13 – Winter Break Movie Reviews
What did I watch? Why? All these and more will be answered forthwith!
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
I know, I know, I’m giving money to the Scientologists, I’m sorry about that. However, I think I deserved a pass if not on the fact I just enabled the immaterial spirit of Ron L Hubbard to chuckle a little louder with the sound of Xenu’s coffers filling, but for the fact I had the gumption to watch a mindless action flick at all. It was the first movie I watched during break, during my Bastion/LIMBO spree, and if the family wanted to spend time staring at a screen together instead of separately, then by golly we would stare at something with explosions!
And many explosions were had, including a narrow miss when I found out the antagonist of the movie was a villain that believed that nuclear war was good for humankind. That’s sort of a new high in anti-moral ambiguity right there, but what can you do? It’s about as close as you can get to a universal antagonist, given that one person’s terrorist turns out to be another’s freedom fighter (see Rambo 3 vs. US after 9/11).
Overall, a nice balance between tension, comedy, and angst, with a finishing garnish of romance as anti-angst. Also, I enjoyed appropriate broken-leg physics.
Hugo
I didn’t know much about this movie going into the theater, and midway through the movie I realized Hugo was a love letter to film history. Midway through the movie was also the point at which lots of exposition on ancient film history started beginning. Coincidence?
The atmosphere and ambiance were excellent, swapping effortessly from what I presume to be stereotypical early 20th century France to the inner workings of a clock tower. And the clocks are gorgeous things: I’m sure they faked the shots (that’s the nature of film) but they still appeared real on film. And really, that’s what Hugo is showcasing and reminiscing over, that sort of movie magic that touched the ages from that first “oncoming train video”, up to viewing some epic in 3d.
I used to dislike movie portrayals of children: they would make stereotypical mistakes, or act in other ways that jerked my empathy chain, some of the same neurons lighting up as if I had made the same mistake. However, I think I’ve finally grown out of that. That said, I will say strong female characters are pretty cool in my book, and the plucky heroine fits that model fairly well, exuding believable infectious enthusiasm (perhaps, one day I will write a book that will have cool and strong female characters).
Overall, first half struck a pretty good balance between tension (action?) and introspective scenes, especially for a child’s movie, and the classical happy ending that had me aww’ing.
Hard Boiled
While hanging out with a friend before he left the area, we decided to watch a campy movie, pulling a random movie called “Hard Boiled” from among a bunch of foreign language films. We didn’t know at the time its action sequences were highly when it was released, but so it goes…
We ended up keeping a running commentary in the style of MST3K, uncovering a small translation slip ups and irregularities. With a heaping of gratuitous, over the top violence, and a baby salvation scene or two, this movie was sure a home run.