Movie Review: Mission Impossible 3

Mission: Impossible 3
Rated: PG-13
Starring: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q, Laurence Fishburne.


Tom is back here as Ethan Hunt. This time he has left the field and is training agents. He's also engaged to be married (Monaghan), but of course he hasn't told his bride-to-be what he really does. His cover is that he works for the Department of Transportation and studies traffic patterns. Exciting stuff. Well guess what - he accepts a new assignment to rescue an agent he trained named Lindsey (Russell) who has been captured by the evil, sadistsic, and elusive black marketeer named Owen Davian (Hoffman). The rescue doesn't quite go as planned as Davian remotely kills Lindsey with a remotely detonated charge implanted in her head. Hunt and his IMF team go to Rome to capture Davian and figure out what he's really up to. They do capture him and find that he's after something called the Rabbit's foot (a McGuffin) although Davian is rescued in a bold and audacious rescue attempt. Next Hunt's new bride is captured, and it's a trade for him to get the Rabbits foot for her life - oh and he has 48 hours, oh and he's been declared a rogue agent and is on the run from his own department. Oh what will happen.

So first let's stop and ask, what do you really expect going into a Mission Impossible movie? Great stunts, non-stop action, great villain, solid ensemble acting, and a story that holds together. Well 4 out of 5 isn't too bad for this. The stunts and action are generally very well done, although there were definitely a few places that really exceeded the bounds of plausibility, and I mean really stretched the bounds of plausbility. I thought the Owen Davian character was good and Hoffman executed it well. The ensemble acting was solid although the IMF team mainly consists of Cruise with a bit of Rhames and Meyers and Maggie Q are needed to get the number of team members up to 4. They didn't have much to do, but did their bits very well. The story actually worked for me at the beginning until a scene near that end where a number of twists are revealed and things aren't what they appeared. The explanation didn't make much sense to me and the way they were revealed was too hurried and clearly suggests that the details of any story here are just an inconvenient obligation to fulfill along the way to creating adrenaline filled action sequences. Leaving the theater one is left with more memories and thoughts of specific moments or scenes rather than a sense that you've been told some kind of story. With all the out of work writers in Hollywood you'd think you could find someone who could tell a plausible and interesting story spanning an entire 2 hours. Tom, I'm pretty sure I can come up with something a lot better than this for MI-4, so call me and let's talk. That said I enjoyed the movie. The action scenes were intense, well executed and generally pretty original and the movie moved along well.

If they choose to do an MI4 I would welcome that, although I think a bit more work on the storyline would pay huge dividends. I can definitely recommend the movie as a good fun action movie and not much else. I didn't expect much else and thus was not disappointed.


Before I wrap up here, let's speculate about what could be done for MI-4. What if they put together an IMF (Impossible Movie Force) team to direct it. I'd like to see a Dream Team of directors/writers put together. My list would be David Mamet, Robert Altman, John Woo, and Steven Soderbergh. Would they accept this mission? Can they save this movie franchise before it self-destructs? Wouldn't you pay $8.50 just to see what that movie would look like?

Recommended for Adults: Yes. A fun action movie.
Recommended for Kids: I think the PG-13 rating is appropriate and would caution parents with children under 13 to use careful judgement as there is some sadistic violence and a (mild) sex scene.
Overall: Well done action movie with solid action and acting, but a weak ending.

Movie Review: Over the Hedge

Over the Hedge
Rated: PG
Voices by: Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Avril Lavigne.
Directed by: Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick

This movie begins with RJ (Willis) sneaking into the cave of a hibernating bear named Vincent (Nolte) and attempting to steal his enormous stash of food. Caught in the act and accidentally destroying the pile as he tries to get away he is given a week to restore the trash or Vincent will kill him. RJ next runs into a little "family" of assorted animals led by Verne (Shandling). While the family has been hibernating for the winter their forest has been surrounding by a huge sprawling suburban development and a large hedge. RJ recruits them all to forage for food over the hedge. What they don't know is that RJ plans to take the fruits of their labor and turn it over to Vincent. What RJ doesn't expect is to find the real meaning of family.

This is a very well done movie. The writing and acting is very good. The story is well conceived and is perfect for children (I saw it with my 5 year-old), but has enough substance and genuine funny moments to capture adults. It's nothing deep to be sure, but it's certainly a fun way to spend an evening. All of the characters are fun and I think almost everyone will enjoy the character Hammy (Carrell).

My recent review of The Wild complained about the animation of the animals. The animation here looks much better and the scenes are well constructed and interesting. There is nothing particularly remarkable to say about the movie other than that it really holds together, entertains its audience and delivers on what you'd expect.

Recommended for Adults: Definitely fun entertainment.
Recommended for Kids: Definitely.
Overall: Very well done movie.

Movie Review: Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride
Rated: PG
Voices by: Johnny Depp (Victor), Helena Bonham Carter (Corpse Bride), Emily Watson (Victoria), Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant, Danny Elfman
Directed by: Tim Burton and Mike Johnson

I remember seeing the preview for the Corpse Bride in the theater and finding myself surprised at wanting to see it, not being a big Tim Burton fan (sorry my favorite colors aren't black and gray). I then completely forgot about it, and it came and went while pulling in a decent $50M+ at the box office. I chipped in my own $3.99 for pay-per-view this weekend and was very pleased.

The story is taken from a 16th century Jewish fairy tale where a young groom enroute to his wedding sees a stick coming out of the ground that looks like fingers and jokingly puts the ring on the finger and says his wedding vows only to find himself...


In this version Victor (Johnny Depp) is the shy son of a nouveau riche fish merchant who has been promised to Victoria (Emily Watson), the beautiful daughter of an aristocratic, but dead broke, family. Neither have met, until the day before the wedding at the rehearsal. They fall in love, but Victor just can't get his part of the ceremony right in the rehearsal and the priest threatens to call it off. Victor walks out of town into the woods to practice, and like the fairy tale, finds himself married to a corpse. Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) is a very lovely looking corpse with a maggot living behind her right eye. She is thrilled to be married after all this time (after being killed by her own fiancé just before marriage) and they find themselves in the land of the dead. The Land of the Dead is colorful, bright, and vibrant compared to the dark and cold world above. It's one happy place with musical numbers and a big wedding party. Naturally Victor tries to call this off and escape back to the land of the living. No one down below sees any reason why he can't be married to a corpse even if he is still a bit squishy.

Now I won't tell the whole story, but I will say that it's an enjoyable ride. The music is downright catchy and the story moves right along. The movie is a technical masterpiece of stop-motion animation. Much more rewarding visually and in every other way than the hyper-realistic animals in the recent "The Wild" for instance. The characters have real depth and I found myself genuinely engaged in their story. There are many memorable bits of dialog and imagery, like when Emily gives him a wedding present, that is the bones of his dead dog, that suddenly comes to "life".

Recommended for Adults: Sure, I think you'll like it.
Recommended for Kids: Sure, there are a few scary moments, but nothing too serious, my 2-year old daughter enjoyed it.
Overall: Very nice movie.

Book Review: Getting Things Done

For this review I'm going to delve into one of my favorite subjects - personal development. The trouble with most reviews of personal development books is that they are written right after the reviewer read the book. If you've ever read anything in the personal development genre you're probably familiar with the phenomenon of reading a book, thinking it was fantastic, inspiring, and has changed your life only to not be able to remember the title a few months later, let alone anything concrete that it has really done for you.

So we'll have none of that here on Groundlings. Today I'm going to review a book I read about a year ago and the good news is I can both remember the title, author, as well as tell you a few things it's done for me. The book is "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. The book is certainly all the rage in certain circles and has been on the best-seller lists and has become quite well known. The title is pretty accurate and is really about organizing all of the "stuff" in your life into a trusted system. The benefit of organizing all your stuff into a system is that now your poor little human brain that's evolution has not kept up with our non-stop internet culture with 300 e-mails/day, more blogs and web-sites than you could read in a lifetime, plus 200+ channels on satellite TV broadcasting 24 hours a day with TiVo to record anything you might have missed - and that's not even considering your job or work. David's contention is that only when you've fully captured all the stuff coming at you which you can quickly sort using a system of "discard, delegate, act now, act later" system can your mind really become still. When you know that everything you have to be done is captured into a system, it won't get lost, your mind doesn't have to remind you about it and then your mind be truly relaxed and creative and fully present to what you are doing right now.

The book gives really concrete processes and tools for processing the real-world deluge of information that almost all of us face. It covers the gamut of how to process e-mail, to how to label folders, down to even recommending specific brands of label makers.

Having read the book about a year ago I'll have to be honest and say that it's still something I am mastering, but the benefits were immediate for me and continue to get better. My inbox went from 2000+ e-mails to 0-100 at any given time. I stopped simply not responding to things and my mean response time to e-mails went from weeks to days to almost always within 24 hours. Many fewer things reach crisis stage without being handled, both professionally and personally for me. One of the key things is managing commitments, but it's much easier to manage commitments when everything is laid out in your system. When I'm following the system things definitely work much better.

All in all if you are like most people in modern society with way more things to get done than anyone could ever actually get done, I highly recommend Getting Things Done. It's the best book in this genre out there.

Movie Review: The Wild

The Wild
Rated: G
Voices by: Kiefer Sutherland, Janeane Garofalo, Richard Kind, Eddie Izzard, Greg Cipes, James Belushi.
Directed by: Steve "Spaz" Williams


"The Wild" is the newest Disney animated film to hit theaters. All I can say is - smart move on buying Pixar. It's not that the film is bad, it's got all your basic formula things down just fine - it just lacks any real magic. The basic premise is that Ryan the Lion lives in the zoo and wants to go discover The Wild as it has been described to him by his Father, Samson the super-lion. Samson has made himself into a super-hero in the eyes of his son with his outlandish stories of bravery and courage.

Ryan pouts about being stuck in the zoo and living in the shadow of his father and runs away and climbs into a shipping container that some pigeons said would take him to the wild. He falls asleep in the container and wakes up just as it is locked and put on a truck to go back to Africa (I guess). Of course he changes his mind at this exact moment, but it's too late. (No you did not fall down a rabbit-hole and end up in a review of Madascar - I'm describing The Wild here). Meanwhile Samson discovers that Ryan is trapped in this crate and runs after him to rescue him, along with his buddies that include a snake, a giraffe, a squirrel, and a 90% irritating koala bear from London named Nigel. I think you can more or less imagine the rest, although the part where a herd of wildebeasts worshipping Nigel as a God did surprise me. Surprise - not amuse, let's be clear about that.

One thing standing between this film and magic is that the major character Samson is basically a cowardly Lion who has been living a lie, and Ryan is a whiny little brat. While these character flaws are ultimately resolved through normal heroics, there was never a sense for me of relating to them or wanting anything for them. Nigel, the funny Koala has some genuinely funny moments, but his gags and lines miss more often than they hit.

I found the animation a bit irritating, but I can't quite put my finger on what was wrong. There were portions that I thought were very well done and others that weren't. It seemed to me that certain motions weren't fully executed and seemed to have segments of the motion missing. In many ways the detail was excellent, but overall it seemed a bit unsteady to me.


All that said, if you are under the age of 10 I can definitely recommend the film as it does have some charm, some good music, and you will probably find Nigel 0% irritating and 100% funny. My 8 year-old loved it. If on the other hand you are a self-respecting adult you will want to like this film, you really will, but you just won't be able to - or you will love it and will prove that I'm simply cold-hearted and jaded. Please comment and let me know.

Recommended for Adults: Not for adults.
Recommended for Kids: They'll have a great time.
Overall: If you have kids, wait for DVD or pay-per-view, turn it on and leave the room.

Movie Review: Fun with Dick and Jane

I noticed the other day that "Fun with Dick and Jane" will be released on DVD next week. I thought it fitting to write a review of the film, not because I love the underdog and it was panned by other critics, but it's the last time I found myself laughing until it hurts in the theater. Never mind I was 10 years older than everyone else in the theater and the only movie I can remember seeing in the theater since that was "Syriana". Let's forget all that.


"Fun with Dick and Jane" is a remake of the 1977 movie of the same name starring Jane Fonda and George Segal. This time around we have Tea Leoni (Jane) and Jim Carrey (Dick) starring. Dick works for Enron, well not Enron exactly, well yes it is pretty much Enron exactly. Dick is promoted to be in charge of communications and his first appearance on network TV coincides with the company's "Enron-ness" becoming apparent to the world and the stock collapses live with him on air. Let's just say it doesn't go well and like everyone else he loses his job. He arrives home to find that his wife has also quit her job on account of the big promotion. Finding a job is no easy matter, especially when your communication skills have recently been memorably demonstrated on national TV.

Gradually Dick and Jane find out how good they had it as they gradually see their possessions repossessed including their lawn. One of my favorite threads of the story is their relationship with their son and their Mexican housekeeper/nanny. I thought this was some truly inspired writing.

It's not a perfect movie by any means. The robbery scenes fall a little flat and the ending is a bit too nice and tidy and designed to be a bit too feel good, but that's okay if that's what you know you are getting yourself in for. It's a nice simple comedy with some really funny moments and I would highly recommend it for what it is. Definitely worth a pay-per-view or DVD rental.