da Vinci Code is pure murder mystery, plus chase scenes and European travelogue and cops and bad guys. (Note: Toward the end, look for one very funny, very short scene involving Tautou and Hanks standing by a pond.) All in all, the murders, the mysteries, and the wild European travelogue chases make The Da Vinci Code fun springtime ride for the mind and for the senses. -2001pm - 30 -

"United 93"

Movie: United 93 (2006) 2001pm RATING: 9/10 Written and Directed by: Paul Greengrass MPAA: Rated R (for language, and some intense sequences of terror and violence). Runtime: 111 min. CAST… Lewis Alsamari: Saeed Al Ghamdi JJ Johnson: Captain Jason Dahl Trish Gates: Sandra Bradshaw Polly Adams: Deborah Welsh Cheyenne Jackson: Mark Bingham Opal Alladin: CeeCee Lyles Starla Benford: Wanda Anita Green Nancy McDoniel: Lorraine G. Bay David Alan Basche: Todd Beamer Richard Bekins: William Joseph Cashman Susan Blommaert: Jane Folger Ray Charleson: Joseph DeLuca Christian Clemenson: Thomas E. Burnett, Jr. Ben Sliney: Himself It is never the wrong time for a great film. United 93 is a great film, and will be seen as a great film generations from now. It exceeded any and every expectation I had, and put to rest any doubt as to whether or not this story needs to be told less than five years after 9/11. United 93 is conveyed from a point of view that is so unique in its objectivity that it is astounding. From beginning to end, there is no way to know what will happen next in this story, even though we saw what happened that day over and over again. That is because, essentially, the point of view we are given only allows us to watch and react to events as they occur in real time. We are placed in an airplane, a few control towers, and a military security building, but we are helpless, because we aren’t given any advance information that anything bad is going to happen. The film begins and we hear a Muslim prayer spoken by a hijacker. We’re taken to an airport where we board a plane with ordinary people – I found myself feeling like just a regular person looking at all the other regular people on a regular plane. You won’t recognize more than one or two of the actors. They’ve been chosen and cast perfectly. We hear what we normally hear on a plane: airport background sounds; people talking at random about nothing special. United 93 does not force archetypes on us (the beautiful blonde stewardess, the handsome Euro-businessman in the expensive suit, the noisy airplane brats that have to be shown the cockpit before they’ll stop screaming). We know nothing about anybody. Thank God. But we’re all on the plane together, waiting on the runway to take off. United 93 places us in various control towers at local and regional levels. Many of the control tower personnel in the movie are the real people that worked in the towers on 9/11, not actors. I counted over a dozen. I was amazed as I watched these people re-enact that day from their control towers. The words we hear are the words that control tower people really speak: They swear once in a while; they are allowed to stumble-stutter through a grammatically incorrect sentence without stopping the cameras. We are taken inside the National Air Traffic Control Center often as the film progresses. There are TV screens displaying maps of the United States, with countless dots representing every airplane in the air over the country. Ben Sliney, playing not just himself, but himself on 9/11, heads up the national center. He’s told of a possible hijacking early on, digests the information, then returns to his primary job of keeping the nation’s entire body of air traffic in the air and on-time whenever possible. He can have that job. I don’t want it. I haven’t had a job-related heart attack, and I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible. More hijackings happen and there is frustration and confusion in the control towers. The towers share their information, but a controller can’t reach into the radar screen and make an airplane go where he wants it to go. All we can do is watch the radar, just like the controllers. By now everyone knows something very bad is happening. There is supposed to be a military liaison at the national control center, but Ben Sliney keeps getting told that the person isn’t there. He is frustrated. So are we. Protocol calls for the President to make the calls in this type of situation. The President can’t be located, we’re told. More frustration. We’re taken to a military operations center. The military is told of the hijackings and tries to form a strategy. But, a strategy for what? All they know is that planes have been hijacked. Then someone points to a television set. CNN News has a live picture up of a smoking hole in the World Trade Center. They say a small plane hit the building. The controllers see the pictures and realize a small plane could not have flown completely through a building like that. And so it is deduced that the first hijacked plane, which has disappeared from the radar, hit the Trade Center building. Next thought: It’s an accident, right? When you steal an airplane you fly it around and make demands about political prisoners and money, don’t you? Then, live, we and the controllers see the second plane fly directly into the World Trade Center, right on CNN. Only then was it clear that this was a planned attack. On the U.S.? On New York? By whom? The president still can’t be located. There are two more hijacked planes in the air, though. The military decides to bring these planes down using the most immediate tools at their disposal. There are two available fighter jets in Michigan. Unfortunately, they are unarmed. What next? It is decided the fighters will be crashed into the airliners -- the fighter pilots will eject on impact. Meanwhile, a third hijacked airplane crashes into the Pentagon. Another plane, believed to be hijacked, turns out to be safe. That leaves one more hijacked plane in the air, flying toward the east coast from Cleveland. United Airlines flight 93. We’re aboard United 93 now. The hijackers have taken over. The pilot and co-pilot are dead. In the back of the plane the passengers, crouched down in their seats, have just learned what is happening by using the airplane’s air-to-ground telephones, and their cell phones. They've learned their plane will be crashed into a building, not flown around until political demands are met. A man, whose wife is watching CNN TV news, gets the up-to-the-minute details of the story and passes that information on to the others on the plane. Messages -- goodbye messages -- are left on answering machines for loved ones. And then, “Let’s roll.” Those incredible words are spoken by one of the passengers as they – we – storm the cockpit. United 93 was headed for the U.S. Capitol. It crashed in Pennsylvania. WE crashed in Pennsylvania. Director Paul Greengrass has honored us as much as he honored United 93's passengers, because he allowed us to be among heroes for just a few minutes. Greengrass himself is a hero for making United 93. So are the many actors in this film who were actually there on 9/11. They did the best they could with the knowledge they had. We know that now because of this film. -2001pm -30-