Tag: Simon Pegg

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

By إبن البيطار (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsWow. Just one film for a change. With luck we’ll catch a couple more with the kids at the weekend. Gillian can’t stand Tom Cruise (something to do with him being a) a jumped-up little **** and b) a scientologist, apparently) so I went by myself for this one.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

“I have arrived at the party!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Someone is trying to blow up the world, Tom Cruise and a couple of friends have to stop them

See it if you like: The last three films

This is the first time Brad Bird has directed a live action film – his previous record includes the excellent The Incredibles and Ratatouille. It seems like quite a departure, but one that works. Ghost Protocol isn’t the “biggest” of the MI films to date as far as the scale of the action sequences goes, but it’s probably got the best – and most Bond-esque – plot.

Cruise, Paula Patton and Simon Pegg reprise their roles from the previous film with Ving Rhames popping up for about three minutes (for which he reportedly earned twice what he did for his supporting part in M:I3). It’s a quote from Pegg’s character Benji that I’ve used above. Truly, Pegg has arrived at the party with this film. From obscure Channel 4 comedy to fully fledged supporting role in one of the most profitable current franchises alongside one of the world’s most bankable stars. Well done, sir.

There’s a nice dollop of humour in the film, most of which revolves around Benji, while the action is – as ever – focussed around Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. Jeremy Renner joins the cast as Brandt, a senior analyst and apparently a character who could be fleshed out should Cruise ever decide to leave the franchise. Token kick-ass female falls to Patton’s Jane.

As I said, the plot’s rather Bond-like with it’s twisted, psychotic villain and threat of global thermonuclear devastation. A terrorist named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) has developed the somewhat bonkers theory that the earth undergoes some sort of “cleansing” every few hundred thousand years. Meteors, ice ages and so forth have helped this go ahead in the past. This time, though, we’re in need of a kick-start. So he’s after some nuclear launch codes to trigger global devastation and a fresh start.

Bonkers.

After things go wrong for our small band of troops at the start of the story, they are officially disavowed by their government and forced to operate completely along – under the Ghost Protocol of the title. This leads to a new set of challenges as they only have access to the kit they can scavenge – there is no longer an IMF for them to be a part of.

The set pieces are good and the characters varied enough yet well gelled. If two characters are a little similar, it’s Hunt and Brandt for the reasons mentioned above. The bad guys are suitably cold, there are plenty of close-up combat scenes and the glamour is in full evidence with huge buildings, flash concept cars and the like being fully utilised.

Sure, you have to suspend your belief a bit (not least of all as to how them manage to make Cruise appear of regular height during the entire film), but it’s well worth it. Unlike Fast Five which just made itself bigger and more silly to up the ante for it’s latest instalment, M:I-GP has gone more for plot. The explosions are more “ouch, that must have hurt” than “wow, what else is there left in the world to blow up?” making for a more enjoyable film overall.

The best thing about it is that it’s not just more of the same. A good balance, a good cast and a good film as a result.

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Paul / Animal Kingdom / West Is West

Two nights, three films. Well, there’s lots out at the moment!

Paul

“Am I harvesting farts? How much can I learn from an ass?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: geeks find alien and go on a road trip with him.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost follow up a zombie film and a cop film with an alien film. They play a pair of nerds, travelling across the US to visit known UFO/conspiracy sites who come across an alien called Paul. Paul asks them to help him escape a group of “men in black” (led by somewhat psycho Jason Bateman) and to safety.

It’s a decent enough little road trip film with quite a few giggles, the majority of them low-brow. The CGI on Paul himself (voiced by Seth Rogan) is pretty impressive, but the characters themselves are more 2-dimensional.

I was really expecting great thing of Paul, much as I was of Hot Fuzz. Instead, I just enjoyed it (much as with the previous film). If anything, I had as much fun spotting the genre references – and there are many of them – as I did following the story.

Not the classic I was hoping for, but still not bad.

Animal Kingdom

“It’s a crazy ******* world.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Teenager gets involved in a world of crime courtesy of rather dodgy family members with silly accents.

This film was nominated for 18 awards in Australia, apparently. There are some great performances, but the story is sooooo slow it hit tedium point for me.

It’s set in Melbourne, from what I can figure, and tells of a young man who’s mother OD’s. As a result he ends up locating and moving in with his estranged grandmother and his uncles, who are all dodgy criminal types. As the family find themselves victimised by the police, Josh (James Frecheville) is pulled further into events he wants nothing to do with while Office Leckie (Guy Pearce) tries to use him to get to the family.

If it was a 60-minute TV drama, it would just about work. As it is, it’s just too long and drawn out. There are some tense moments and, as I said, some excellent performances (chief amongst these in my eyes is Jacki Weaver as the conniving granny). However, it just didn’t grip me or have me on the edge of my seat the way a thriller is meant to.

West Is West

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A domineering Pakistani dad takes his English-born son to “the homeland” to learn about his heritage.

Released 12 years after, but set 5 years after the original East is East, WiW takes the same family abroad to George Khan’s (Om Puri) homeland. Starting in Salford and moving to Pakistan, the film focuses on George’s relationships with his sons, wife and… erm… other wife.

Young Sajid (Aqib Khan) is struggling at school, mainly he’s being bullied at school for being a “Paki”. He blames his father for this, and dad decided that the best way to deal with it is to take the kid to Pakistan. After all, he has family there – Sajid’s brother who’s looking for a wife, and George’s ex-wife and daughters who he walked out on three decades earlier.

The first film, despite being a comedy and hilarious in parts, was a very good social commentary on Mr Khan’s attempts to make his mixed race, English-born kids grow up as “proper” Muslims. WiW follows in this vein without repeating the story of the previous instalment. The humour isn’t racial or racist in style and manages to bring across the problems that such a family may have faced back in the 1970s.

It’s also more of a drama and less of a comedy than EiE. Certainly the laughs are fewer and less intense, but if you take it as a different type of film then it does its job well. The cast are all great, British and Pakistani; young and old alike.

Not one I’d suggest rushing out to the cinema to see, but certainly worth renting when it hits DVD.

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Red / Burke and Hare / Easy A

Assuming that M Law Solicitors don’t demand I take down this blog post for defaming a film for giving it bad reviews (as they did with my post regarding Parking Eye, which I still maintain wasn’t defamatory as it was in the public interest), please enjoy the following catch-up from the last 2 weeks’ abuse of my Cineworld pass.

Red

“Time to open up the pig”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a group of retired secret agents take on the CIA to find out who’s put them on a “to be killed” list.

This is another in the current run of bigger-than-life action films that seem to be putting bums on seats at the moment. It’s also one of the best, mainly due to a novel idea and a superb cast. Come on – Helen Mirren with guns? How can that not be cool?

The rest of the eldsters are played by Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman. Freeman could be in the biggest cinematic turd in history and would still make his sequences worth watching, but fortunately Red is no such bum-dropping and is instead just good fun.

There’s plenty of action and it makes full use of the common trend of using CGI rather than stuntmen to a large degree. I still prefer more old-school effects (Raiders is the best Indy film by a mile for several reasons, this being one of them), but it doesn’t stop Red being any less enjoyable.

Definitely go see.

Burke and Hare

“That… would be an artery”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two Irish guys stumble across a nice way of making money – selling corpses to a medical school. Only what happens when they run out of fresh meat?

Honestly, can Simon Pegg do know wrong? I honestly don’t think I’ve seen him in a film I’ve not enjoyed yet. When you add the likes of Andy Serkis and Tim Curry to the cast, then top it off with Ronnie Corbett it would take some kind of miracle to destroy it. Get John Landis to direct and you may as well buy your ticket without seeing a review.

Burke and Hare is perfect Halloween fodder. It’s set in the 19th century, it’s grisly, it’s tasteless and it’s funny. I’d not recommend it for younger kids due to some of the scenes being a little too “eeeeewww” but other than that it’s superb.

There are loads of little references in the background (Greyfriar’s Bobby makes an appearance) and the original historical tale does make for decent film material, even if the facts have been moulded somewhat.

Looking at the other horrors available this Halloween, this has to be the best of the bunch.

Easy A

“That’s the one thing that trumps religion… capitalism”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: shy teen pretends to nob schoolmates for cash/vouchers until it all goes too far

I didn’t expect to enjoy this, despite the trailer being “OK”. After all, it’s a teen-girl-at-a-school film, and they’re pretty formulaic. I just went as it was on at a good time for me to fill 90 minutes of an afternoon.

Oh, I love it when I’m proved wrong.

Easy A has a fantastic script, beautiful dialogue, an in credible wit and a decent story. Emma Stone is excellent as Olive, the girl who gets talked into pretending to sleep with a gay classmate to stop him being bullied for his sexuality. Who then recommends him to others, until she’s made out to be the school slut.

The supporting cast are all well-played from her hilarious family, to the wise-cracking English teacher and the bonkers Christian brigade. There genuinely is not a dull moment.

While Olive does bemoan the fact that her life story wasn’t directed by John Hughes, it could have been. It’s that good.

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