today turned out to be a nasty, muggy, rainy day. so, i went to see a movie.
tom cruise, ving rhames, and a bunch of other folks i’ve never seen before, in Mission Impossible 2, directed by John Woo.
on a scale of 0 to Pi, I give it e. it was a pretty good way to waste a couple of hours, though i’m not sure about the almost $20 i had to spend to get in, get a drink and some popcorn. and this was a matinee.
to wax nostalgic, i remember when movies were 5 bucks, 3 for a matinee. and on a good day, you could smuggle in your own food.
note to the theatre owners: what is all this money paying for? tom cruise’s hair and makeup? aren’t you guys getting anything out of all this? honestly, the theatre’s only a couple years old, and it’s getting pretty ragged. one thing i will say, no matter how crusty the rest of the theatre was, the bathrooms were clean
and after two and a half hours of movie and half a gallon of cherry coke, i needed the comfort of a clean bathroom for a little while
and another thing, guys. don’t try to make a terrible sound system sound like a million dollar THX system just by doubling the volume.
when i leave a movie, i don’t want a headache unless it’s from the light outside suddenly stabbing into my retina.
i don’t want to be nauseated, either. damn.
note to john woo: how, in an age where we have digitally enhanced post production, computer-generated effects, and mechanically guided camera shots, can you make a movie that gives people motion sickness? how is it that the camera spent half the movie shaking like in an old star trek episode? were you shooting on a fault line?
now, i’m not usually traumatized so by a movie – i can get on any ride at the fair with a hot dog and a funnel cake sloshing around in my stomach, and not feel a thing – but i’ll be damned if john woo’s earthquake camera work didn’t pull it off.
and, finally, mr. woo, i understand you spent a lot of money on the action sequences in this film, probably paying off tom cruise’s hazard insurance for doing his own stunts, but did you really need to show every sequence four times (the first time at full speed, the second and third in slow motion, from different angles, and the fourth without sound. ooh) the motorcycles blew up, but the riders didn’t. i could have gotten that with one shot.
and, to whoever cast this thing (or, instead, to whoever decided it was all to happen in australia) even an ignorant american like myself can tell the difference between an english, irish, and australian accent. either a: cast australian actors, b: train your english and american actors on what an australian accent sounds like (hell, lucy lawless can do a decent american accent, and she’s straight out of Oz), c: have the action take place somewhere in europe – to explain all the anglo accents, or, finally, d: let everyone know up front that the population of australia, for the purposes of the movie, will consist of ten americans, a half dozen british subjects, and a couple of real australians, just for local color.
this is, of course, to say nothing of the overbearing exposition and heavy handed plot. pause a moment to let the implications of one scene to sink in before you have a character go off analyzing it and making the details that the intelligent members of the audience appreciate noticing so shallow and obvious the giggling ten-year-old girls in the front row that snuck into the R movie can understand it.
and, as for tom cruise’s hair – i think it’s the best he’s looked since Top Gun (answer your question andy?)