TRH - Movie Update

Even with the major demolition happening of this past weekend, I still managed to watch a few movies. We started summer hours at work, which means I've got Friday afternoons off, and because my RRHB wasn't letting me in the house at first while they tore the walls down, I went and saw Mission Impossible III. I know about all the arguments not to give the crazy-ass Tom Cruise any more money. I know that he's all wacky and has a kid for the sake of publicity—I hear you. But the film has things other than Tom Cruise going for it (or not going against it, rather), namely, Philip Seymour Hoffman and J.J. Abrams.

It's like a giant Alias episode, which means that it's totally over-the-top, totally self-aware and self-reflexive (ah, inside jokes, love them! Cruise shaking a cocktail, Cruise on a bike with no helmet, Cruise writing on glass, heh!) in a way that only adds to its enjoyment. Oh, and while Tom Cruise is a total hambone, he certainly does run fast on his tiny little legs, you go Ethan! The plot might be a bit convoluted but the film still remains a perfect summer movie plus it's way better than X-Men: The Last Stand. Or should I say, X-Men: The Last Crap.

We managed to sneak seeing the film in after we finished the demolition—my RRHB was dying to watch it. But I'll tell you, what a waste of a perfectly good franchise. It's too long, too full of characters that have no use except as plot devices to make up for the fact that there's no real story, and the whole freakish anti-aging stuff they do up top to Sir Ian and Captain Picard makes them look like they belong at Madame Tussaud's. Anyway, I was totally frustrated by this film. Unlike MI:3 where the stunts are so over the top that you realize they're burning money just thinking about them, they still fit into the script and into the style of the picture, the stunts in X-Men seem contrived and just so absurd that you're looking at them thinking there must have been an easier way. The whole film feels like a mash-up episode where Brett Ratner decided that if he couldn't have the stylized X-Men of Bryan Singer, he was going to go way overboard just to prove he's got more, ahem, balls.

Oh, and then we watched The New World. Terrence Malick is one of my all-time favourite filmmakers. I love, love, loved both Badlands and The Thin Red Line, both of which I got to review for HT when I worked there. Just like those two movies, The New World is a beautiful looking movie, with luscious landscapes the backdrop to the story of Pocahontas. Colin Farrell's Captain Smith is a man of few words (works so well in this film) and Christain Bale plays John Rolfe, the man who eventually becomes the Indian princess's husband. In fact, this was my favourite of all three films I watched this weekend.