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Action & Adventure

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) Blu-Ray Review By D.M. Anderson

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MI Fallout

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Bruce Geller (based on the television series created by)
Stars: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames

I spotted a true lunatic while driving home from work the other day. Like countless other egocentric morons with an inflated sense of entitlement, he was in the lane next to me, texting as he sped along at 40 miles an hour. The difference was this guy was behind the wheel of a Smart car. 

All would take is a sudden wild turn to end up getting swallowed by an SUV. It could be weeks before anyone found a single trace of him and the glorified go-kart he chose for a coffin. Man, that’s not only crazy…that’s utter Tomsanity.

Like Lou Gehrig’s Disease ‘Tomsanity’ is named after the man who’s most prominently afflicted, Mr. Tom Cruise. It’s a condition where one deliberately risks their life to accomplish a task, even though a perfectly safe alternative would achieve the same results and no one would know the difference. If Mr. Important behind the wheel of that Smart car regularly engages in such douchebaggery while driving – and you just know he does – wouldn’t a big-ass Dodge Ram have been a wiser investment? The recipient of his call wouldn’t appreciate it any less.

One key difference between Tom Cruise and that Smart car simpleton is Tom at-least trains for his stunts beforehand with a crew of hundreds to assist him. But even with tethers and wires to assure my safety, no way in hell would I ever attempt to jump from one rooftop to another as Cruise does in Mission: Impossible – Fallout (and he still broke his ankle). 

Unlike that self-absorbed motorist, Tom isn’t putting anyone but himself in harm’s way, and it ain’t for personal gratification. When he makes that 25,000 foot HALO drop early in the film, he’s doing it for us. They could have easily used a professional jumper and simply CG’ed Tom’s toothy grin into the frame, but the fact we know it’s him is part of what has always made the entire Mission: Impossible franchise special. Say what you will about him personally, one thing Tom Cruise can never be accused of is phoning-it-in. 

Maybe that’s a chief reason this is the only franchise that seems to improve with each entry. True-to-form, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the best one to date and absolutely loaded with Tomsanity. Previous films were already notable for the lengths Cruise went for the sake of an action sequence, so I’m assuming Tomsanity must also be a progressive disorder because there are a half-dozen jaw-dropping action sequences where Tom’s letting it all hang out for our enjoyment. To truly appreciate that, check out this disc’s hour-long behind-the-scenes documentary right afterwards. 

But Fallout isn’t just a stunt showcase. The intricate, twist-laden story keeps us guessing, whisks us to various intriguing locations and introduces a few nifty new characters along with some old friends (even Henry Cavill is interesting in this one). The film doesn’t forget its past, either. In fact, Fallout is the first in the franchise that might be considered a direct sequel. It features the same primary antagonist, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) as Rogue Nation, while Ethan Hunt’s estranged wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan), figures predominantly in the story. As such, the film does sometimes assume the audience is up-to-speed.

But it’s still mainly the Tom Cruise Show, which is just fine because, even after six films, there’s never a moment where we suspect he’s going through the motions. I don’t know how long he can keep this up, but here’s hoping he can crank out at least one or two more without killing himself. Maybe he can even squeeze-in the mother of all Tomsanity stunts: a chase where he’s driving a Smart car while texting. As it stands, though, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is currently the franchise’s high-point and the best action film of the year.

Action & Adventure

Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) Movie Review By John Walsh

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MI Fallout

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Bruce Geller (based on the television series created by)
Stars: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames

It’s hard to believe that the Mission Impossible franchise is now over twenty years old. I can’t sit here and say that I was always a massive fan. I was only seven when the first came out and the early iterations were fairly repetitive affairs, with an ever changing blur of black market arms dealers making up the antagonists for Ethan Hunt to see off. That all changed with 2015’s Rogue Nation however. Christopher McQuarrie gave us a more nuanced, villainous group to contend with. 

That’s not to say there wasn’t some memorable antagonists prior to Rogue Nation and Fallout. Phillip Seymour Hoffmann’s Owen Davian from the third film was an outstanding adversary. But the Syndicate led by Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), brought an array of interesting characters. A group of freelance, for want of a better word, individuals with a shared, common goal. It’s the same group, albeit evolved, that resurfaces. They’re known as the Apostles now and they’ve got a noble, albeit genocidal cause. They’re all about world peace, but first the worlds major religious hubs and institutions must fall. 

“There cannot be peace without great suffering” is their mantra. “The greater the suffering, the greater the peace” we hear Lane and others repeatedly say. That just isn’t going to fly in a world with the IMF and its maverick leader Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) however. There’s an early dream/nightmare sequence, during which Hunt is haunted by Lane, who’s laying into his past misdemeanours, before McQuarrie thrusts us into a botched plutonium arms deal that’ll set the tone for the entire film. The deal goes south, hijacked by the Apostles, who obviously have nefarious reasons for wanting it. 

Hunt is then sent to Paris by Alan Huntley (Alec Baldwin) to muscle in on a meeting between the notorious John Lark and the equally infamous middleman/woman, the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). It’s their only lead on the missing plutonium, but there’s always a spanner flung in the works in these films. This particular spanner comes in the muscled form of the mustachioed August Walker (Henry Cavill), a CIA agent working for Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett). She’s not too keen on Ethan and wants her own man on the mission to oversee matters, and obviously make sure things play out to her liking.

It’s later revealed that the Widow is a CIA informant, incidentally, which isn’t the only revelation to be revealed in a film that’s literally full to the brim with two timing, incredibly realistic face masks, double agents and general backstabbing. 

This is a franchise that’s became synonymous with slick, action set pieces and stunning visuals and we get all of that and more in the opening twenty minutes alone. I’ve not enjoyed the first act of a film this much in a quite some time. It’s got everything, from stunning, cloudy, electrical storms raging below a cargo plane, to an adrenaline rush of a dive down onto the night, cityscape of the French capital and then a thrilling three way fight in a nightclub toilet. Major props to Liang Yang, Cavill and Cruise for that sequence, because it was fantastic. All of this takes place before Fallout’s story even gets going, incidentally. 

Once it does swing into action then McQuarrie sends Hunt and the best part of half a dozen primary characters to various different locales across the world. It’s done in a such an organic, realistic manner too that it’s not even jarring either. For instance, Lane is wanted by Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), an MI6 agent, that’s been tasked with capturing the rogue, British agent and so it’s only obvious that the story heads to London, and once the revelation of Walker being a double agent for the Apostles is revealed, the inevitable race against time to disarm two nukes takes the story even further afield to Asia, where Ethan’s ex is stationed.

Speaking of Walker, I thought Henry Cavill was outstanding too. I’m not accustomed to seeing the man playing an antagonist, but after his showing here, I wouldn’t be adverse to him doing it again. I’m not entirely sure that there was any need for the moustache mind, but maybe that was a classic disguise trick? Who knows. Whilst I’m on the subject of performances, I’ll fire some praise Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames way too. The latter has been synonymous with this franchise for twenty odd years, but the combination of those two and Cruise just  works so well. There’s great chemistry there and their funny chatter in several scenes, adds some comedic levity. They grow in prominence.

There wasn’t really a weak performance in the film. Cruise is in his element in this genre. He’s a bonafide action star, he does his own stunts, he can fly helicopters in real life and ride motorcycles, and so it all feels authentic when he does it in the film. And man, that helicopter sequence was glorious. He’s still in ridiculous shape, certainly for a guy in his mid 50’s and you can only take your hat off to him for battling through a broken ankle. Rebecca Ferguson was back again and there’s the hint of romance brewing between Ethan and Ilsa. I also thoroughly enjoyed Kirby’s showing as the White Widow too. 

Without giving the entirety of the plot away, I think it would be fair to say that most people will know the way the film ultimately ends. Ethan and his IMF team save the day, but not without a right struggle. The Apostles were a truly worthy opponent, they always seemed a step ahead throughout, with twists and double twists coming fast and furious. The split perspective finale was riveting, full of tension despite knowing the inevitable outcome and given the deep, interconnected, every man nature of their organisation and the fact that they’ve got members incognito, within major establishments. It opens the door for another instalment with Lane once again central to the plot. 

And that’s a refreshing change for Mission Impossible. It was a big positive I took away. The way it connected Rogue Nation, the way that the story was a direct continuation in a sense and the fact it’s almost like a trilogy within a six film franchise. 

I’ve seen a fair few action films already this year. With the likes of Rampage, Skyscraper and even the Meg had action elements within the overplayed shark sub-genre. Mission Impossible: Fallout doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with any of them though. It’s an infinitely superior experience. The story was intelligently crafted, the characters within were interesting, the action was fantastic, as was the visuals and the antagonists were some of the best in the entire franchise. For me, Fallout is the best film in a franchise that defies the usual trend of ever diminishing returns and instead keeps on getting better. 

It had me riveted from start to finish and I would absolutely recommend giving it a watch. 

Rating: 5/5

Action & Adventure

Oblivion (2013) Movie Retro Review by John Walsh

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OBLIVION

Director: Joseph Kosinski
Writers: Karl Gajdusek (screenplay), Michael Arndt (screenplay) (as Michael deBruyn)
Stars: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough

So as I’ve mentioned before, we’ve had countless permutations of Tom Cruise doing the understated superhero thing and the film I’m focusing on today is no different. Directed by Joseph Kosinski and based on his unfinished graphic novel of the same name; Oblivion is undoubtedly beautiful looking, featuring a crisp, clean, cloud abode and shiny modern spaceships to boot. The trouble is that it feels superfluous in this regard and has a distinct lack of much else outwith the superficial.

Set in a distant 2077, it would be fair to say that the Earth has seen a dramatic change in the sixty years that have followed humanities war with a mysterious extraterrestrial species. For one, the planet has supposedly been devastated (there’s little evidence of this to begin with) and a colony has been created on Saturn’s moon Titan with humanity’s former home now serving as a mere source for power via gigantic ocean gurgling generators.

Step forward Jack Harper or “Tech-49” (Tom Cruise), a security technician tasked with keeping armed drones, protecting said generators, functioning in order to stave off attacks from the alien scavengers, hiding in caves, that continuously attack them. Living with him in their cloud skirting, gigantic tower apartment is Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), a strangely emotionless, almost robotic like partner that guides him to downed drones. Jack outwardly appears a normal chap, but as the film progresses, it quickly becomes apparent that mentally all is not what it seems.

He’s been having visions, you see, visions of being on the Empire State Building with a strange woman and when he discovers that the ‘scavs’ have been using the aforementioned building’s antenna to send signals into space he begins connecting the dots. This is only exacerbated when the women from these visions arrives. A strange ship re-enters the Earths atmosphere and crashes, only to be inexplicably attacked by the same drones Jack has been repairing. It’s at this point he discovers Julia (Olga Kurylenko) in a stasis pod and whisks her back to the apartment only to be met by a frosty Victoria.

Needless to say, things take a bit of a turn for the worse at this point. After an enlightening meeting with the savangers led by Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman), whos clearly not an alien incidentally, some shocking revelations (totally predictable) are made. Jack is a clone that’s been doing the aliens dirty work for them, with regular mind wipes and replacements keeping the pretence of normality going. The telegraphed twists keep on coming too. The huge ship, Tet, once believed to be a human creation is actually the extraterrestrials mothership and they’ve been siphoning energy from the Earth.

I think the rest of the story is pretty self explanatory from this point, so I’ll not waste any time detailing any more of it. Think Independence Day, happily ever after and you’re half-way there.

Performances. Ok. Tom Cruise does what Tom Crusie does. He puts in a solid enough showing as Jack. It’s his film as you’d expect, but Jack is hollow, like every other character in the film. There’s no presence of a soul in any of them and little to no development. Jack is probably the most developed of them all too. He has his very existence and way of life turned on it’s head and discovers a wife he never knew he had. I won’t be too harsh on him because this wasn’t his fault and he did the best he could.

The only other performance or character that even springs to mind is Victoria. Riseborough gives off a genuinely disconcerting vibe in the film and seems almost robotic at points. There’s a complete lack of emotion that almost mirrors the dense, blonde freaks from the future in the original Time Machine. She does a decent enough job, but again is ultimately let down with a poorly written script that seemed to shirk any focus on the actual characters in favour of a predictable plot and eye candy visuals.

Ultimately, Oblivion is an enjoyable enough watch if you can see past its deficiencies in character development and just watch it as a purely popcorn, sci-fi, action flick. It is visually stunning, especially those scenes in the apartment that gave off major Cloud City vibes, with some decent action at intermittent points and isn’t the worst film in this genre I’ve ever watched. Not by a long way. However, coming off a recent viewing of Blade Runner with its incredible, multifaceted story and performances makes this look pitiful in comparison.

Rating: 2.5/5

Drama

Valkyrie (2008) Movie Retro Review by John Walsh

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VALKYRIE

Director: Bryan Singer
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander
Stars: Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Carice van Houten

A tense, taut film about a group of German conspirators who attempt to murder ‘Der Führer’ on the 20th July, 1944. That’s the setting of Bryan Singers Valkyrie, a film that features an excellent cast and by Hollywoods standards, a reasonably accurate depiction of the plot itself.

It follows Claus von Stauffenberg, a German colonel and aristocrat who, along with other conspirators, came the closest during WWII to successfully assassinating Adolf Hitler at his notorious Wolf Lair in East Prussia.

I’ll get the negative out the way early. I was slightly disappointed at it’s tendency to shy away from bringing attention to the intricacies of Von Stauffenberg and the others motivations, not to mention chequered backgrounds . It felt like a deliberate attempt to create a distinct black and white, good versus evil story. This is perfectly understandable, especially when marketing it to mainstream, non-war buff, audiences, but it was an annoyance nonetheless. I feel like a large part of this may have been down to Cruise’s inability to play anything other than a heroic character.

For instance, von Stauffenberg, the lead conspirator, was an active solider, an aristocratic and, despite not officially joining the party, a staunch nationalist who happily championed Hitler in the early stages of his chancellery and indeed of the war. A devout catholic however, he soon became disillusioned with the Nazi regime when evidence of their cruelty became apparent, hence the decision to try and topple them. He was no second coming of Gandhi though and I feel a smidgen of context like this on the backgrounds of these men would’ve added so much more to the film and their development.

It’s a predominantly English spoken film, which usually grinds on me. A German dominated cast with subtitles would’ve been preferential, but I’ll give them a bye on that, especially with the cast they assembled and the fact it opened in German before switching.

The plot is pretty self explanatory really. It opens with von Stauffenberg serving in North Africa, before his jeep takes fire from an enemy plane, leaving him minus a hand and an eye, and with a new found desire to topple his leader. The rest of the film pretty much follows his attempts to recruit co-conspirators to his cause, lay the groundwork for the regime coup, including a tense scene with Hitler signing a document (didn’t happen in real life, but hey, artistic license), with it all culminating on the fateful date of July 20th. The final half hour or so focuses on the aftermath and the growing realisation of their failure.

Tom Cruise isn’t known for playing these type of characters, usually playing it safe and plumping for action roles instead, but I have to say the resemblance was uncanny and he did a pretty decent job for the most part. Bill Nighy was excellent as Freidrich Olbricht, the man who’s dithering played a large part in the failure of the coup. Terence Stamp as Ludwig Beck and David Schofield as von Witzleben were equally impressive, whilst Kenneth Branagh was decent enough without ever really imposing himself on any of the scenes or film. Tom Wilkinson’s Friedrich Fromm was a treacherous git and annoying, so credit for that, unless he’s equally annoying in real life, in which case I reserve the right to withdraw.

One real strong point in Valkyrie is the visuals, costume design and set design. They managed to perfectly capture the feel of 1940s Berlin. I’m aware of issues they had filming on location at some of the historical sights in the German capital, but thankfully they were eventually given permission and it’s a nice touch. The Wolf’s Lair scenes were very cool and gave an insight into a notoriously secretive location.

In the end, I enjoyed Valkyrie. It was a very well cast film and an enjoyable watch. It had moments of real tension and the final half hour is an excruciating watch. You find yourself willing them to succeed despite knowing they ultimately fail. There is some issues in there for sure. Most notably the 2D characters on the conspirators side, who could’ve been developed better and that were often made out to be heroic angels fighting for world peace when the reality was decidedly more complex.

Still, I’d recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in WWII.

Rating: 3/5

Action & Adventure

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016) Movie Review by Darrin Gauthier

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JACK REACHER NEVER GO BACK

Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: Richard Wenk (screenplay),  Edward Zwick (screenplay)
Stars: Tom Cruise,  Cobie Smulders,  Aldis Hodge

Plot:  Jack Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy in order to clear his name. On the run as a fugitive from the law, Reacher uncovers a potential secret from his past that could change his life forever.

Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes

Rotten Tomatoes Score: Critics 37%    Audience  42%

Why I watched it: The first Jack Reacher film was fine, wanted to see where they would go with the character in the second one.

Random thoughts: It’s hard getting a new franchise going, the second one is very important cause you have to keep the momentum going, building a franchise off a character from a book who have to do two things, either have him developed as a character and put him in interesting plots or have him build as a character as he goes through these stories.  These two films rest on Tom Cruise’s shoulders, they live or die with him.

What I liked: Like him or not Tom Cruise is a movie star, his charisma and charm carry him and he’s a good actor not great but he plays the “Tom Cruise” role better than anyone.  He’s a likable actor.  This is not a great film or even a good film but one thing about Cruise is I’ve never seen him sleep walk through a film, he’s committed to every role he takes and I respect that.  To be fair there’s not a lot to like about this movie but the opening scene set in a diner is very cool and very well filmed and done if only the film continued like that.  The other acting is fine for the most part no one stands out, safe to say Cruise is the best part of the film.

What I didn’t like:  This film has all the problems of a star vehicle, Cruise is good but the film suffers cause nothing is as good as him and also for the film to be really good than it would be less in Cruise’s wheelhouse. After the first scene this is a boring and really boring action film.  To be fair this film is a conspiracy theory film but the plot and the conspiracy starts off as really dense and complicated then ends up stupid.  What hurts the film is that Jack Reacher is on the run with a Major played by Colbie Smulders and a teenage girl who may or may not be his daughter.

All of that is forced, they bicker they fight and none of it means anything.  It not only hurts the film but also the Reacher character cause he’s not a bad ass action guy he’s just another action guy, what makes Jack Reacher special, the fact he yells and argues with two female characters who don’t listen to him and don’t respect him, Reacher saves Smulders life a couple of times and she stays by the fact that she didn’t want or need his help.  The film doesn’t know what it wants to be, are we trying to give Reacher a make shift family and if so for what reason.

Let me say this about this girl being Reacher’s daughter, he says at the beginning he never had a daughter that he didn’t know and hadn’t meet the mother so there’s no tension there, it’s a plot point it’s something for Reacher to do and also we know the only reason the character is there is so the bad guys will try and kill her and yes use her against Reacher.  Everything in the film is under written, no character is fleshed out no arc, no motivation is giving or earned for that matter.  The bad guys are a joke, the main hitman played by Patrick Heusinger, in a real bad performance, is just a psycho, he seems to be working for this evil company just to randomly kill people, heck when he should be helping his bosses he’s trying to kill Reacher’s maybe daughter, oh why you ask, cause he wants Reacher to feel real pain.

Why, he doesn’t even know Reacher they have no backstory.  Also they keep Reacher a fugitive and being on the run by doing the old cliche of every time Reacher talks to someone the bad guy kills them and blames it on Reacher.  This gets kind of laughable, let me get this straight, he broke himself and someone else out of a military prison and is an elite solider but he doesn’t think of putting on gloves when he kills someone.  The other main problem this film has is it’s way too long, man this is tough to sit through.

Final Thoughts: Sadly this is just a badly made film, the story is weak and really nothing clicks here, this film just feels off.  The character is probably done now as this didn’t do well but it’s too bad cause I think Jack Reacher had a really good movie in him but we just haven’t seen it.

Rating: 3/10

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

The Mummy (2017) Movie Review by John Walsh

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THE MUMMY

Director: Alex Kurtzman
Writers: David Koepp (screenplay), Christopher McQuarrie (screenplay)
Stars: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis

When Universal released the critically derided Dracula Untold in 2014 it postponed its planned reboot of the ‘Dark Universe’. A world full to the brim with weird, wondrous and classic characters such as Frankenstein, his monster, the aforementioned Dracula, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Invisible Man. Choosing to ignore some of those interesting possibilities, perhaps keeping them for future iterations, they decided to plump for the Tom Cruise anchored film ‘The Mummy’ despite the fairly recent versions of the late nineties and early naughties.

I’ll start by saying that the 1999 Mummy starring Brendan Fraser with Imhotep tearing it up is still my favourite and I can only hope that things get dramatically better in future instalments of this newly constructed cinematic world or it might be dead before it even properly begins. It’s their second attempt at a reboot of the universe in three years and this release isn’t much better. It’s almost as if leading man Mr. Cruise had too much of an influence on the script and somehow managed to convince Kurtzman into doing a horror themed Mission Impossible film starring a neurotic, undead, Egyptian mummy because that’s exactly what this film is at heart.

Main man, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise); a US military officer and his friend/partner Sergeant Chris Vail (Jake Johnson); accidentally unearth an Egyptian tomb after ordering an air strike during a chaotic firefight. It has the usual cheesy “I’m still alive” patter before the building their on collapses and the two men fall right onto the edge of the massive sinkhole come crater housing the tomb. Shortly afterwards, Jennifer Halsey (Annabelle Wallis); a feisty archaeologist that just so happened to have a fling with Nick a few days earlier, arrives on the scene to lend her talents and investigate further. Of course they stumble across the sarcophagus and remove it from the tomb despite every living thing fleeing upon its discovery.

Nick is essentially cursed from this moment onwards and the trios luck goes from bad to worse when Vail turns into a telepathic plaything for the Mummy (still in the sarcophagus) onboard a military plane and decides to stab his superior Colonel Greenway (Courtney B. Vance). Of course, as you’d expect, this doesn’t end well for Vail with his supposed best friend, Nick, shooting and killing him without much hesitation. Though, if I’m being honest, he definitely got the easy way out when you see what happens next. What comes next is the plane crash everybody seen in the trailer. I.e. Probably the best part of the film and it’s only about three minutes long. Ok, I’m maybe being too harsh there because if this film does anything well then it’s most definitely the action sequences, of which there’s a fair few.

It’s visually impressive and the action as you’d expect in a Tom Cruise led film is more than decent, but the plot is just boring, predictable and well… not very good. The  Mummy incidentally, who’s turns out to be a female for a change (sarcasm warning) is Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella); a particularly evil young lady, who murdered her father and his entire family in a ritual to resurrect Set (an Egyptian god of disorder and violence). Boutella does a decent enough job, managing to look quite intimidating and putting in a more than decent performance. Despite this, she is let down by a terribly written part. Women leads have been pretty empowered in recent blockbusters, but not so much here. Yes, she’s an undead, supernatural monster that often rag dolls people around for fun, but sadly, she spends most of the film acting like a needy, jilted, ex and obsessively stalking Nick.

Which, of course, being the character played by Tom Cruise means she’s pretty much screwed come the end. It’s not all plain sailing for Nick though. He does goes through hell at times; from suffering a betrayal of sorts at the hands of Jennifer, outed as an employee of Prodigium (a monster-hunting organisation headed by Dr. Jekyll himself), having to fight the latter as the sinister, transformed Mr. Hyde, continually having to scrap with Ahmanet’s ghoulish underlings (including one particularly toe curling moment underwater and finally being faced with a sacrificial moment of complete unselfishness to save Jennifer (she’s now back on his side and he’s in love with her again). Incidentally, the best moment out of all those is the scuffle between Nick and Hyde. I quite liked the cockney alter ego Russell Crowe transformed into during that scene and he shows perhaps most promise for future films in this universe.

By the way, just for the record, I’m not slagging off Tom Cruise here, even if it does seem to be coming across like that. He’s by no means a negative for this film and actually does put in a fairly decent performance. I just feel like he never seems to pick any roles even remotely deemed edgy or risky. The character of Nick Morton is well within his comfort zone again and given his tendency for playing hero type characters that survive everything, I never at any stage felt like Nick was ever in danger. He survived a damn plane crash without a scratch, bruise or even a broken bone. I mean, even for a supposedly cursed man that’s just insanely unrealistic. The choice his character makes at the end hints that he’ll be back again and it’ll certainly be interesting to see what route they take with him.

Ultimately though, this film can’t be described as anything other than a complete and utter disappointment. Sure, it’s all right for a two hour piece of action escapism but surely if you’re hoping to set-up a hugely successful, multi-film universe, the likes of what Marvel have accomplished, then it has to provide so much more than that? The brutal truth is that it doesn’t and I honestly would struggle to recommend going to watch this in the cinema. Behind the flashy visuals, the gleaming smile of Cruise and perfectly choreographed action is a hollow experience that must be improved upon in future instalments.