Mission: Impossible – the Final Reckoning

What to say about The Final Reckoning? 

The sound is cool. The sound, in fact, is the best part. There’s also a very good sequence on a Russian submarine. But mostly this is just soooo serious. Every line is delivered ponderously, as if we won’t know that the entirety of humanity, the lives of billions of people, perhaps the future of all life on this planet is at stake. 

Like… ok. But lighten up a bit. Everyone is so fucking intense in this. Also, this movie brings back Dead Reckoning Part One’s truly hilarious method of exposition, where four or more people (sometimes in completely different scenes and time sequences) tell us important plot information seamlessly. Instead of one voice, we get multiple! It makes no literal sense whatsoever, and it’s so funny.

As far as I am concerned, this was kind of a disaster.

28 Years Later... (2025)

Zombies are scary in general. They are living reminders of death, they are death on its way to kill you, stalking you, hunting you. (Which is, of course, what death is doing.) 

28 Years Later... has some good scares, too. The film’s main intertext is Hamlet, I think (despite all the clips of Olivier’s Henry V throughout the film). Not that 28 Years Later... is a revenge tale or a search for a murdered father, but the central character here has a mother whom he loves, as well as a stepfather and a missing father. More important is the memento mori aspect that is so essential to Hamlet: the respect for the dead and the reminder always that we too must die. This devotion to Hamlet (and Hamlet's stoicism) explains, too, the wry stoic quality that is essential to the way 28 Years Later… works. 

The Danny Boyle flourishes in this movie really make it sing, I think. I liked the “Jimmy” puzzle and I am very curious about the WWI references. I’ll wait for the sequel.

How to Train Your Dragon Redux

We probably didn’t need a "live-action" (i.e. mostly-CGI) remake of How to Train Your Dragon in the year of our lord 2025. The original three movies are already so good! Why mess with them? But it’s impossible to be mad at this new How to Train Your Dragon. The cast is great, the story still rocks, and there are so many lovely dragons. The whole thing is a bit more sentimental than I would have liked, but John Powell's new score is great. And Toothless continues to be the coolest dragon in the world. 

Some additional thoughts: 

1. I am so sick of movies in which parents refuse to listen to the young people in their lives. It’s almost unforgivable. Like… just listen. It can’t be that hard. 
2.  The 3D made this whole thing feel a bit like a ride. 
3.  This movie is in favor of a free Palestine.

F1 (2025)

Joseph Kosinski does it again. F1 is great. It hits every beat it needs to. The sound is amazing. The script is perfect Hollywood nonsense, but it cleverly avoids most of the worst traps. And this movie has Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon, so the acting is just fuckin stellar. All three are absolutely pitch perfect. Damson Idris is great in the Miles Teller part. Sarah Niles is wonderful. The whole thing just sings. 

And, sure, it’s a retread of Maverick. I mean, yeah fine. It’s mostly about the same thing and it’s mostly a similar script, and the director’s the same, and it’s giving "older guy bucks the system and blesses the young people with his wisdom". But I didn’t care one bit. I saw this on a gigantic screen and it felt like I was on a ride the whole time, and this rocked. Great score, great soundtrack, great editing. I was into it.

(PS. Why did they sell this as F1: the Movie? That makes no sense to me.)