If you’ve seen the trailer and deluge of marketing reveals for Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation , you’d think the centerpiece action sequence of the entire movie was this plane stunt. But as Scott Mendelsson reveals, the whole set piece is something of a decoy; it takes place in the first 5 minutes, leaving the best,…
Read moreEdge of Tomorrow
Unexpected: I really enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow. Tom Cruise plays totally to type as a smarmy, cowardly, self-important little ad man who’s thrust onto the front lines of a major D-Day style invasion that aims to reclaim Europe from a devastating alien conquest. During the battle, Tommy learns he can Cher it (“turn back time”…
Read moreOblivion
Liked Oblivion. Didn’t love it. It’s stylistically extremely appealing – the machines are fantastic – and the Icelandic locations are jaw-dropping. Overall though, it just reeks of Tom Cruise’s overwhelming ego. He plays himself, basically – the inscrutable leather-jacket-and-raybans-wearing, motor-bike riding loner without an identity, without a past – a character we’ve seen him do…
Read moreJack Reacher
I’ve never read a Jack Reacher novel (surprisingly, given my lowbrow taste in books). I do however know that said character is meant to be a flippin scary dude of epic physical proportions. He is NOT meant to be dinky Tom Cruise. Having said that though, the first in the franchise of Jack Reacher movies…
Read moreKnight and Day
I went to see Knight and Day with a relatively open mind. I say relatively, because I think Tom Cruise is probably quite a sly and nasty piece of work. Also, the Redhead and Rose went to see the film on Friday and had pronounced it “Ho-Hum”; damning with faint praise. So what can I…
Read moreSalt
I’m not an Angelina fan. I think beneath that glossy fat-lipped sheen she probably pupates and eats her young. But – in the same vein as, say, dinky nutter Tom Cruise or that shameless old hack, the devil’s own Nicky Cage – she has a perplexing level of success that brings her the kinds of…
Read moreLions for Lambs
A zealous congressman launches a new military strategy designed to win the war in Afghanistan and details it to a lefty journalist. Two friends, soldiers involved in the operation, are caught behind enemy lines due to bad intel. Meanwhile, their former college professor tries to re-engage a promising but disillusioned student. These are the people…
Read moreValkyrie
So Valkyrie has a fews things going against it; firstly, you know what’s going to happen in the end (and it ain’t pretty.) Secondly, the hero is a Nazi, which is always going to be difficult to pull off. And thirdly, it stars Tom Cruise, who’s an official loon and too barmy to be taken…
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