Tag: USA

Mythica: The Darkspore

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★★½
“Dungeons and Dragons. This time with a dungeon. And a dragon.”

mythicaThe original movie sat in my “pending” pile for so long, that the sequel showed up about a week after finally reviewing it. So I thought I might as well fast-track that one, and see how it compares. The answer is likely, not quite as well, much though it goes over the same, well-worn fantasy/D&D tropes. Our four adventurers from the first movie are still about, though haughty cleric Teela (Posener) now has a dead sister, which she blames Marek (Stone), the rapidly XP-gaining magic-user.  is warned by her mentor, Gojun Pye (Kevin Sorbo, in much the same kind of cameo are last time), that evil necromancer Szorlok is watching her, seeing the darkness which lurks within her soul.

Szorlok and sidekick Kishkumen are searching to reassemble the titular artefact, which was cracked to four pieces in a previous age. Cutting to the chase rather faster than the script here does, they capture our hereoes, along with newcomer Hairgel the dark elf [ok, not his actual name, but you’ll understand why I call him that when you see him] and hold Teela as a hostage, using her as leverage so her friends will retrieve the stone.

The film seems to have forgotten that it was the characters, and the interplay between them, which was its predecessor’s strongest suit. When we get that, it still shines, yet you’re well into the second half of the movie before the party is reassembled and gets going on anything resembling an actual adventure. Up until then, you get a rather boring set of navel-gazing, mostly based around Marek agonizing about whether she is being turned to the dark side, with a side-helping of angst from Teela.

The script also decides to inject romantic elements this time, with Teela falling for the group’s fighter, Thane (Johnson), and if you don’t like that one, why not try Marek and Hairgel’s blossoming relationship. It wasn’t just the 12-year-old boy in me who was wrinkling his nose up at all this sissy stuff. Things do perk up a bit more in the second half, when there is actually a quest to be competed, with the poison infecting Teela adding a useful “ticking clock” to proceedings. However, the battles were underwhelming, both against a pretty mediocre CGI dragon, and facing Kishkumen and his forces, whose main tactic appears to be to form a circle around their target, then attack one at a time. If you’ve seen a seventies martial-arts film, you’ll know the technique.

Not to say it’s worthless, with Marek’s character and powers developing nicely; she’s clearly more adept than she was first time out, when a puff of smoke was a challenge. With great power, as we all know, comes great responsibility, and I just wish the makers would put more effort into that aspect. Because if the planned five films come to pass. they’re going to need the balance to tilt away from tedious romance and whiny soul-searching, and back toward thrilling adventure.

Dir: Anne K. Black
Star: Melanie Stone, Adam Johnson, Jake Stormoen, Nicola Posener

Mythica: A Quest for Heroes

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★★★
“Dungeons & Dragons. Without dungeons. Or dragons.”

mythicaI could virtually hear the d20s rolling for chunks of this one. Not to say that is a bad thing as such; it quite took me back to my college days, when I spent far more time than I should, lurking in the corners of the student union, trying to nurse my ferociously-toasted paladin through another death-trap! The heroine here is Marek (Stone), a slave with a club foot who has higher aspirations, dabbles in magic, and runs away from her master to seek her fame and fortune. She talks her way into a mission no other adventurer will accept, rescuing the sister of haughty high priestess Teela (Posener), who has been kidnapped by orcs, and adds a gruff fighter, Thane (Johnson), and sly thief Dagen (Stormoen) to complete the parade of obvious stereotypes, er, sorry, I meant to write “party of adventurers”. They head off to follow the orcs, only to find Teela’s sister is not there, and is apparently with a far bigger, more unpleasant monster, possessing a lot more hit points and higher armour-class.

All my cynicism (which you may just have been able to detect in the above) aside, I actually didn’t hate this, despite its horribly derivative nature and failure to deliver any kind of ending [it being the first in an intended three-part saga coughHobbitcough]. Far from it, actually: if painfully obvious, the characters are still fun to be around, and the actors embrace them with gusto, which help bring them to life. Marek, in particular, has the potential to have a good character arc, since she appears to possess occult talents, which are only scratched here, coming out in dire emergencies – conveniently for the story! She is disabled, but not defined by it. Save a couple of scenes, such as the one where she begs Teela’s to heal her,  it’s easy to forget her impediment, and there’s no doubting her courage, wits and loyalty, which make for a winning combination in a fantasy lead.

About the only name you’ll recognize here is Kevin Sorbo, who has basically one scene as Marek’s magical mentor, though I get the feeling he will be back in subsequent parts. Still, if you rent this expecting more based on the promotional material, you’ll be disappointed. Fortunately, I had no such preconceptions, and was able to enjoy what is, in many way, a throwback to the eighties and nineties when, it seems, there was a new one of these out every other time I went to the video-store. [Usually made in Argentina. For Roger Corman] If I can’t say I am anticipating future installments with breathless excitement, I can’t say I will actively avoid them either; mild anticipation is likely about the mark. Coming from someone who has sat through his share of bad genre entries, that’s no mean feat.

Dir: Anne K. Black
Star: Melanie Stone, Adam Johnson, Jake Stormoen, Nicola Posener

Dark Angel: The Ascent

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★★½
“The devil in the details.”

darkangelThis is actually a really interesting idea. We generally think of devils as “bad” – but what if they don’t see themselves the same way, and feel they are doing an important part of the Lord’s work, by punishing sinners? That’s the concept here, which sees the demonic Veronica (Featherstone) clamber out of hell through a conveniently unguarded exit, to see what the world above is like – let’s face it, since all she gets are the wrongdoers sent to damnation, her opinion is a little skewed. Apparently unaware of such everyday issues as traffic (and likely more importantly for most male viewers, clothes), she rapidly gets nailed by a truck. In hospital, she is treated by Dr. Max Barris (Markel), who is perplexed by the odd behaviour of his new patient, but she pulls a Satanic version of the Jedi mind trick, and convinces him that she should move into his apartment. There, she watches television, discovers that there are plenty of perfectly-good wrongdoers here on Earth who need to be punished, and begins a vigilante campaign to take them out. This draws the attention of both the local cops investigating the trail of corpses, and corrupt local official, Mayor Wharton (James), who becomes Veronica’s #1 target.

I love films with a different take on the traditional heaven/hell division – Don’t Tempt Me is a personal fave – and this movie also raises some interesting questions, about whether it’s acceptable to do bad things for good reason. An example: generally, ripping someone’s spine out of there back is frowned up in most cultures. But what if they have been caught in the act of trying to rape a young woman? Where is your morality now? This isn’t pulled out thin air, and is actually what happens here; Veronica appears faintly perplexed that the victim doesn’t want the dripping spine as a souvenir of the incident. Of course, her ability to do that Jedi thing certainly makes life easier, even when her actions draw increasing attention – “covering her tracks” should be added to her long list: “Things of which I’m entirely oblivious.” It’s a shame that there isn’t more investigation into the spiritual aspects, like the scene where she meets a pair of nuns, and gets down on her knees for them. The poor sisters are even more confused when the cross they give Veronica  bursts into flames…

Instead, the film limps off into something that’s partly a love-story, and partly Veronica stalking the Mayor, neither of which are anywhere near as interesting. It feels as if they came up with the brilliant idea, started filming a movie based on the concept… and only then figured out they didn’t know what to do with it. Things peter out in a disappointing matter, and I suspect the makers (it’s a Charles Band production) were looking to start another of their franchises, alongside Trancers, Demonic Toys, etc. Perhaps future installments could have done a better job of exploring the potential in a universe, which is only hinted at here.

Dir: Linda Hassani
Star: Angela Featherstone, Daniel Markel, Milton James, Michael C. Mahon

Hot Pursuit

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★★½
“Colombia 1, America 1.”

Your tolerance for this may well depend on your fondness for Modern Family, in which Vergara plays Gloria, who is much the same character: a Colombian spitfire trophy-wife. It works rather better there, as part of the broad palette of distinct individuals, and in an episode that lasts 30 minutes, including commercials. You get the sense she might not be too easy to live with, and the 85 minutes here does sometimes become more a slog than a pleasure, and we speak as big fans of Family. Here, rather than the wife of a closet magnate, Daniella Riva (Vergara) is married to the henchman of a drug lord, who gets gunned down after agreeing to testify against his employer  (Cosio), just as the straight-laced Officer Cooper (Witherspoon) arrives to escort them to court. When it becomes clear some corrupt cops are in on the action, Cooper and Riva are forced to strike out on their own, making for an unlikely odd couple, whose spiky relationship grows over the course of their unscheduled road-trip.

It’s certainly far from novel, and the whole concept is so well-worn and utterly predictable, the script might as well have grooves and be mounted on rails. This is not a film to watch if you want to be surprised, in any shape or form; it’s more like a comfy jersey, that you pull on, knowing exactly what to expect. As such, there are some moments which are genuinely amusing, such as when Cooper ends up coked-up by (literal) accident, chattering away like a highly-caffeinated dolphin. It’s not Witherspoon’s first entry here either; back in her early days, Freeway won our Seal of Approval, and more recently, we also reviewed Wild, which had her stepping out into the wilderness. This is a more obvious role, in more ways than one; like the story, Cooper is over-familiar from a hundred other comedies, and making her a woman isn’t sufficient deviation to create interest. Witherspoon certainly tries, and the effort is palpable; however, there’s only so far effort can take you, given such lazy writing.

With Vergara, the problem is almost the reverse; Riva certainly has more of an arc than Cooper, and is given some genuine motivation for her actions, rather than existing purely because the plot demands it. However, if you’ve caught one episode of Modern Family, you’ve already seen all this performance has to offer. It probably says a lot, that Vergara’s turn in Machete Kills offered a more highly-nuanced approach to acting. I’m thinking this is probably the first time Machete Kills and “highly-nuanced” have ever been used in the same sentence. The end result just about manages to skate by on the charisma of its two leads, and I can’t say we were ever bored; that hardly counts as anything even approaching a glowing recommendation, however, and you should be in a thoroughly undemanding mood before approaching this one.

Dir: Anne Fletcher
Star: Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Vergara, Robert Kazinsky, Joaquín Cosio,

Julia

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★★½
“As therapy, beats ice-cream and a copy of The Notebook.”

juliaPainfully shy doctor’s assistant Julia (Williams) is drugged and raped by a group of young men, but is too traumatized to report the crime to the authorities. Sitting alone in a corner of a bar one night, she overhears another woman, Sadie (Tozzi), talking about a radical therapy regime, that allows women to reclaim their self-esteem and power. Eventually talking Sadie into referring her to Doctor Sgundud (Noseworthy) who, after discovering Julia is a suitable case for treatment, allows Sadie to mentor Julia in the system. This involves seducing men, and then punishing them for their lechery. However, Sgundud’s therapy comes with strict rules against taking personal action against those who abused you: rejoicing in her new=found power, Julia is not so keen on abiding by such apparently arbitrary restrictions, especially coming from a mere man. But the doctor wasn’t kidding, when he warned her of the severe consequences for not following the rules.

Initially intriguing, the film becomes more problematic as it goes on, both morally and cinematically. By “flirty fishing” for men who have done little if anything wrong, and then punishing them, Julia has moved from abused to abuser, and the movie doesn’t succeed in bringing the audience over the line with her, and any sympathy for her is largely lost as a result, well before she ever gets round to confronting those actually responsible for the attack. Nor does the film appear to know what to do once it gets there, suddenly shifting focus so that Dr. Sgundud becomes the Big Bad, though we know little about him or his background, beyond that he seems to enjoy manipulating the easily manipulated. On the plus side, the film looks luscious, depicting a New York saturated in neon and rain, like some kind of nightmarish car commercial. As the lead, Williams (previously seen on all fours in the first part of Human Centipede) is solid enough in terms of her transformation from self-harming wallflower into avenging succubus.

However, she doesn’t bring enough personality to the role to make it memorable. Compare and contrast, say, the similarly-themed (and equally problematic, in different ways) American Mary, in which Katherine Isabelle had a far greater impact. Or Nurse 3D – also with a medical professional character – where Paz de la Huerta went over the top, dragging the viewer with her – kicking and screaming if necessary. Campbell appears to be aiming for low-key, yet ends up closer to flat-line, and I found myself tuning out in the second half as a result. While even-handed in its depiction of the sexual violence, with one scene certainly likely to have male viewers crossing their legs, there’s otherwise just not enough impact. When you’re going down a well-worn path, you either need to travel it extremely well, or take an interesting diversion, and sadly, this does neither.

Dir: Matthew A. Brown
Star: Ashley C. Williams, Tahyna Tozzi, Jack Noseworthy, Joel de la Fuente

Big Driver

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★★★½
“Lady Vengeance”

bigdriverEasily punching above its weight for a Lifetime TVM, this is as disturbing as you’d expect from the director of the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, working off a Stephen King short story. Crime writer Tess Thorne (Bello) is on her way back from a speaking engagement, when her car gets a puncture; the large gentleman (Harris) who stops to help, turns out to be a savage rapist, who brutalizes Tess repeatedly, before leaving her for dead in a storm-drain, beside his previous victims. Tess survives, but is traumatized by the experience, and won’t tell anyone what happened. Her mind begins to fracture, with the leading character in her book (Dukakis) coming to life and talking to her – as well as the GPS in her car (not credited, but reportedly the voice of King). Digging in, Tess finds that her accident may not have been quite as accidental as she thought, and her quest for vengeance, is going to require a broader net than she initially thought.

It’s the performances which make this work, though the concept is solid enough, containing a number of elements readily identifiable as King staples, e.g. dead people talking. The translation to screen does have its issues; never explained, for example, is how Tess’s disabled car shows up in the parking lot of a biker bar, fully intact and with her possessions inside. Much though the resulting cameo from 80’s rocker Joan Jett is welcome,, it’s a blatant plot hole which should have been addressed. That aside, it’s much grittier than I expected, with the assault in particular pulling so few punches, I have to wonder if the version which played on Lifetime was edited for content compared to this DVD release. Bello does a good job of taking the audience inside the disintegrating mind of Thorne, to the point where we genuinely wondered how much of what we were seeing had a basis in reality, or if it was just a psychological coping mechanism. Dukakis is also excellent, providing a restrained, yet sarcastic counterpoint of commentary to the heroine’s actions, as she falls apart, yet still proceeds with her mission.

Things proceed to a thoroughly adequate conclusion, even allowing for the vast difference in size and strength between Tess and her assailant; if nothing else, guns are certainly a great equalizer! But Tess’s smarts are just as important as her aggression or lust for vengeance, helping her both uncover the truth about what happened, and then ensure that the police don’t track her down after the event. The traumatic experience certainly leaves her a changed person, and probably only right it should; not a journey I’d want anyone I know to experience themselves, but it may indeed be a case of, what does not kill you, makes you stronger.

Dir: Mikael Salomon
Star: Maria Bello, Will Harris, Olympia Dukakis, Stephen King

Spy

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★★★★
“Girls with guns and buns?”

spyIf not perhaps your prototypical action heroine, this is a thoroughly amusing and very entertaining feature, managing both to spoof and pay homage to the entire genre of its title. Susan Cooper (McCarthy) is really good at her job, which is being a support analyst for the CIA’s top agent, Bradley Fine (Law). He is gunned down while on the trail of a stolen nuclear warhead, by the evil Rayna Boyanov (Byrne), who also knows the identity of all the agency’s other field agents. Susan, who has been behind a desk her whole career, so is unknown to the outside world, convinces her boss she should go after Rayna, much to the disgust of Fine’s colleague, Rick Ford (Statham). What is supposed to be an “observe and report” mission becomes more, after Cooper saves Boyanov’s line and becomes part of her inner circle, giving her a chance to find the location of the missing bomb, yet also putting Susan in grave danger.

I’ve seen McCarthy before, most notably enduring (thanks, Chris!) Bridesmaids, where she seemed a bit of a one-note actress: “It’s funny, ‘cos I’m big.” I was expecting much the same here, with not much more than two hours of fat jokes. However, on the basis of this, I was wrong; just as Peter Dinklage is an actor who happens to be short, so it appears McCarthy is an actress who happens to be large. For instance, at one point, she has to pretend to be a bodyguard assigned to take care of Rayna by her father. She nails it, spitting out lines such as, “I’m gong to reach through your fucking body and rip out your back like a fucking werewolf” [yeah, it’s gleefully R-rated for language] with such a remarkable degree of badass commitment, that she is entirely convincing as such. Hell, there’s even a brawl in a kitchen, whee Cooper goes up against an assassin sent after Boyanov, which is remarkably solid [and makes sense, because it was set up earlier, when we see a video of Cooper during her training where she showed similar skills]. Implausible? Well, not if you’ve ever seen Sammo Hung in action.

Beyond McCarthy, what particularly elevates this is a slew of excellent supporting performances. While Byrne chews the scenery to very good effect as a villainess, it’s Statham and Hart who steal just about every scene they are in. Statham is, more or less, parodying every other role he has had, spinning utterly implausible tall tales of his derring-do, e.g. “I’m immune to 179 different types of poison. I know because I ingested them all at once when I was deep undercover in an underground poison-ingesting crime ring.” Hart, we have known and loved for some time due to her BBC show, Miranda, and she plays much the same delightfully klutzy, self-effacing persona here, to the extent we suspect she probably wrote her own dialogue. This trio form a solid foundation, off which McCarthy can bounce her personas, to excellent effect, and I’m now rather more confident in Feig’s upcoming reboot of Ghostbusters. The female cast there did initially seem more than a tad stunty, but on the basis of this, he and McCarthy would seem to have a decent shot at pulling it off. A very pleasant surprise, on a number of levels.

Dir: Paul Feig
Star: Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Jason Statham, Miranda Hart

Return to Sender

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★★
“Deadlier than the mail”

Return_to_SenderPike seems to have been teetering on the edge of action-heroineness since she first reached popular attention as Bond girl Miranda Frost, in Die Another Day, thence through the likes of Queen Andromeda in Wrath of the Titans, and her upcoming portrayal of an undercover CIA agent in High Wire Act. With her star also on the rise for her Oscar-nominated performance in Gone Girl, one wonders whether such mainstream fare will become “beneath her”? If so, this may be among her final stops of at least tangential appeal, and with her character the focus of attention, the only one which reached the necessary threshold to qualify for inclusion on this site. Here, she plays Miranda, the victim of a brutal rape, whose orderly life is destroyed by the assault, yet who begins a long-distance relationship with her attacker (Fernandez). She claims this is a necessary part of the healing process, much to the disgust of her father (Nolte), who is concerned his daughter may be suffering from some variant of Stockholm Syndrome. However, are Miranda’s intentions quite as forgiving as they appear?

The existence of this review likely gives away the answer to that question, though the poster on the right (a Finnish one, emphasizing an element found in other publicity material) isn’t exactly avoiding the issue. And that’s the problem: the middle portion here, between the attack and the pay-off, more or less operates in a holding pattern, with the audience largely aware of where it’s going, yet the script still needs to put in the legwork to make its payoff credible. I can’t say it succeeds, leaning heavily on the fact that her attacker is a complete idiot, and like many rape-revenge films, also relies on the conceit that many rapists will have no problem hanging out with their victims after the event. I’ve no idea whether there is any psychological basis for fact in this, or if it’s just a convenient plot nicety. The other aspect which is kinda weird, is that Miranda isn’t actually a very nice person; a bit of a control-freak in many aspects of her life, and her lack of meaningful relationships is entirely unsurprising.

Between this and her subsequent actions, it appears the only reason the audience is given to care about her, is because she gets raped. Wait, what? I suppose the point might be, to show that sexual assault does not only happen to “nice” girls, but we’re not talking about a sociological study here. This is a work of fiction, and if you’re going to focus on a character with whom the audience is given no good reason to empathize, the film-makers had better be damn sure of their ground. Here, neither Mikati nor the writers are, even if Pike’s performance is decent, showing why I think she has potential as an action-heroine. This is left to operate in a vacuum, resulting in perhaps only the final 15-20 minutes achieving any degree of impact, and this is still muted, since you don’t care enough about anyone involved. Nowhere near as provocative or powerful as this needed to be.

Dir: Faoud Mikati
Star: Rosamund Pike, Shiloh Fernandez, Nick Nolte, Camryn Manheim

RWBY

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rwby★★★★
“Harriet Potter and the F-sized Weapon”

There are occasionally times where our book reviewer Werner’s “split scale” of grades for both artistic merit and action, would come in handy. This is one of those times. For the action scenes here are as glorious as you would expect from the man behind Dead Fantasy, virtuoso symphonies of exquisite hyper-violence, meted out and absorbed by characters and monsters without fear or bias, in ways limited only – and not very much, at that – by the creator’s imagination. Probably inevitably, this overshadows a fairly perfunctory plot, and characters whose characterization is largely defined by the shade they wear. On a split scale, this would merit five stars for both the quantity and quality of action, but likely three or three and a half for artistic merit.

It takes place in the world of Remnant, in a three-cornered struggle between humanity, the monstrous Creatures of Grimm, and the Faunus, who are part-animal, part-human, and largely perceived as second-class citizens, despite their own talents. There’s a substance called “Dust” which has magical powers, and an academy where young men and women train as Hunters and Huntresses, to do battle with the Grimm. The focus is on four teenage girls who are part of this year’s new intake, and who end up forming team RWBY [pronounced “Ruby”]: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long: the last is yellow-themed, you should be able to figure out the others. The main nemesis is Roman Torchwick, a terrorist who is working with a group fighting for Faunus’ rights, yet who had entirely his own agenda – as well as some high-powered minions and skills of his own.

Originally a web series, the first and second seasons have now been collected into feature-length collections, and while their episodic nature is occasionally apparent, they probably work better that way. The opening takes a little while to hit its stride, as it has to create the world, introduce the characters and establish the situations. The animation style takes some getting used to: it’s done in CGI, but trying to look like traditional cel animation; some of the resulting movement is almost too smooth, and I find the lack of noses on some of the characters, a bit unsettling. However, the script is well-written, sometimes sharp and witty, occupying a good place between self-awareness and parody. Even the characters that are largely superfluous – and some of the hunters in training could be so described – are less irritating than they might be.

It is, however, all about the action, and it’s clear that all of the other aspects – the plot, the participants and the world they inhabit – exist merely to facilitate the fight scenes, which is where all the work, imagination and energy become truly apparent.  The highlight, for me, in volume one, was a battle at a temple against a series of Grimm, while the second part climaxes with a running fight in, on and around, a train as it hurtles toward the capital city. You forget they are animated, while simultaneously wishing someone would throw $200 million at the studio behind it, Rooster Teeth, and let them make a live-action version. Sadly, creator Oum died of a severe allergic reaction in February this year, although it has been announced that Volume Three of the series will continue. Hopefully, the quality will not suffer, and will be a fitting monument to Oum’s sadly-missed talents.

Dir: Monty Oum
Star (voice): Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech, Barbara Dunkelman

The Miss in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

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mirn11It has been a good summer for undercover action heroines at the cinema. And, by “undercover”, I mean films where they are not necessarily the lure, but once you get in there, the makers deliver above and beyond what was expected. First, there was Mad Max: Fury Road, in which, despite the title, Max was more a supporting character to Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa. And now, we get M-I:RN, which does something very similar; by some standards Ethan Hunt is not, apparently, the protagonist, in that it is not necessarily his actions which drive the film. It can be argued that position belongs equally to Rebecca Ferguson’s improbably-named MI5 operative, Ilsa Faust, who rescues Hunt from apparent certain death on more than one occasion, and whose mission to stop the mysterious “Syndicate” allows the nominal hero to come along for the ride.

While I’ll admit this site might just have a bit of a bias in regard to such things, I have to mention it isn’t just my prejudice which thinks so. A number of writers think Ferguson “stole” the movie from Tom Cruise, was “every bit the equal of Ethan Hunt”, or is straight up, “a badass goddess.” I can’t argue with any of that at all, and will add the significant bonus of there being basically zero romantic chemistry or sexual tension here. While the latest entry in the series does have much in common with classic 007 – globetrotting, gadgets and one-liners – the script, also written by director McQuarrie, simply isn’t interested in the hero bedding anyone, and the film is all the better for this, because it’s a hackneyed angle, which has absolutely been done to death. I have no clue (and, to be honest, don’t care) whether Cruise’s Scientology or alleged sexuality are in any way responsible for this chastity, or if it’s more to do with his character supposedly being happily married – at least, he was in the last film, since curiously, there is absolutely zero mention of Julia Hunt in this one, dead or alive.

mirn03We first meet Ilsa after Hunt has been lured in by the Syndicate, and drugged in a London record-shop. He wakes to find himself dangling in the Syndicate’s torture-chamber, and about to be interrogated by someone with the ominous nickname of “the Bone Doctor”. Faust is there too, as another operative, but helps Hunt to escape, taking out more than her share of bad guys, since the hero spends most of the scene hanging from the ceiling like a well-muscled piñata. She stays behind to maintain her cover, and a somewhat confused Hunt escapes. He next encounters Faust at the Vienna Opera House, where she is one of a number of assassins sent after the Austrian Chancellor, as part of the Syndicate’s plans to destabilize the world and… something something world domination. Look: they’re the bad guys, m’kay? Motivation is not the script’s strong suit: we eventually find out they’re after a large chunk of money, which is a bit of a surprise, considering they apparently aren’t short of a dollar or two for operations. Guess you can never have too much.

Turns out the head of the Syndicate sent Faust to kill the Chancellor to test her, suspecting her of involvement in the escape of Hunt. So, when she fails there too, she has to team up with Hunt, on a mission to track down an electronic ledger supposedly containing the names of all the Syndicate operatives. This is held in the depths of a Moroccan secure facility, which gives Hunt a chance to show off his skills – except, he isn’t able to get out in time, and has to be rescued by Ilsa yet again. If I were Hunt’s employer, I’d look at downgrading him from impossible missions, to somewhat tricky ones. Faust absconds with the file, giving it to her MI5 handler, only to be told her job is not over, and sends her back in again – though inexplicably, the head of the Syndicate appears to have a far laxer policy on employee failure than most evil overlords, and does not execute her on the spot for her multiple failures and apparent reckless disloyalty. Still, it seems fair to say that it is Faust’s choices, more than Hunt’s, that drive the plot: she acts, while he reacts. It wouldn’t take much in the way of a rewrite for this to become the long-awaited Modesty Blaise film, with Hunt converting into trusty sidekick, Willie Garvin.

In terms of action, there’s a particular nod to the 007 franchise in Faust’s signature move, which appears to echo Xenia Onatopp from Goldeneye, albeit seen through the lens of Lucha Underground. I’m not sure which is more impressive: that’s it’s Ferguson actually doing it (she says, “I thought it was never gonna happen, then I nailed it. I remember the excitement and the kick that it gave me. I asked them, ‘Can I do it more?’ It’s such a good move.”), or that she does it in a freakin’ ball-gown. On the other hand, Ilsa is smart enough to kick off her high-heels when they impede her. While Internet chatter had this as perhaps a sly poke at the heroine of Jurassic World, who appears to be nailed into her shoes even when being chased by velociraptors, it appears the scene in MI:GN was shot independently.

It’s also interesting to note the way the movie’s plot in some aspects mirrors that of Turandot, the opera being staged in Vienna. Per Wikipedia, the story “involves Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. To obtain permission to marry her, a suitor has to solve three riddles; any wrong answer results in death. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot still refuses to marry him.” [Or, for non-fans of classical music: it’s the one with that song by the fat guy with a beard] Hmm: might those riddles be, escaping from custody, surviving the theatre assault, and retrieving the ledger? Have to say, I’d go to the opera more often, if I was convinced it would resembled the film, rather than being more like watching sofas get re-arranged. Perhaps a more directly relevant inspiration came be seen in more recent cultural history, Ferguson saying, “Tom, Chris, and I had talked about bringing in this old starlet idea. If you look back at Veronica Lake and Ingrid Bergman, that style of the ’40s and then roughing it up with a 2015 sort of fuck off attitude.” It’s a combination of old-school grace and new-school ruthless efficiency which helps make for a winning product.

mirn07It’s always nice to see a new potential franchise pop up. Even if it has now been almost 50 years since Mission: Impossible first hit the TV screens, this is certainly a new direction for the franchise (though we acknowledge previous candidates, such as Maggie Q in the third film). Ferguson’s star is likely the biggest beneficiary of the film’s success, and I’m sure she’ll now be in demand; a career as an action heroine could be hers, should she want it  If Ilsa Faust shows up in the next entry – or, better yet, gets spun off into her own series – I’d have absolutely no complaints. Fingers crossed that’s a Mission which will prove Entirely Possible some day.

Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
Star: Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner

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