Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) Review

This is the year of the spy. More specifically it is the year of the retro-spy, the secret agent personified by Sean Connery on the big screen and by many other dashing heroes on the small one. This will become apparent to anyone who sees this new Mission Impossible film in the theater. Directly proceeding the film at my theater was a trailer for both Spectre (the new 007 adventure) and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (an update of a classic spy TV show) all three of these properties have their origins in the Cold War with the USSR and the last time that all three were on our collective screens was 1967. In that year You Only Live Twice with Sean Connery was released, the Man From U.N.C.L.E. was in its third season (admittedly its worst), and Mission Impossible debuted. Adding to the retro feel is that all three of these properties seem to be going back to their roots. Bond is resurrecting a villainous organization he hasn't faced since 1971, U.N.C. L.E. is set in the 1960s, and this new Mission Impossible brought the classic organization "the Syndicate" up-to-date. I hope for great new outings for both 007 and Napoleon Solo but what is clear is that in 2015 the new Mission Impossible has set the bar very high indeed.

The film's opening tells you everything you need to know about this series in its current form. An airplane carrying some weapons is about to take off and it has to be stopped. There's a whole team trying to stop it but their technology is failing them. Coming to the rescue is Tom Cruise who jumps on the plane just before it takes off and has to hang off the side of the airplane while it takes off. The fact that this stunt was done for real only adds to the entertainment factor and before we know it we're passing the popcorn and the classic theme song is playing. Mission Impossible moves at the break-neck pace that the best blockbusters do. Its twisty plot is woven through impressive stunts and lots of fun. Like its 1960s counterparts no one here will win an award for acting but that's not the point, it's pure entertainment.

One of this new Mission's strongest assets is its strong female character. Ilsa is given complex motives and is never allowed to become marginalized by being "just another love interest". Simon Pegg also excels with both comedic gravitas as well as a good character arc. The action itself is well shot and the stunts are sometimes jaw dropping.

If I have to nitpick it is that the film may be slightly too long. This seems to be a problem with many action films these days. It all works to bring great entertainment though. Forget Mad Max, this is the best action film of the summer so far 4.5/5

Ted 2 (2015) Review

Comedic sequels do not tend to be good. I think there are many reasons for this. One of them is that part of what makes something funny is that it is different. I mean different both in the sense that something can differ from other things of its type, but also in that it can differ from what one was expecting it to be. This uniqueness is strongest when that comedic concept is done for the first time. Not only is it difficult to come up with new ideas and jokes for a sequel but the freshness of the original will not be present. Ted 2 suffers from everything bad comedic sequels suffer from and then some.

I have never been a big Seth MacFarlane fan. I wasn't allowed to watch Family Guy as a kid so when I finally saw that show for the first time I had a lot of other comedy which I had seen, I found it quite underwhelming. I saw the first Ted in a college dorm and was surprised that it was actually pretty funny considering the low opinion I had of Family Guy. Unfortunately, Ted 2 is not only worse than Family Guy, it may be less funny than late period Family Guy.

There are jokes galore here but many fall flat and some don't even make sense. There are also plenty of pop culture nods but they are just that, nods. It's like we're being told  "see how many famous movie scenes I remember". This isn't bad in and of itself but when those homages contain nothing clever or the hint of a joke they become shallow and frustrating.  Also unlike many directors seem to think, watching people smoke marijuana does not by itself constitute a funny joke.

Amidst all of this is a strange plot about Ted trying to gain civil rights. It's played as some sort of allegory for the recent court challenges to gay marriage but it just came off as both ridiculous, in a bad way, and boring to me. Comedic sequels are not easy projects but you have to do better than this 1.5/5

Inside Out (2015) Review

When Walt Disney set out to create the first feature-length animated films he was not merely trying to make colorful films that kids would enjoy and which parents could gleam some slight humor from, rather, he wanted to use animation as a tool that could tell stories live-action couldn't. This spirit of experimentation is visible in the earliest Disney films but as profitability concerns began to play a factor the experimentation was done away with. In its place came quality stories which are fun to watch but which lack the adventurous spark of the earlier efforts. This spirit wouldn't be regained until the 1990s. The studio that would bring it back was not the studio Walt started but rather PIXAR. Regular Disney movies were getting better in the early 90s but Pixar with its CG animation really stepped things up. They made movies from the perspective of toys, a family of superheroes, a rat that could cook, and an elderly man. It felt like Pixar had taken up Walt's legacy and wasn't letting go. Then, a string of mediocre films made us doubt whether animation would ever reach that original glory ever again. I am very pleased to report that with their latest, Inside Out, Pixar had ended their losing streak and achieved one of their most decisive victories.

Inside Out tells the story of the emotions inside an 11 year old girl's head. These emotions are each embodied by a character and run her brain from a control room. When the girl, Riley, moves from her hometown to San Francisco the action begins. I don't want to spoil what happens for anybody that hasn't seen the film, but needless to say the plot will involve new challenges for all of the emotions as they deal with the move.

The plot of this film is outwardly simple and inwardly intricate. It's a riveting piece of storytelling that allows for the audience to get an all access tour of Riley's head. The film excels in detailed symbolism which is so good that I almost chuckled at how clever some of it was. There are explanations given for how dreams are made and why songs get stuck in our heads as well as an exploration of abstract thought. All of this scenery propels the story forward, but it also adds depth. Sure, kids will find it colorful and exciting but the deeper significance of the locations in Reilly's brain will only be gained by older kids and adults. There's so much here that it could be worth a second viewing.

Aside from the setting, the plot is an emotional roller-coaster. It's full of highs and lows and twists and turns. some of these moments are so profound they may have you in tears. Most importantly, the finale is fulfilling in a way that few endings in mainstream film are. What's even more impressive than this film's profundity is its humor. There are plenty of great jokes in this film that are more than just cheap pop culture references.

The voice cast is uniformly excellent but Amy Poehler's joy is of particular note. This is animation telling a story only animation can tell and thus it is not only vintage Pixar but vintage Disney. Inside Out is also the best film I've seen so far this year, I'm sure that somewhere Mr. Disney is smiling 5/5!

Jurassic World (2015) Review

Jurassic World was a movie engineered to make money at the box office. Its a film about running away from dinosaurs, starring one of the most popular leading men right now and it was based on a beloved franchise from the 90's. The plot is also easy to follow and there is no real thinking necessary on the part of the audience while watching it. Jurassic World was destined to be summer gold but how does it stand up as a movie?

To me watching this film was like watching a 1950's Universal Studios monster movie. the plot is simple, the characters are cliché, and the dialogue sometimes unintentionally funny but the overall effect the film has is that it is fun. Fun is what I would describe Jurassic World as. It's not great, but it isn't trying to be. It was fun and I was never bored. This may seem like faint praise but with what I've seen from blockbusters this summer the fact that I was not bored is praise indeed.

Chris Pratt continues to cement himself as a movie star and in terms of acting he's the best thing here. That's not to say the other actors aren't good it's just that there isn't much written for their characters. As stated above the plot is simple and I think that works in this film's favor.

Overall, this was a fun summer movie experience that wasn't anything earth-shattering but that was a lot of fun. If you haven't already, go to your local theater, put on the ridiculous 3D glasses and enjoy a fun dinosaur spectacle for 2 hrs. 3.5/5

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) review

I wasn't a huge fan of the first Avengers film. It lacked a really menacing villain and it fell apart in the third act. Despite those criticisms, it did have some brilliant moments, particularly in its first half, when we just got to see the characters act like real people who just happen to have super abilities. The thrill of the first film was that we got to see the characters on screen in a way that felt so natural and was so entertaining that it was nearly irresistible. It was in those quieter moments that Whedon, the director, took what could have been an overblown Transformers movie and turned it into something enjoyable. I wish there had been more of this brilliance in the first film but the film managed the rest of the less alluring parts well enough that the thing flowed together. The same cannot really be said for the second film. While Age of Ultron has a better villain and some of the best individual moments in all of the Marvel film universe it fails to fit all of its moving parts together.

Age of Ultron feels like a brilliant superhero film squashed under the weight of bad editing. This doesn't mean that the individual cuts of the film are bad but rather that what we have in terms of a story feels like its missing something. While the story is missing some beats, it seems as though every bit of every action scene that was shot was left in the film. What results is a frustrating film with moments of Whedon brilliance marred by an even more action-heavy third act. Apparently the first cut of the film was 4 hours. I don't want to see four hours of this film, but I do wonder whether the disjointed nature of the plot comes from leaving some stuff out. It feels as though, for whatever reason, too much of the action was left in. It's not as drawn-out as the third Hobbit but it really hurts a film that's already seemingly missing some plot points. It feels as though in the last two acts the film never really had a good rhythm.

On the positive side, Ultron is a great villain and better than Loki. Spader's performance is menacing in a way Loki wasn't. Ultron poses a real threat, it's just a shame that the plot's disjointedness dulls his impact. As mentioned above, there are several sequences of character that could easily rank amongst the best stuff to come out of the Marvel studio. Whedon can write incredible dialog between these characters and that dialog is delivered by actors who embody their characters. Robert Downey Jr. is the stand-out. Never before has an actor and a superhero been more perfectly meshed.

Apparently this is Whedon's last stint in the directors chair for Marvel. This seems a shame since I feel we didn't ever see him sustain his brilliance for a whole film. Whether it be the moments when he shows us human carnage or the snappy and natural dialog found in the film, Whedon brings brilliance to the table but it is weighed down by the repetitive action. Age of Ultron is a frustrating film, but I believe that just enough brilliance shines through to make it worth watching. 3.5/5

TV Tuesday: The Office vs. Parks and Recreation

If you read my list of the top 5 greatest sitcoms of all time you may have noticed that neither the American version of the Office nor Parks and Recreation was on it. With both shows now having come to a close, I thought I'd write this piece comparing the two shows.

If the list of five had been increased to ten either one, or possibly both, of these shows would be on it. I appreciate both in their own unique ways but I think they are interesting to compare because both were created by the same man, Greg Daniels, and both sometimes shared the same production and writing team. There was even a time the both had the same actress in a supporting role. What's even more interesting is that they shared the same format. This format was a mockumentary-style format that allowed for a shaky single camera as well as interviews with the characters. Both shows also eventually ignored this format for the most part.

Despite these similarities the shows were incredibly different. A lot of this difference doesn't just come down to the fact that the Office was set in the private sector while Parks was set in the public sector. The difference was both in tone, and quality of supporting character development. The tone of the Office was happier than the British version but still darker than your average comedy. If you want evidence of this taken to brilliant extremes, you can watch the best episode of the show "Dinner Party" which is a hilarious cringe fest.  Parks and Recreation on the other hand, is one of the most positive shows ever to come out on modern television. In terms of character, the Office was more held to its British roots. Michael was a fully fleshed-out character and Jim and Pam were meant to be the "normal people", but the rest of the cast feel like outlandish caricatures. The supporting players are not developed as well and they are not as full of depth as Michael is. Even Jim and Pam cannot bolster the show on their own. This can be evidenced in the final two seasons following Michael's departure where the show saw a noticeable dip in quality. Parks, on the other hand, is filled with a cast of great characters which it takes time to develop. It is truly an ensemble show with most of the comedy coming from its character interactions.

These differences show why the shows developed differently and had different periods of high and low quality.  It may seem like I was bashing the Office in the previous paragraph, but Parks really got off to a horrible start. The characters weren't working and at first Amy Poehler couldn't lead the show on her own. The Office started out strongly because Steve Carell's performance as Michael is one of the funniest performances on television ever. As Parks grew it got better quickly, developing its characters and allowing them to grow. As the Office ran out of things for Michael to do it began to get stale because the other characters couldn't pick up the slack. Jim and Pam's romance was too drawn out and the characters weren't that interesting. Dwight is outrageous but doesn't have much depth. The other cast members are basically "one-note". When Michael left, the show lost virtually all of its steam and had only a fraction of its former glory. 

All of that being said, the Office was great at one time even if it was "the Michael Scott Show". At its best, the supporting players added a little drama and outrageous humor to compliment Michael. The best individual episodes of the Office are better plotted and stand-out more than some of the Parks and Rec episodes, but there are some great stand-out Parks episodes as well. In fact, I am struck at how hard it is to find a stand-out Parks episode because they are almost uniformly excellent when the show reached the peak of its powers. While Michael is a great character and the Office had some incredibly funny episodes, the Parks and Recreation team brought some of the best television comedy to the table consistently. At its best, Parks gave us great characters (Leslie,Tom, Andy, Ron etc.), funny writing, and a sense of warmth that no other modern TV comedy can match. add to this the fact that it finished strong and there is no question in my mind that Parks and Recreation is the better show.  

TV Tuesday: Batman '66

With the release of the first trailer for Batman V. Superman this week, audiences were introduced to a new Batman, one clad in armor and as menacing as possible. Last November, a completely different take on the character was finally released on home video. This version was played by Adam West and he was a character who fought crime by day, had a young side-kick named Robin, was helped by the police, and fought some of the most colorful villains TV has ever seen. This was the famed 1966 TV series, a show that played the ridiculous straight and in doing so changed superheroes and comedy forever. I have a pretty personal connection to this show from when I was younger, so when it came out I had to get it. I set out to watch the first season wondering if a show this over-the-top could still be fun. The answer was yes, emphatically yes.

Batman may be fresher today than when it first came out. Today as we take our superheroes so seriously it feels unique to see a superhero who just enjoys being a hero and who fights villains even more ridiculous than he is. If you want to get into this wonderful show, here are a few rules before you watch:

1. Do not expect this to be the Dark Knight: This is a light-hearted take on Batman. If you are looking for a darker version, you will not find it here.

2. Suspend your disbelief: The show knows that it is ridiculous and there are plenty of plot-holes to be found if you search for them. That being said, this series is far more enjoyable when you aren't trying to pick it apart and instead take it on face-value. Some episodes are genuinely, bad, but in the first season at least, they are almost uniformly excellent.

3. DO NOT binge-watch: Batman is a show with a definite formula. Binge-watching will only serve to dull its impact as a piece of entertainment.

With those out of the way here are some recommendations I can make based on the first season.

Best episode to start with: "Hi Diddle Riddle" All stories are two-parters in the first season and this is the first one. It's one of the boldest pilots ever to be broadcast and it contains some of the best moments in the show. It also features Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, one of the best portrayals of a villain ever. All Gorshin's Riddler shows in the first season are fantastic.

Best episode overall: "the Purr-fect crime" Catwoman's introduction is a perfect episodes with loads of great lines, action, and a great villain. The sets and death-traps also look great which makes this an incredibly entertaining episode of television and Batman's best.

Other great episodes: "Joker's Wild" is pretty much just as good as the others mentioned above. "the Bookworm Turns" Is one of the zaniest and most surprisingly good episodes you will find. Unfortunately, in the first season none of the Penguin episodes are really excellent, but "the Penguin Goes Straight" is a pretty good episode overall. There were really only a handful of first season episodes that I disliked, so overall it's hard to go wrong.

Overall, whether it be the humor, the fights with the sound-effects spelled out, or the crazy death-traps, Batman has so much to offer as a piece of entertainment. It is something that I would recommend to not only fans of the character but anyone who enjoys television in general.