VERY GOOD NEW MOVIE -- MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING Part One

Tommy Cruise

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING Part One (2023). Director: Christopher McQuarrie. 

Action movies either work, keeping you on the edge of your seat, or they're as flat as a wet pancake, and this flick works every step of the way. It doesn't really matter that the "Macguffin" -- the thing that everyone's fighting for -- in this might be something called a "Cruciform Key" which has to do with Artificial Intelligence and could take over the minds of everyone on the planet. What matters is the fun ride as the forces of good and evil do their level best to keep the key out of the other side's hands -- just like in an old-time cliffhanger serial, which this kind of resembles despite the high-tech -- and that the pace is fast and the stunt work absolutely thrilling.  

Esai Morales and Hayley Atwell

In this Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) teams up with a pretty thief named Grace (Hayley Atwell) who is an on again/off again ally. Some of his old colleagues are also around for another set-to. Highlights include a vicious fight scene in an alley, a business with a train speeding through a tunnel with combatants on the roof, and a climactic sequence with a collapsing train trestle that is positively eye-popping. It is all so well-done that it's quite spectacular. It doesn't hurt that the film has a rousing score (Lorne Balfe), great cinematography (Fraser Taggart), and some effective performances, with my favorites being Esai Morales as Gabriel and Cary Elwes as Denlinger, the director of National Intelligence. 

Verdict: Trust No One -- and wait anxiously for Part Two. ***1/4.  

GOOD NEW MOVIE: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- FALLOUT

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- FALLOUT (2018). Director: Christopher McQuarrie.

"We need people who care about the one life as much as they do about the millions."

This picture is sort of a sequel to the last MI film Rogue Nation, as villains and supporting characters from that film are re-introduced. Frankly, the first half of this movie just seems like one long, somewhat confusing chase scene with so many characters and factions that you need a scorecard, but none of that really matters, because in the second half the film really gets going. The set-up has Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his Impossible Missions team attempting to disarm two nuclear bombs in India, but they not only have to find the bombs -- which are linked together in a non-physical sense-- but get the detonator from the bad guy so everything that needs to be done can be done at the precise instant required. Naturally there are all sorts of complications, with one creep trying to keep the team away from the bombs even as Ethan flies off in a helicopter after the man with the detonator. This leads into a copter battle in mid-air and a tense, exciting climax with the two opponents clashing high on top of a mountain. True, there is nothing here that hasn't been seen before, but it is nevertheless very well done.

Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill

The best thing about MI -- Fallout is the stunt work, with Cruise doing his own amazing stunts (one cast member never knew if Cruise would even be alive the next day; he broke his ankle at one point). I can see risking your life if you'\re really going to prevent a nuclear bomb from going off, but for a movie it seems a little foolhardy. However, Cruise, who is showing his age and beginning to resemble Dustin Hoffman, clearly wants to give his fans a big thrill and prove he's still "got it." This is Cruise's picture all the way, but he gets some good support from Henry Cavill [Man of Steel] , underplaying as a suspect American agent. Alec Baldwin [Blue Jasmine] offers his customary effective performance as the Secretary of State while Angela Bassett as a CIA chief is in bust-ass mode throughout.

Alec Baldwin and Cruise

Hunt is an admirable character, but I had to laugh when someone who worked on the film suggested that he's not a super-hero, but an ordinary guy. Sure, like James Bond is an "ordinary" guy.  Dodging bullets, surviving car and copter crashes against "impossible" odds, Hunt is as much a super-hero as Batman. As entertaining as this movie is, however, it and the other films in the series never achieve that classy, action-elegant level of the best of the James Bond movies. Younger viewers are more impressed by movies like this because they haven't seen as much to compare it with.

Verdict: If you liked the other MI movies you'll probably enjoy this one but you'll also forget it before you've even left the theater. ***.

EYES WIDE SHUT

Tom Cruise

EYES WIDE SHUT (1999). Produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Alice (Nicole Kidman of Birth) and Dr. William Harford (Tom Cruise of Jack Reacher) are a moderately wealthy couple living in Manhattan (or what barely passes for same). After an argument, a high-on-grass Alice confesses to Bill that she saw a military man while they were on vacation and had such intense sexual fantasies about him  that she felt she could have walked away from Bill, their young daughter, and her whole life to be with this man. Bill can't get this out of his mind, and the next night he has a series of misadventures: Marion (Marie Richardson), the daughter of a dead elderly patient, tells him she's in love with him despite barely knowing him; some morons who think he's gay taunt him with homophobic slurs in Greenwich Village; he nearly sleeps with a hooker named Domino (Vinessa [sic] Shaw); and he re-encounters an old college friend who has become a musician. This friend, Nick (Todd Field), tells him of a mysterious series of parties he goes to where he plays the piano but isn't allowed to take off his mask. Intrigued, Bill rents a costume and goes off by taxi to an isolated estate where he discovers an elegant orgy where (generally) the women are naked, the men are clothed, and everyone wears a mask. Paranoia sets in when his deception is discovered and he is warned that powerful people will enact vengeance if he dares utter a word about what he's seen ...

Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut got a very mixed reception when it was released. I can't argue with all of the criticisms about it -- that it's slow at times, that it seems a bit stodgy for the nineties, that the orgy scenes are almost silly, and that it hardly develops into an intense thriller (which may not have been what Kubrick was after in the first place) -- and there has been pretentious overpraise for a picture that would hardly classify as a masterpiece. It also pretty much pushes aside any moral complexities for a one word quick-joke finale. However, I have seen Eves Wide Shut three or four times by now, and each time I find the nearly three-hour film completely absorbing and suspenseful. Admittedly, the sequence when Bill goes to buy a costume from a creepy man with a nubile daughter goes on too long, and there are others. One critic declared the picture an "old man's movie," probably because the orgies aren't that energetic and have no pounding rock soundtrack -- and Kubrick may have missed a lot of things he could have done with this film --  but this criticism misses the point that these parties are meant to be "classy" and ritualistic. Whether even the rich and famous would be bothered with secret sex societies is besides the point -- no married Senator, for instance, would want it getting out that he belonged to one.

The direction and the performances help a lot, with Cruise being more than adequate, and his then-wife Kidman out-acting him most of the time. Sydney Pollack, who directed Cruise in the mediocre The Firm,  perhaps proves a better actor [Husbands and Wives] than director in his role of Victor Ziegler, a wealthy man who gets help from Bill and provides counsel in return. The other roles are well cast, including Alan Cumming as a helpful hotel clerk who is obviously smitten with Bill. Although this scene got some criticism when the film first came out, Cumming at least makes the character likably goofy. The score consists of classical music along with some really cheap if sinister piano riffs. Filmed on sets, you never get a sense that this is taking place in New York City. The film is based on a novel that took place in Vienna.

Verdict: There are many, many things wrong with this movie, but I still find it visually and dramatically compelling. ***.

NEW AND RECENT HORROR FILMS OF INTEREST

Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis in the lousy Mummy

Here is a round-up of some new and fairly recent films in the horror genre:

The Ruins (2008). Director: Carter Smith. Young tourists in Mexico go to a Mayan temple lost in the jungle and discover that they won't be allowed to leave, as they are apparently meant to be sacrifices to weird vines that can penetrate their flesh. Gruesome and harrowing, this plays like a story out of an EC horror comic. The cast is comprised of first-rate young actors, with an especially good performance from Laura Ramsey. Well-made and chilling. The alternate ending on the DVD works better than the one shown in theaters. ***.

Pandorum (2009). Director: Christian Alvart. Two men wake up seemingly alone on a spaceship with much of their memory missing. Before you can say Aliens or Predator, some albino, flesh-eating monsters show up along with a tough Ellen Ripley-type who helps the crewmen against the creatures. There are some interesting ideas and some exciting scenes in the movie, but it all seems over-familiar and by the numbers. Although Dennis Quaid is the nominal star, the true hero is Ben Foster, who is quite dynamic in his mild-mannered way. "Pandorum" refers to a kind of space-happy syndrome that makes people go nuts. The picture is more confusing than it needs to be. **1/2.

The Uninvited (2009). Directors: The Guard Brothers. A young woman, Emily, comes home from a mental hospital after a suicide attempt not long after her ill mother was incinerated in a fire. Emily and her sister are convinced that their mother's nurse, who is now engaged to their father, was responsible for her patient's fiery death. Are the young ladies next on her list? Spooky and indeed physical visions seem to be sending Emily warnings. The Uninvited may not be especially original, but it still has some interesting twists to it. ***.

Enter Nowhere (2011). Director: Jack Heller. Two woman and one man wake up to find themselves in an isolated cabin and discover their last memory places them in completely different parts of the country -- and worse. Then a handsome soldier (Shaun Sipos) shows up and things get even freakier. Scott Eastwood, Clint's son, may not be a great actor, but he certainly has presence. Katherine Waterston (daughter of Sam) and Sara Paxton are effective as the ladies. The film is suspenseful and well-made, even if it builds up to a Twilight Zone-type of climax.  **1/2.

Devil's Pass ((2013). Director: Renny Harlin. A documentary team of Colorado students discover weird giant foot prints in the show and a strange door in the side of a mountain in Russia. Inspired by the true story of the mysterious deaths of nine hikers in the Ural Mountains (the Dyatlov Pass incident) in 1959,  Devil's Pass comes up with an "explanation" that blends the military, flesh-eating monsters, alternate dimensions, and even the Philadelphia teleportation experiment! The result is a very entertaining and undeniably creepy movie with an ending that reminds one of an E.C. horror comic. The gay-baiting of a couple of characters is annoying, but generally this is a well-written and competently acted picture. ***.

Most Likely to Die (2015). Director: Anthony DiBlasi. A group of people find themselves beset by a savage killer at a high school reunion where everyone has issues. There is an admirable attempt at characterization, although the cowardly gay guy (Perez Hilton, who should have known better) is a tired old cliche. Some of the acting is quite good, especially Tess Christiansen as a more positively drawn lesbian character. The movie has more than one graphic sequence to satisfy the gore geeks, but its biggest strength is a genuinely tense climax where some of the survivors are put in an untenable situation to say the least. By no means, a classic, but entertaining enough. ***.

The Boy (2016). Director: William Brent Bell. Greta (Lauren Cohan) takes a job minding a little boy who turns out to be a life-sized doll. Skillfully directed by Bell, the movie is surprisingly creepy and suspenseful as it plays around with our expectations of what might really be going on. The improbable tale has loose ends by the score but it is quite entertaining and well-acted. ***.

Phantasm: Ravager (2016). Director: David Hartman. The fifth and final in the long-running Phantasm series stars the now-aged cast in a essentially plot-less rehash of previous films with a man named Reggie (Reggie Banister) not knowing if he's on the run from the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) or recuperating in a nursing home. Only hard-core fans of the series will give a damn. Some good effects, but the movie often resembles a video game and the acting is only so-so. *1/2.

Bachelor Games (2016). Director: Edward McGown. On the eve of his wedding a man takes his friends on a camping trip in the Argentine. where they are warned about a dangerous spirit called the Hunter. Meanwhile old resentments and jealousies flare up, and then the dying begins. The movie is quite well-acted and suspenseful, but the supernatural aspects of the story are pretty lame and the viewer may feel cheated by the conclusion. Otherwise, this is notable. **1/2.

The Great Wall (2016). Director: Yimou Zhang. In ancient times a mercenary (Matt Damon) helps male and female Chinese soldiers fight against an invasion of huge, man-eating lizard monsters that even the Great Wall of China can't keep out. Opulent fantasy film with excellent FX work and some exciting scenes, but most of the time this just seems monumentally silly. Musical sequences add to the camp factor. **1/2.

Rings (2017). Director: F. Javier Gutierrez. This is another in a series of films based on a Japanese movie in which people who watch a certain videocassette wind up dying in seven days, all centering on the ghost of a young girl. The premise doesn't really make much sense, but the movie is creepy and entertaining in spite of it. **1/2.

Get Out (2017), Writer/director: Joran Peele. A young white lady brings her black boyfriend to meet her parents in the suburbs and weird things begin to happen. Is there a racist conspiracy afoot, and exactly what form is it going to take?. Get Out is entertaining and well-acted, and has some suspense, and what might be called a clever twist if only the secret of the plot wasn't a hoary cliche. The social commentary -- how some black people feel about whites and vice versa -- is about on the level of a seventies sitcom, with Caucasian characters making comments about Tiger Woods and Obama to show how hip and non-racist they are. By no means a bad movie, it's just ridiculously over-praised and, all told, rather silly. More a thriller than an out and out horror film despite certain developments, it is never the nail-biter it should have been. **1/2.

Alien: Covenant (2017). Director: Ridley Scott. In this sequel to Prometheus -- itself a prequel to the original Alien -- a ship bearing earth colonizers to a new world is drawn to the same planet of both of those movies, and the crew are soon beset by parasitical aliens. This retread of earlier Alien films isn't as bad as the second Alien vs Predator film, but it doesn't compare to the far superior Prometheus. Michael Fassbender plays two robot versions of himself, one of whom kisses the other on the lips, not as a homoerotic act but to confuse the other and get him off his guard. (There is a genuine gay couple in the movie but if you blink you might miss them.) There are a couple of good action scenes and the usual gruesomely effective FX, but the movie doesn't add much to the Alien legend and there's way. way too much of Fassbender. **1/2.

Eloise (2017). Director: Robert Legato. Eloise is the name of a shuttered mental institution where Jacob (Chace Crawford) comes with some companions to search for his mother's death certificate, which he needs to claim an inheritance. While inside the institution, the searchers are visited by ghosts from the past and there are some surprising revelations. The problem with Eloise is the matter-of-fact quality of the sequences with the murderous ghosts, and they way the characters show little shock or confusion when confronted by them. The picture has intriguing elements, but it just doesn't work. **.

The Mummy (2017). Director: Alex Kurtzman. Tom Cruise is a soldier and would-be "Indiana Jones" who messes with antiquities and gets taken over by the spirit of an Egyptian princess who has gone over to the dark side. This is a real mess of a movie, with 55-year-old Cruise playing the role too "cutesy" by far as if he thought he were still twenty-five. Annabelle Wallis makes a better impression as heroine Jenny, but I'm not sure what to make of poor Russell Crowe as "Dr. Jekyll." This is badly-directed and badly-scripted with one-dimensional characters and FX we have all seen before and better. A plane crash sequence and a bit with Cruise being chased by underwater zombies are exciting, but not enough to save this mega stink bomb.The only other good thing you can say about this movie is that it's not quite as campy as the Brendan Fraser Mummy series. *1/2.


AND we'll add a couple that are over 25 years old:

The Terror Within (1989). Director: Thierry Notz. Andrew Stevens gives a good performance in this Alien-clone set in the future when he and other survivors in a bunker must clash with mutated "gargoyles" who are trying to kill them. There are some suspenseful sequences. **1/2.

Dead Space (1991). Director: Fred Gallo. Scientists at a space station seek a cure for a deadly virus, but only succeed in creating a monster that never quite seems alive. Marc Singer is the star, but the best performance is given by Judith Chapman as the head of research. **.

THE FIRM

Gene Hackman and Tom Cruise

THE FIRM (1993), Director: Sydney Pollack.

Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) is signed up with the law firm of Bendini, Lambert and Locke at a six figure salary with lots of percs. He and his wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), are ecstatic, but there's a serpent in paradise. Partners in the firm seem to die on a regular basis, and Mitch realizes there's something not quite kosher about the outfit. Before long he finds himself between a rock and a hard place where his employers and interested agents of the FBI are concerned. Can he manage to help the agents without getting himself killed? Years ago there used to be thrillers that lasted maybe 80 or 90 minutes, included lots of plot twists and turns, and even at times a bit of characterization. The Firm clocks in at over two and a half hours, doesn't really have enough plot to sustain it, doesn't retain a grip on the suspense, and doesn't even include that much characterization. One problem is that the vastly overrated Sydney Pollack couldn't direct a true thriller if his life depended on it, and his attempts in that area always fail. The movie starts off quite well and sets up an interesting situation, but then it just plods along its dreary course until you lose interest in the proceedings. Cruise isn't bad, although he sort of just walks through it looking "concerned." Tripplehorn is better, and Gene Hackman [The French Connection] really steals the picture as a conflicted associate of Mitch's as well as his mentor. There are also nice turns by Gary Busey [A Star is Born] as a private eye, Holly Hunter as his secretary-lover (the murder scene involving both of these characters is one of the best things in the movie); Hal Holbrook as a law partner; Ed Harris as an FBI agent; David Strathairn as Mitch's convict brother; Steven Hill as another agent; and John Beal [The Vampire] as another of the partners.

Verdict: Too many characters and detours eventually add up to tedium. **1/2.

TROUBLEMAKER: SURVIVING HOLLYWOOD AND SCIENTOLOGY

TROUBLEMAKER: SURVIVING HOLLYWOOD AND SCIENTOLOGY. Leah Rimini. Ballantine; 2015.

In part memoir and in part excoriation of the horrible cult of scientology, Remini (with Rebecca Paley) has put together a gripping account of her trials and tribulations with the Cult of Cruise. Rimini, star for many seasons of The King of Queens (formerly she played Carla's daughter on Cheers), was indoctrinated into the cult at an early age, and grew up thinking it was normal to be washing toilets in a motel for $15 a week at the age of fourteen. Living conditions for the lesser scientologists are quite different from the way the "stars" live, and anyone who speaks out about those conditions is branded a "Suppressive Person" and winds up censured or, as real religions would put it, excommunicated. Members of the cult are strongly encouraged to tell on anyone who transgresses, or they will be considered transgressors themselves. Once a sane person decides to leave the "church," they must be cut off from people who remain in the "church," including members of their own family. Rimini makes it clear that the power of the cult has been greatly overestimated both in its numbers and -- despite the success of its most famous members -- in Hollywood (for every Tom Cruise there's an Anne Archer or Kirstie Alley, who is now better known for diet commercials than anything else). Like most cults, the rules for most members don't apply to leaders such as Tom Cruise or his buddy Tom Miscavige,whose wife Shelley has not been seen in public for many years. Rimini filed a Missing Persons report but got nowhere with the police. Perhaps out of embarrassment, Remini sort of downplays the fact that this "religion," founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, revolves around the influence of some outer space alien (yes!) This is not the first nor last expose on scientology, but Remini's comparatively high profile may finally make everyone see what a crock of shit it is.

Verdict: Good read which exposes some appalling situations. ***.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- ROGUE NATION

Rebecca Ferguson and Sean Harris

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- ROGUE NATION (2015). Writer/director: Christopher McQuarrie.

"Join the IMF. See the world. On a monitor. In a closet." -- Benjy

The Secretary of State (Alec Baldwin) disbands the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) because he feels that the success of its missions is mostly due to luck. In the meantime IMF leader Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is made aware of a sinister organization called the Syndicate that seems comprised of supposedly dead agents from around the world. [In an interesting touch the message Hunt gets that gives him his assignment is actually from the Syndicate and blows up!] Ethan repeatedly encounters a woman named Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) who seems to be working for the Syndicate but saves Ethan's life on more than one occasion. An excellent scene occurs at the Vienna State Opera when a hit is planned on the Austrian chancellor during a performance of "Turandot" (Puccini's music is more effective as a backdrop for this than one might imagine). Later Ethan and his gang, including Benjy (Simon Pegg of Star Trek into Darkness) and Luther (Ving Rhames), invade a stronghold to acquire a ledger with important information -- in an underwater, underground vault where Hunt is rapidly running out of air -- and later must kidnap the prime minister of England to prevent disaster! The performances in this are good, although there's some overacting from Cruise and others at times, and it's interesting to note that the star seems to surround himself with better but less prepossessing actors. Ferguson, Pegg and Sean Harris as the evil Lane are all quite good. MI -- Rogue Nation has some outstanding and exciting sequences, but oddly, no real climax. As usual the movie respects the original TV series by more or less remaining true to its origins, which is more than you can say about The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and others.

Verdict: Memorable action thriller. ***.

JACK REACHER

Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike

JACK REACHER (2012). Writer/director: Christopher McQuarrie.

When a military man is arrested for shooting five civilians, he insists that his lawyer, Helen (Rosamund Pike of Wrath of the Titans) -- the daughter of the district attorney -- get in touch with an investigator named Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise). Reacher is at first convinced of the man's guilt but the more he digs -- and once he is warned off the case and even attacked -- the more he realizes that there's more to the story than meets the eye. Five people were murdered but was just one of them the true target? And will Reacher survive to find out the truth? Jack Reacher is a credible suspense film, although the motivations of some of the characters and the reasons for their conspiracy are never fully explained. Werner Herzog, Robert Duvall, Alexia Fast, among others, offer good supporting performances, and Cruise [Mission: Impossible] gives his customary satisfactory "action star" turn. Although he has hardly any dialogue, the very intense Jai Courtney as a sinister bad guy almost manages to steal the movie away from Cruise with little effort. McQuarrie keeps things moving at a brisk pace and the film is very well photographed by Caleb Deschamel.

Verdict: Absorbing if imperfect thriller. ***.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) faces down "Max" (Redgrave)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996). Director: Brian De Palma.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is on a special "impossible" mission for the IMF [Impossible Missions Force] in Prague when everything goes south and his teammates are slaughtered all around him.  He is told by Kittridge (Henry Czerny, who plays Conrad Grayson on TV's Revenge) that the whole operation was merely a ruse to flush out a mole in the organization. Since Ethan appears to be the only one of the group who's still alive, he becomes the chief suspect and goes on the run. Trying to track down whoever murdered his comrades, he enters into a phony alliance with an arms dealer known only as "Max" (Vanessa Redgrave) and in the film's most suspenseful sequence must steal a list of important names from a nearly impregnable vault while hanging just inches from the ceiling; there is also a thrilling climax involving a helicopter and a high-speed train. While purists may quibble over the identity of the mastermind behind the dire plot, Mission: Impossible is an excellent update of and tribute to the very popular and long-running TV show, equally absurd at times but always fun. Cruise is well suited to this kind of material and does it well, while Jon Voight is fine as IMF head Jim Phelps. Jean Reno, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ving Rhames, and Emmanuelle Beart also have important roles. For some reason Emilio Estevez is uncredited as Jack, an early casualty of the IMF in Prague, although his performance is solid. Vanessa Redgrave is just splendid in her unusual turn as Max. The movie wisely uses Lalo Schifrin's theme music from the television program. Followed by three sequels.

Verdict: One of the classier television adaptations to hit theaters. ***1/2.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE -- GHOST PROTOCOL

Tom Cruise goes climbing

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE -- GHOST PROTOCOL (2011). Director: Brad Bird.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) of the Impossible Missions Force invades the Kremlin with his associates to obtain a nuclear control device, but a terrorist named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) beats him to it and sets off an explosion to cover up the theft to boot. Now Hunt and his group have to get the device back from Nyqvist and his associates before he can use it to set off a missile capable of devastating destruction. The best scene in the movie -- which unfortunately occurs at the midway point and not at the climax -- has Hunt climbing a skyscraper at 130 floors [for some contrived reason] with the seamless special effects making it seem as if Cruise himself is up there with no protective netting [sure!]. Cruise is fine as an action hero; Simon Pegg, Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner play the team members adeptly; and Lea Seydoux makes an impression as an evil if attractive assassin. [Patton and Deydoux have a rousing cat fight at one point.] Mission Impossible -- Ghost Protocol  is exciting, well-directed and quite well done for the most part, but ultimately it's a fairly standard spy movie with mostly unmemorable characters.

Verdict: Absurd but entertaining. ***.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005). Director: Steven Spielberg.

I've never been overly impressed by most of Spielberg's films, but I have to admit he knocked one out of the ball park with this impressive adaptation of H. G. Well's wonderful novel. This compares favorably to George Pal's 1953 version. Updated to modern times, this details what happens when meteors fall all over the Earth and unleash tripods [with martians inside] that destroy or capture human beings. Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) does his best to protect his daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) as some truly horrifying events, including an attack on a boat full of people, happen all around them. There are excellent special effects and also some pretty creepy and scary aliens on view. Well-acted [by Cruise, Tim Robbins in a supporting part, and others] and very well-directed by Spielberg. My only quibble is that some may feel that two hours of a little girl being terrorized doesn't add up to entertainment, but Spielberg always feels compelled to put children in danger in his movies.

Verdict: Eye-popping, thoroughly absorbing, and highly intense.***1/2.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 (2006). Directed by J. J. Abrahms.

This is a big improvement on the disappointing, lackluster Mission Impossible 2. Tom Cruise is back as an IMF agent who has decided to leave the field on the eve of his wedding. But various events keep taking him away from the lady in his life, and eventually he's forced to disobey orders so that he can go to her rescue. His main adversary in this is a nasty arms dealer named Davian, played with marvelously intense menace by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Ving Rhames is likable as a fellow agent, and Laurence Fishburne is excellent as IMF Director Brassel, who may or may not be working with Davian. There are many exciting sequences in the film, which is briskly directed by J.J. Abrahms of Alias fame. Highlights include the snatching of Davian from within Vatican city, and a mission to steal a top secret project from a Shanghai skyscraper. While MI3 is by no means a classic, it is certainly an entertaining time-passer. An amusing aspect of the MI movies is that the scripts borrow from old movie serials such as Hurricane Express in that the characters occasionally employ the use of heavy masks as disguises – Cruise becomes Hoffman at one point via a mask – with the other actor substituting for the one in disguise at an appropriate moment. The thing is that whether it's in Hurricane Express or the much more high-tech Mission Impossible 3 it's never believable that anyone would actually be fooled by the mask!

Verdict: High-energy action. ***.

LIONS FOR LAMBS

LIONS FOR LAMBS (2007). Director: Robert Redford. NOTE: On occasion Great Old Movies will review more recent films of interest.

Professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) talks to an underachieving, disaffected but intelligent student Todd (Andrew Garfield) whom he thinks might muff an opportunity to amount to something. During their conversation Malley brings up two minority, less privileged former classmates of Todd's -- Ernest (Michael Pena) and Arian (Derek Luke) -- who volunteered to serve in the Armed Forces in Afghanistan because they wanted to take a stand and be part of something. Malley doesn't know that these two young men are part of a new military initiative that has begun in Afghanistan, something that is the brainchild of Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise). As the professor and the student converse, so, too, do Irving and veteran TV journalist Janine Roth (Meryl Streep), who hopes to burrow through Irving's smugness and get some real meat out of him for her interview. She knows, however, that the network will just swallow and report whatever Irving tells them. These discussions are interspersed with scenes from Afghanistan, where Ernest and Arian are trapped by members of the Taliban.

Redford (filming a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan) takes on the media, the Republicans, the war on terrorism, social inequality, societal and personal indifference, the obsession with celebrities, ambitious-driven politicians, and so on in a 90 minutes that moves fairly quickly. It would be easy to dismiss Lions for Lambs as somewhat devoid of plot and action, as well as rather preachy and obvious -- all of which it is -- but it's also well-meaning, makes some good points, and is at least about something, unlike most of the films that are being made today. The scenes with the soldiers in Afghanistan are very moving, as well. Cruise is always at his best playing shallow media-savvy characters, so he's okay in this picture. Redford is effective enough as the professor, and Streep is simply excellent as Roth. Garfield, Pena and Luke are solid as the young men.

Verdict: Not for all tastes, but surprisingly effective. ***.

TOM CRUISE

TOM CRUISE An Unauthorized Biography. Andrew Morton. St. Martin's Press; 2008.

You won't find much about his films or acting technique in this bio of the movie star, but Morton does delve into the actor's psychology. The book has a rather dull, inauspicious opening, as it details Cruise's early life, and spends far too many pages refuting any claims that the homophobic Cruise might be gay, but Morton is a clever fellow and he knows that the only thing that infuriates Cruise more is any "attack" on his beloved Scientology. An increasingly horrifying read, the book makes clear that Cruise is a dangerous nut job wholly devoted to a "religion" that honestly wants to take over the world. The descriptions of his relationships with wives, girlfriends, family members, and those he wants to indoctrinate into his "faith," are chilling. Morton also delves into Cruise's bizarre relationship with Scientology head David Miscavige, the actor's odd behavior on the Oprah Winfrey show, and his attack on Brooke Shields simply because she took medication to help her deal with post-partum depression. Morton goes behind the scenes of the Scientology cult to expose its fanaticism, grotesque beliefs, and fascistic tendencies to attack and destroy anyone who disagrees with its tenets. [Cruise and his brethren actually compare negative attitudes toward Scientology with the Nazi persecution of Jews, Gays and others!] This is a fascinating, frightening read that reveals the power of, and damage done, by the obsession with celebrity.

Verdict: Excellent! ***1/2.