The Fantastic 4FucksSake!

So for the past month my local multiplex has had one of those promotional photo-opportunity statues that they have in the foyer nowadays instead of information or a seating area or basic customer service and what a forlorn figure it is. This is of course Ben Grimm, a.k.a. "The Thing", from 'The Fantastic Four' reboot standing there, unloved like a stubborn, knobbly, giant turd that just won't flush away. As an advertisement for the movie it is more than apt.

It's not the worst superhero movie out there, but it is the worst one featuring Marvel licensed characters, and yes, I have seen 'Ghost Rider'. It's a joyless, soul-less film that really does make you berate yourself for not opting to watch something else instead.

This is the third 'Fantastic Four' film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox and whilst the original two films weren't exactly classics of the genre they did at least offer campy, high-spirited, family-orientated fun....and there's nothing wrong with that. The sequel, 'Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer ', did good box office but took less money than the first one and it obviously rankled Fox that their franchise was deemed lightweight compared to the 'Batman' franchise, the 'X-Men' franchise and the increasingly impressive Marvel universe. So what to do? Reboot the franchise, of course, make it dark, make it as realistic as possible, keep it serious, find four leads with no chemistry between them and don't do anything ambitious with it. That'll work. That's what people want.

Stop getting 'The Fantastic Four' wrong. Just stop it.

I like the 'Fantastic Four'. It was one of Marvel's best titles. The best 'Fantastic Four' comics are are full of colourful psychedelic weirdness and out-there imagination but kept grounded by the family unit squabbles that keep it real . That was always the genius of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby title: mythic storytelling and imagery blended with soap opera. It works every time. 'The Fantastic Four' does not lend itself to dark and moody any more than Superman does and like 'Man Of Steel' you can feel this film crumbling under its own portentous weight. Oh....and it's shit.

The film starts off in blandly interesting fashion. There's some character background stuff we have to wade through, with Reed Richards and Ben Grimm as kids, to show us how this forms their characters as adults. It's the usual stuff of a brainy kid messing about with salvaged scrap and turning it into technological wizardry whilst his best friend has his back. It's alright I suppose, but if you grew up in the 80s you've seen this stuff countless times before: think 'Explorers', 'Flight Of The Navigator', 'D.A.R.Y.L' and any number of those films that try to mimic Spielberg. It just takes too long to play out, and there's not enough laughs along the way and you feel like you've been through college with these guys and you just wish something would happen and all you really learn is that Reed is super brainy and that Ben was bullied by his brother, who, get this used the phrase ,"It's clobberin' time!" Oh so that's where he gets it from! Dark and gritty stuff. Cringe.

The film takes some really bold decisions I suppose. Like having Ben Grimm played by Jamie Bell as some sort of gormless hanger-on who doesn't seem to do anything other than sleep all day. Like having Sue Storm being the mental match for Reed Richards because she can do "pattern recognition" whilst listening to Portishead. Like having Johnny Storm as someone we're supposed to care about because he wants to drive really fast cars but his Dad won't let him. Like having Victor Von Doom as some sort of sullen emo kid who needs a slap.

Can we talk about Doctor Doom a moment? One of the finest villains in the Marvel universe and every time these film-makers get it wrong. The only film-maker who got it right was George Lucas and he had to call the character Darth Vader to get away with it. So that's what you should have done Fox. You should have put Darth Vader in this movie and called him Dr. Doom. Instead of a mask we get a badly face painted Dr Doom who has somewhat ridiculously fused with his own space suit so that we can see his lips but they don't move but still he speaks. Or something. It's just awful. He looks awful. He sounds awful. They've made him comically super powered but still he has no presence at all. Just awful.

Anyway, eventually, eventually they build this quantum space, inter dimensional teleporter thing, get drunk and take it out for a test run.  Think of the possibilities for this, think visually, think of the Jack Kirby inspired kaleidoscopic mindscapes this could open up, think of how stunning the special effects will be - the modern equivalent of the stargate sequence from '2001: A Space Odyssey'. Keep thinking about it because what you actually get is....the craft teleporting to a barren prehistoric landscape. You know the sort of thing. Red rocks, black skies, lightning. I mean, your average episode of  'Doctor Who' can conjure up something a bit more inspired than this, but not to worry folks, we're basically going to spend the rest of the movie here. Yawn.

Oh well, at least the transformation scenes will be good, you foolishly think. But no, what happens is that our intrepid explorers get slimed by some living green electrical stuff. Not very fantastic, I know, but an hour into the film we at last get to see Bendy Man, Fire Man, Rock Turd Man and Superfluous Girl go through their paces.

I don't even understand how superfluous girl got her powers. She just sort of gets them by proxy because going into quantum dimensional space is clearly a men only affair. She's not invited along by the gang even after a big speech about how those who develop the technology that moves mankind forward are never appreciated. Reed Richards decides that his freeloading bum of a friend from way back in the day is more integral to the project than science girl and asks him along instead.

It's one fucking stupid movie.

And then we get the title card "One Year Later" and basically that's the good part of the film done with. It's all downhill from here.

I don't exactly know what happened because I wasn't in the room but I think it's a pretty safe bet that 20th Century Fox executives developed the film to this exact point and then turned to the creative team and said -

"From this point on just fill up the screen time with any old shit you can think of; just drag it out as long as you can. Make sure you only use two locations. Don't even think about using daylight, we have to keep this dark, it's what the kids want. We don't want to spend too much on special effects so just include some token stuff to show what powers they have. We'll save doing the good stuff until the sequel. I want to see Dr Doom as a superhuman badass who explodes peoples heads off at will like he's auditioning for 'Scanners' and most importantly I want a great big pillar of light shooting up to a big circle in the sky like in every other film because the Illuminati are paying for this shit and that's what they want to see. Any questions? No? Good. Now, get to work."

I imagine it was something like that. If it was, they did an excellent job of fulfilling the brief.

Honestly, the second half of this movie is such an avalanche of bad decisions, monotone delivery and confusion that you can't believe a major studio had the gall to release it. It's not fit for purpose. It is purely motivated by greed, franchise building and bandwagon jumping. Every frame of the last half is just a big fuck you that screams 'we've got your money, now sit through this shit, 'cos we don't care".

I have no idea what Doctor Doom was trying to achieve at the end of this film. I have no idea why flame boy and turd man were complicit in  working for the military. I have no idea why Mr Fantastic was fanny-ing about in Mexico. I have no idea why or how the Fantastic Four saved the day or from what exactly they saved us from.

I do know that it was not fantastic in any way.

This film does not fail because of bad acting, bad writing or bad direction; it would be better if it did,  because at least then you could laugh at it. This film fails because it has no idea what it wants to do with the property other than have the name 'The Fantasic Four' on the poster outside ( or more acurately -  'Fant4stic' - ffs). It's just back story and exposition that tells you nothing you need to know and leads nowhere. There is no story. We meet the characters, they get their powers, they have a fight with Doctor Doom, they spout some guff about working as a team and it ends. That's not a movie; that's a trailer. That's all this is....a lengthy padded out trailer for some future movie that might have the Fantastic Four and an idea in it. It's flawed because there isn't a pure thought behind it....just greed. It's a greedy, grabbing, grasping moronic fantastic bore of a movie.

I didn't like it.

Mission Statement. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

The great strength of the Mission: Impossible franchise is that it is always the same but always different. Every film in the series has to pass Cruise quality control, set a high standard and deliver all the thrills and spills that you demand. What's smart about it is that every instalment has a decidedly different tone to it. Cruise is presumably instrumental in choosing directors who have vision, who have proven competency, who are at the top of their game and who can give the series a unique spin.

So in the first Mission: Impossible (way, way back in 1996) we had Hitchcock wannabe Brian De Palma updating and subverting spy movie tropes with the emphasis on suspense rather than action. M:I-2 was also a Hitchcock homage (it is a loose reworking of 'Notorious') but John Woo turned it into an exhilarating James Bond styled action. M:I-3 had J.J. Abrams coming off the back of 'Alias' and gifting the series a more grounded approach and a markedly nastier tone to the proceedings (anchored by Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance as one of the best villains of the decade). M:I-4 lightened things up with a cartoonish but inventive comic book caper.

Like I say, always the same but always different. If I had to rank them I'd probably go MI3, MI1, MI4, MI2 as best to worst but it fluctuates a lot.

So here we are with number five, 'Mission:Impossible - Rogue Nation' and, despite Tom Cruise finally starting to show his age, it may just be the best in the series yet. Curiously (considering my preamble) it kind of lacks a distinctive flavour of its own and feels much more like a mash-up of elements from the previous films. But it works just fine. It retains all the best elements, rejects some of the excesses and gives the ever escalating cast of characters interesting stuff to do (except for Ving Rhames who is a bit superfluous this time out).

The bold directorial choice this time is Chris McQuarrie who has written several scripts ('Valkyrie', 'Edge Of Tomorrow') that have become Cruise projects and directed him before as 'Jack Reacher'. Amongst film connoisseurs he is best known as the writer of 'The Usual Suspects' (and who wouldn't want that on their CV) and director of the little seen and underrated gem 'Way Of The Gun'. He knows how to tell a story, even a complex one, in a refreshing and non-patronising way. And by God can he direct a set-piece.

There is an opera assassination sequence in this that is simply stunning; a masterly blend of choreography and visual storytelling. It is every bit the equal of the hanging by a thread sequence from the first film and a bravura showcase for why old-school film craft will always trump big explosions and CGI trickery. It also makes you desperate to see an opera.

One stunning set piece would be enough for most films, but this film just keeps stacking them up. There's a pre-credits scene that flips the bird at the Bond franchise with it's Tom-Cruise-does-his-own-stunts-don't-you-know audacity and says "top that!". There's a dive into a turbine and a breathless underwater sequence. This also has possibly the best bike chase ever filmed; a mini 'Fury Road' on two wheels. And still it keeps coming.

The plot is convoluted, satisfying and at times very surprising; just wait until the "rogue nation" reveal hits you.  It is a little overlong (what isn't?) but I never became impatient with it. Even during the downtime, the exposition and the moments that allow you to catch your breath it remains interesting.

It may be number five in the franchise but it has a star, a writer/director and a cast that care passionately about the project and want to do their best work. Tom Cruise shows flesh, kicks ass, cracks jokes and flexes acting muscles in a manner that leaves you in no doubt as to why this particular man in his fifties is still the most bankable star in the world. Simon Pegg has more screen time than in previous outings but somehow he doesn't become irritating at all. It is a testament to him that he has expanded the character so much above and beyond 'comic relief tech guy' that you would miss him if he wasn't involved. Pegg may just become the next David Niven yet. Rebecca Ferguson (not the singer) has come from nowhere (some middling tv credits and that 'Hercules' film) to this and she is a revelation. Surely the world is her's for the asking after this. Her British agent is every bit the equal of Ethan Hunt, perhaps more so and not just in a lazy scriptwriting let's-give-the-girl-a-fight-scene way. She doesn't fade into the background, she isn't a love trophy, she drives the plot and she is in all the film's best scenes.  She can act too, and I mean really act - light up the screen act - which always helps.  I think I may have a new crush.

Sean Harris has cornered the market in creepy, intense, British psychopaths and his turn here is suitably chilling; not sure about the voice though. Jeremy Renner's character is interesting despite having more or less the same role here as Hawkeye in The Avengers. He's not ostensibly the most important member of the team but he is the glue quietly holding it together, fighting the little battles, being the group's conscience, saying the right thing at the right time. He's very good in the scenes that he's in and justifies being kept on the payroll. In addition we have a great turn from Alec Baldwin as a CIA director and a brief but well judged performance from Tom Hollander as the British prime minister.

In other words, even if this was a film about people talking politics in a room it would have been good. But it's not people talking in a room, it's 'Mission:Impossible' and it's better than good. It's excellent. Probably my favourite in the series so far.

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't imagine 'Spectre' is going to be more entertaining than this. Hell, I can't imagine that the next MI is going to be more entertaining than this. Some reviews and comments I've seen have been pretty indifferent, sniffy and "meh" about it. What do you want? This is state of the art summer blockbuster entertainment. It's unlikely to get much better than this. Go see it.

'Self/less' than the sum of its parts.

If you've seen the film 'Seconds' (John Frankenheimer 1966) you won't be surprised by much of anything that happens in 'Self/less'. If you haven't 'Seconds' may I suggest that you spend more time indoors watching old black and white movies rather than socialising and stuff.

'Self/less' is a neat little film, certainly nothing great but quite interesting and entertaining never the less. 

Sir Ben Kingsley plays Damian,  a super nasty, super rich, "one percent" property mogul dying of cancer. He finds out about a shadowy organisation offering elite patrons the chance to transfer their consciousness into a new healthy body. He signs up for the procedure and gets the athletic body of Ryan Reynolds on condition that he sever all ties with his former life. Unfortunately it turns out that this body is not quite the empty shell that it was sold to him as. Hallucinations and paranoia intensify. Is this part of the normal recovery process or is there really a latent consciousness from a former host trying to reconnect with the body? Damian starts digging for answers and doesn't like what he finds.

It's a pretty simple set up and an interesting idea, but one that needs much deeper exploration than this film can give. It it quickly opts to drop the moral dilemmas and instead become a running and jumping and shooting type of film....which it does very well. What I liked most about this film was that it actually took a fresh approach to some of the action genre staples that we've seen played out countless times before. There's a particularly well executed siege in a farmhouse and a car crash that actually seems to have some point to it other than vehicles bumping into each other like dodgems.

It's the sort of movie where you can imagine that if Tom Cruise had been cast it would have worked very well as his obligatory sci-fi/action crossover for the year and would have been well received by audiences. Unfortunately we have Ryan Reynolds in the leading role, who is absolutely fine, but just not very exciting to watch. He does a good job in his early scenes where he apes Ben Kingsley's mannerisms with subtlety but then just becomes vanilla as the film progresses.

It's directed by Tarsem Singh ('The Fall'', 'The Cell') who seems to have been told to tone down the visual excesses of his previous work, which is a mistake, because it actually needs a bit of flair to make it come alive.

On a 'B-movie' level I enjoyed it a lot. It's 'Seconds' grafted into a 'Bourne Identity' body and works just fine. I could have done without the 'Shawshank Redemption' ending and I wish it had a bit more philosophy on its bones but it's more interesting than anything else aimed at adults this week and sometimes that's good enough.