MISSION : IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE' - Tuesday 11th July 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'MISSION : IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE' earlier this week, and this eagerly awaited American action spy film is the seventh film in the 'Mission : Impossible' franchise, and is a sequel to 2018's 'Mission : Impossible - Fallout'. This film is once again Directed, Co-Written and Co-Produced by Christopher McQuarrie who also helmed 'Fallout' and 2015's 'Mission : Impossible - Rogue Nation'. The first six films in the ever popular franchise grossed worldwide US$3.57B at the Box Office off the back of combined production budgets of US$828M. 'Dead Reckoning - Part Two' is slated for release on 28th June 2024 with Christopher McQuarrie again in the Director's chair with Parts One and Two being filmed back to back. This film cost US$290M to produce, and has so far grossed US$20M.

Here the film opens up on board a Russian nuclear submarine under the pack ice of the Bering Sea - The Sevastopol - with two high ranking naval officers each with one half of an interlocking key forming a crucifix like shape, insert said key into an AI device that renders the submarine invisible to other foreign vessels so allowing it to stealthily potentially invade any other country's naval fleet undetected. Up on the radar screen comes the sighting of a foreign submarine that the Captain gives the order to arm the torpedo tubes and engage. But the foreign vessel has already launched a torpedo attack on the supposed invisible Sevastopol. As the crew prepare for impact in the closing seconds the torpedo's simply disappear, as does the foreign submarine that the Sevastopol had already sent torpedo's toward. The AI device is seen going into overdrive, as its own torpedo's turn around and head back in the direction from whence they came, detonating on impact and killing every crew member on board, many of whom float to the surface only to be trapped under thick sea ice, with the Sevastopol sinking to the bottom of the sea. 

IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, who also Co-Produces here) is assigned to retrieve half of a key from his ally and disavowed MI6 Agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who has a bounty of US$50M placed on her. He travels to the Arabian Desert, engages in a gunfight during a sand storm with a bunch of bounty hunters and briefly reunites with Ilsa with them both having seen off all the hunters. After staging the scene, he tells her that to all intents and purposes she is now dead, and therefore to lay very low. 

Back in the US, Ethan infiltrates a meeting of the Community, where officials of various intelligence agencies, including former IMF Director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and the Director of National Intelligence Denlinger (Cary Elwes), discuss an experimental AI called the Entity. Originally designed to sabotage digital systems, the Entity turned rogue, expanded to potential sentience, and infiltrated all major defence and military systems and intelligence networks worldwide. The worlds key power players are now racing both to prevent sabotage and to gain control of the Entity, which rests with both halves of the key, although no one knows at this point what the key is for!

Ethan firmly believes that the Entity is too powerful for anyone to control, and so he vows to destroy it. He and his teammates Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) travel to Abu Dhabi International Airport to intercept the holder of the other half of the key. Ethan evades Community agents as well as Gabriel (Esai Morales), an Entity liaison with ties to his pre-IMF past, before losing the half-key to professional thief and expert pick-pocket Grace (Hayley Atwell). Meanwhile, Benji identifies an item of luggage containing a suspected explosive device sent by the Entity, and he races through the back of house baggage conveyer to locate it and defuse it. With the device counting down from four minutes with a series of riddles to answer, Benji is successful in disarming what turns out to be a fake nuclear device. Rattled by the Entity's seeming foresight and the appearance of Gabriel, Ethan goes after Grace alone, and tells Benji and Luther to abort their mission. Ethan is able to dodge past the Community agents with Grace evading Ethan who boards her planned flight to Rome. When in Rome however, she is picked up by the local Police revealing that she is wanted in several countries for theft, extortion, bribery etc. and is in possession of about a dozen different passports all bearing photographs of her likeness. 

In Rome, Ethan tracks down Grace by pretending to be her lawyer, before Community agents and Gabriel close in. After a lengthy high speed car chase through the streets and alleyways of Rome Grace escapes again, but Ethan is picked up by his team and Ilsa. With Benji and Luther providing support, Ethan and Ilsa infiltrate a party held by arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby), aka 'The White Widow' in Venice, hoping to find the buyer for the complete key, as well as what it unlocks. Grace is also present as is Gabriel. Grace delivers the half-key to Alanna while Ethan fails to talk Alanna out of selling the key. 

Gabriel delivers an ultimatum to Ethan, saying that he must choose which one of Grace or Ilsa is to die. The team scatters, with Ethan being chased down on foot by Paris (Pom Klementieff), a stone cold French assassin working for Gabriel. Ethan faces off in a gated at either end narrow alleyway against Paris and one of her colleagues, overpowering them both, but sparring their lives. Gabriel meanwhile knocks Grace out and kills Ilsa before Ethan arrives on the scene. He is devastated by her loss.

Grace is wracked by remorse over the death of Ilsa and is convinced to join Ethan's team. They prepare to board the Innsbruck-bound Orient Express train where Alanna plans to meet the buyer. Luther leaves for an off-grid location to investigate traces of the Entity on his hard drive. On the train, Gabriel kills the conductor, destroys the brakes and fires up the engine to gain maximum speed. He meets Denlinger, who proposes an alliance between himself and the Entity. Denlinger explains the complete key unlocks the chamber containing the computer of Sevastopol, a Russian submarine sunk by its own torpedo. An early version of the Entity was injected into the system with the task of sabotaging the submarine's stealth capability, but it instead tricked the Sevastopol into destroying itself. This early version is still on the submarine, and whoever can access it can devise the means to either control or destroy the Entity. Gabriel kills Denlinger and attempts to kill Paris to ensure only he knows about the key’s purpose. He further says to Paris that she will betray him to Ethan, because he spared her life. Grace reluctantly agrees to impersonate Alanna, as long as Ethan is standing right beside her in disguise, but the machine which 3D prints their face masks fails as Ethan's masks is being printed. Grace goes it alone disguised as Alanna and brings the complete key to the buyer, who turns out to be Kittridge. Though tempted to betray Ethan for a reward of US$100M and protection for her very good friend Grace, she sides with Ethan just as the bank transfer gives the command to accept or decline the transfer of monies, and so presses decline. She then pickpockets the key from Kittridge, and flees back up the train. 

Ethan, meanwhile, in constant radio contact with Benji is riding his motorbike alongside the Orient Express with the intention of jumping onto it when it slows down to take a bend in the tracks. Little do the pair know that Gabriel has sabotaged the train and it is accelerating uncontrollably. Ethan misses the crossing point and so Benji directs him up to the next point when he can intercept the train. This leads Ethan to ride up narrow mountain paths and fire trails, until he comes to a halt on the edge of a perilous cliff. Benji asks Ethan if he can see the train to which he responds with a yes, and then tells Ethan to jump off the cliff as he has a parachute on his back. And so Ethan does just that, and rides his motorbike off a cliff and successfully lands in the train saving Grace from being shot by Zola Mitsopolis (Frederick Schmidt), Alanna's brother, but Gabriel escapes with the key. 

Ethan overpowers Gabriel on the roof of the speeding train but is prevented from killing him by Community agents Briggs (Shea Whigham) and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis). Gabriel escapes the train and initiates a countdown to detonate the viaduct bridge crossing ahead. Grace and Ethan detach the locomotive from the other carriages and save the passengers, but they are not able to escape. 

Just as they are about to plunge down the broken bridge, they are saved by Paris, who is near death. Paris mutters to Ethan of the Sevastopol before falling unconscious. As Ethan flees the train with a one-man chute, he tells Grace that she can trust Kittridge and that she should join the IMF. Grace then informs Kittridge that she has chosen to join IMF. Ethan meets with Benji when he lands at the bottom of the valley and they drive off with the key that Ethan pickpocketed during the fight with Gabriel, who is seen very angry indeed that his precious key has been replaced with a Zippo lighter. 

With 'Mission : Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One' Writer, Producer and Director McQuarrie and Producer and star Cruise have crafted another non-stop, heart pounding action joy ride in this franchise that is now 27 years old, and for which Cruise has been playing the titular lead character for almost half his life. And at age 61 now, Tom Cruise does not seem to be letting up on the action set pieces as he prefers to work all his stunts, firmly in the belief that this is what the audience wants to see, and it's what gets bums on seats. And who can argue with that, because it seems to be paying off as 'Top Gun : Maverick' and early reviews of this latest 'M:I' offering would attest to. The film boasts a stellar cast who are all on point, a plot-line that is firmly planted in the present, well choreographed action set pieces that will keep you glued to the screen, stunning locations, a smattering of suspense, some occasional wry humour, and at a run time of just above 160 minutes that flies by and will never leave you wanting. My only criticism is all the angst ridden dialogue around 'The Entity' which if it is mentioned once, it is referenced a hundred times rendering it more like gobbledegook mumbo jumbo rather than the creation of a whole new world order that is implied. That said, next years 'Part Two' can't come soon enough.

'Mission : Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

OPERATION FORTUNE : RUSE DE GUERRE - Tuesday 17th January 2023.

'OPERATION FORTUNE : RUSE DE GUERRE' which I saw earlier this week is an M Rated American spy action comedy film Co-Written and Directed by Guy Ritchie whose previous film making credits take in the likes of 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', 'Snatch', 'Sherlock Holmes', 'Sherlock Holmes : Game of Shadows', 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.', 'Aladdin', 'The Gentlemen' and 'Wrath of Man' in 2021. It was originally slated for release at the end of January last year and then mid-March 2022. In mid-February 2022, the film was pulled from the release schedule without comment by the studio. Reports indicate the film was pulled from release, not due to the COVID-19 pandemic as before, but because it featured gangsters of Ukrainian nationality as the main antagonist's henchmen. The film's Producers thought it would be of bad taste, in light of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War, for the movie to present 'Ukrainian baddies'. The film has garnered mixed or average Reviews and so far has grossed US$11.0M in Box Office receipts since its international release on 4th January and in Australia from the 12th January. 

The film opens up with a seemingly well executed raid on a secret tech lab, where the perpetrators of said raid steal a device that is dubbed 'The Handle'. It is determined that the device must have importance since its price tag on the black market is US$10B. It turns out that the nefarious perpetrators of the raid were the Ukrainian mob. The British government, under the auspices of Norman Knighton (Eddie Marsan) recruits Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes) to locate and retrieve, by almost any means possible, The Handle before it falls in to the hands of billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant) who in turn would then sell it to the highest bidder. Jasmine recruits his go to man and super spy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham, who also Co-Produces here, and collaborates with Ritchie for the fifth time) as well as the very tech savvy Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza), the very handy sharp shooter JJ Davies (Bugzy Malone) and various others. 

And so the team travels to Madrid, seeking the courier intended to transport the hard drive containing the data from The Handle. Their search is scuppered by former colleague of Fortune, Mike (Peter Ferdinando) who has gone out on his own, hired a crack team and who also seems to have been hired to retrieve The Handle. Fortune and JJ manage to prevent Mike's team from getting to the courier and take him away, but he suffers a heart attack and dies before telling them the entire code. However, Sarah manages to copy the hard drive's contents before Mike catches up with them and steals it.

Sarah learns that Simmonds plans to host a charity gala aboard his lavish yacht in Cannes. The team decides to infiltrate the yacht by blackmailing Simmonds' all time favourite movie star, Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) into helping them. While Simmonds is distracted by Danny, Fortune deals with another of Mike's men masquerading as a waiter, and Sarah is tasked with getting close to Simmonds' phone so JJ can clone it, so allowing the team to track the arms dealer. Simmonds encourages Danny to spend the weekend at his Turkish villa in Antalya, so that he can gain inspiration for his next movie role which Danny describes as being a mysterious self made billionaire type, to which Simmonds replies that he's just described him! Fortune stealthily breaks into the Ukrainian mafia house to hack their computers, disguising it as a robbery by stealing cash and jewellery. The British government meanwhile calls Nathan to warn him that The Handle is an advanced artificial intelligence that can be programmed to defeat any security system in the world. Learning from the computer information that the exchange for The Handle will take place in Antalya, the team travels to Turkey, and take up Simmonds offer to stay at his villa.

While Simmonds shows Danny his private car collection, Fortune and JJ follow Simmonds' right hand man Ben Harris (Max Beesley) with Fortune giving chase on foot while JJ helps to track the man from his vehicle. After a chase through the side streets and alleyways, Harris attacks Fortune, who by accident is killed when he falls over a protective railing at the top of a tall lookout tower. Fortune stands in for Harris at the exchange (as the Ukrainians would be unfamiliar with what Harris looks like) with Sarah using a computer programme to disguise Fortunes's voice to that of Harris's in order to fool Simmonds, so that he can relay a sixteen digit access code to activate The Handle. 

The exchange goes south when Fortune is recognised by one of the Ukrainian guards who was at the house the night Fortune broke in. Danny and Sarah escape Simmonds' villa before Simmonds learns what they have been doing. Meanwhile, Mike arrives, attacks, and kills everyone except Fortune and steals The Handle. JJ saves Fortune by taking out Mike's henchmen from afar, and the two take a helicopter to go to the aid of Danny and Sarah.

Nathan informs the team that Mike was not hired by any government and that he has gone rogue, and that a third party contracted him to steal The Handle. Lacking knowledge about the buyer, Fortune suggests talking to Simmonds. In spite of the problems the team caused him, Simmonds is willing to help, telling them that the buyers were a pair of billionaire bio-tech moguls, Arnold and Trent, whose intended use of The Handle is to create a worldwide financial collapse, while becoming richer through their ownership of large quantities of gold, which would become the world's only stable economic asset. 

And so Simmonds and Danny go to confront Arnold, Trent, and Mike in Arnold and Trent's HQ. Fortune successfully infiltrates the place by taking out numerous goons with support from Sarah and JJ. After Simmonds and Danny have said their piece and made their own demands, they leave. Mike tells his men to kill Arnold and Trent, starting a shoot-out. Fortune arrives after the carnage and manages to retrieve The Handle, but is then attacked by Mike, who is beaten about the head several times with the case containing The Handle, killing him stone dead. 

Fortune, Sarah and JJ follow Nathan to Doha, where they are offered another job, only for them to decide to take a holiday. Nathan demands that Fortune return the cash and jewels from the robbery at the Ukrainian villa, but reveals that he's used the proceeds to finance Danny's latest movie project in which he plays a fictionalised version of Greg Simmonds.

'Operation Fortune : Ruse de Guerre' is formulaic and predictable fare for sure, but nonetheless entertaining enough. The cast led by 'The Stath' who once again is in full ass-kicking, gun-toting, quips at the ready mode falls effortlessly into his usual tough guy persona, ably supported by those other British screen acting veterans Grant, Elwes and Marsan who all looked as though they were having a good time in making this film, as did the token American contingent of Hartnett and Plaza. For Writer and Director Ritchie, he has certainly found his calling with this type of action comedic offering and it appears, for now at least, that he doesn't want to deviate away from it. He delivers the action set pieces well enough, the humorous one-liners raised a smile and the occasional chuckle, but the story line is just a little too far fetched to keep it grounded or relatable. It's an enjoyable romp, not up there with his best, but for an early year start to big screen entertainment where you can switch off and just go with the flow, you could do worse.

'Operation Fortune : Ruse de Guerre' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE UNHOLY : Tuesday 20th April 2021.

'THE UNHOLY' is an M Rated American supernatural horror film which I saw at my local multiplex earlier this week. Written for the screen, Co-Produced, and Directed by Evan Spiliotopoulos in his film making debut, this is based on the 1983 novel 'Shrine' by the acclaimed British horror author James Herbert. Released in the US earlier this month, the film has so far grossed US$11M off the back of a US$10M production budget and has generated mixed Reviews so far. Sam Raimi Co-Produces here.

The films opening sequence is set in 1845 with the execution of a woman for witchcraft. She is hoisted up an old oak tree, an iron mask is nailed to her face and she is burned alive, while a Priest binds her body inside the chained up body of a clay doll. Fast forward to the present day and disgraced albeit very successful former journalist and skeptic Gerry Fenn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) works for a lowly publication reporting on strange and mysterious stories. We join him as he drives into Banfield, Massachusetts to meet with a local farmer claiming that his prized cow has been allegedly mutilated by some otherworldly force. It turns out to be nothing more that a teenage prank. However, as Fenn prepares to leave, under that same old oak tree as was seen in the opening sequence, he notices something glistening in the bright sunlight. Venturing over to investigate further, partially buried under the soil he uncovers the same doll, wrapped in chains with a date stamp - the 31st February 1845. The farmer siddles up and takes a look over Fenn's shoulder and notices that its just another corn doll that are a common occurrence in these parts and they are forever cropping up in the fields. But this one is different. Fenn crushes its head beneath his boot, not knowing that in so doing he has unintentionally set the woman's spirit free. 

When driving out of Banfield later that evening, Fenn crashes his car headlong into a tree when a girl dressed in a white gown suddenly appears right in front of him, forcing him to swerve suddenly to avoid hitting her. He gives chase through the forest undergrowth and comes to a clearing to find the young girl staring at the same old oak tree where Fenn had earlier in the day found the doll. From behind he hears her talking and then she collapses. He knocks on the door of the nearby church having carried the girl there and is greeted by Father Hagan (William Sadler) who beckons them in. It turns out that the girl is called Alice Pagett (Cricket Brown) and she is a deaf mute, and that Father Hagan took in her in years ago when her own parents died, and has been her guardian ever since, raising the late teenager as through she was his own. Hagan says that it would have been impossible for Alice to speak as she has never been able to talk or hear anything. When Alice comes round she speaks, dumbfounding Hagan, and leading Fenn to believe that this story may just have some merit, so he decides to stay and investigate further. 

The next day during a church service, Alice gets up mid-way through and walks outside followed by other younger members of the congregation, then their parents, Fenn and Hagan. She walks up to the old oak tree and stuns the gathered onlookers by speaking clearly and claiming that she has been cured by the Virgin Mary who speaks directly to her. Needless to say this leads to a media frenzy, and in the process Alice heals a young wheelchair bound lad who is unable to walk, but miraculously is able to for the first time by having faith. All of this is filmed by Fenn.

Within a few days the Catholic Church send Monsignor Delgarde (Diogo Morgado) to investigate whether the claims of miracle healings are genuine or fake. He says that for a miracle to be truly considered genuine it must meet three key criteria - first, that it is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, second the healing must be instant, and third, it must be long lasting. He further states that he has debunked many so called miracles. He is assisted by Bishop Gyles (Cary Elwes). Fenn asks Delgarde and Gyles for exclusivity of the story, and although they are both fully aware of Fenn's chequered history as a now disgraced journalist, they agree. And so Fenn befriends Alice and begins filming his interviews with her, during which time he comes to realise that while she has been speaking with a Mary, it has only been assumed by her that this has been the Virgin Mary, and not some other entity. In the meantime, Fenn has been experiencing his own visions of a sinister Mary figure. This leads him back to Father Hagan, who has also been healed of emphysema by Alice, but also suspects the true nature behind the healings, having had visions of his own. He says that whenever God builds a church, the Devil builds a chapel next door!

Father Hagan discovers an old bound book in a wall cavity detailing the death of Mary Elnor (Marina Mazepa) the woman hanged and burned back in 1845. Mary sold her soul to Satan in order to seek revenge for her death. He would allow her and her descendants, revealed to be Alice, to perform 'miracles' so people would pledge themselves to her and in turn to Satan. To their horror they learn that Alice, who they believe is unaware of Mary's true nature, wishes to hold a service by the tree which is now cordoned off under a big marquee like structure, turning it into a shrine, and broadcast it to the masses. Father Hagan tries to prevent this, but is ultimately visited by the evil spirt of Mary Elnor in his church and winds up very dead suspended from the rafters of the church by his neck.

Meanwhile Fenn is scouring through the archives of the town in the HQ of the Boston archdiocese in an attempt to uncover more of the sinister events that occurred on that 'impossible date' in 1845 while on his mobile phone to local physician Natalie Gates (Katie Aselton) who had previously treated Alice when she was first seemingly cured. As he does so the microfiche files suddenly melt away and the statue of the Virgin Mary in the room begins to crumble and crack. In disbelief at what he is witnessing, the physical embodiment of Mary Elnor appears out of the crumbled Virgin Mary and lurches to attack. Delgarde enters the room brandishing a Holy Bible, a crucifix and chanting at which point the evil spectre vanishes into thin air. 

Back in Banfield, Fenn, Delgarde and Gates go to the church, and on the alter prepare to recite the spell from the bound book previously uncovered by Hagan. But Mary Elnor is already one step ahead of them and out of nowhere the cross standing proudly over the alter bursts into flames and comes crashing down on top of Delgarde. 

As the service begins marking The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Alice, now standing at the shrine, says that Mary is speaking with her and urges everyone to pledge themselves to her three times. Fenn and Gates manage to stop the crowd from fully pledging, saying that none of the miracles are real, and they were all a result of the placebo effect, and that the whole story was fabricated by him. This causes Mary Elnor to angrily appear and kill Bishop Gyles before attempting to kill Fenn. She is stopped by Alice, who sacrifices herself to save his life. This in turn causes Mary to disintegrate, as Alice was her last surviving link to the living world, and as the old oak tree erupts into flame. Struck by her sacrifice, Fenn begs God to save Alice's life. She comes back to life, but is restored to her former deaf-mute status.

'The Unholy' is not a bad film, but it's also not that good. There are a few genuine jump scares here; the imagery of the resurrected evil Mary Elnor are surprisingly effective; the combination of Morgan, Brown and Sadler elevate the film above other similar standard offerings; and while the film starts out promising much it quickly falls into familiar predictable territory that we have seen more times than you can hold a crucifix to. Which is a shame because James Herbert's 1983 book was highly acclaimed at the time of its release, with many reviewers, including the Daily Express saying 'Thrills and chills galore from the best-seller Herbert . . . his best yet . . . the build-up to the horrifying climax is subtle and sophisticated . . . ' But here the Director seems to have sacrificed all those thrills and chills and the horrifying climax for a by the numbers routine and largely unoriginal offering. 

'The Unholy' warrants two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-