MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 鈥 DEAD RECKONING PART ONE: 4 ½ STARS
When the 鈥淢ission: Impossible鈥 franchise began in 1996 the movies were big, prestige spy thrillers, heavy on the intrigue and supported by large action sequences. Then came 2011鈥檚 鈥淢ission: Impossible 鈥 Ghost Protocol,鈥 a popcorn flick built around an eye-popping sequence featuring star Tom Cruise scaling the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, with only a pair of suction gloves and courage coming between him and certain death.
That sequence made audience鈥檚 eyeballs dance and changed the focus of the franchise. It also turned Cruise into the Evel Knievel of cinematic risk taking.
Since then, the movies have been driven by the death-defying stunts performed by their star, the seemingly fearless Cruise, rather than the convoluted plots of the first batch of films. In the world of 鈥淢ission: Impossible鈥 there is no building too high for Tom to climb, no chasm too wide for him to jump.
The new film, 鈥淢ission: Impossible鈥擠ead Reckoning Part One,鈥 files the actual story down to a nub鈥"I鈥檓 going to need a few more details,鈥 says glamourous international thief Grace (Hayley Atwell), as if commenting on the script. 鈥淭hey tend to get in the way,鈥 replies Benji, nodding his head.鈥攚hile letting it rip with wild action sequences.
The catalyst for the action is artificial intelligence run amok. Called The Entity, it is an all-powerful machine, 鈥渨ho is everywhere and nowhere鈥 and has no centre. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to kill it,鈥 says Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), the former director of the Impossible Missions Force, 鈥渨e want to control it.鈥
The key to controlling it is, well, a key. Split into two halves, the key only works when made whole. Kittridge鈥檚 best chance of intercepting the key is the IMF, a secret group of expert spies made up of Ethan Hunt (Cruise), computer technician Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and sometimes member Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson).
The IMF鈥檚 mission, should they choose to accept it, is to retrieve one half of the key from glamourous international thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) before she can sell it to black market arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby). The fear is Mitsopolis will pass the key鈥檚 combined halves to terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales). 鈥淣one of our lives can matter more than the mission,鈥 says Stickell.
Cue feats of daring-do and wild action.
鈥淢ission: Impossible鈥擠ead Reckoning鈥 is the ne plus ultra of modern, big-budget studio filmmaking. Director Christopher McQuarrie manages the breathless, super-sized movie with an expert hand, blending old school action movie filmmaking with real stakes.
Whether it is Cruise flying through the air on a motorcycle or navigating through the streets of Rome in a tiny, but speedy European car or hanging on for dear life as a train car disintegrates around him, the green-screenless action scenes seem to be saying, 鈥淭ake that Marvel.鈥 The organic stunts, no matter how foolhardy they may be, up the stakes, have real danger to them and set 鈥淒ead Reckoning鈥 apart from most action flicks. It is escapism at an eye-watering level.
Tempering the action is some humour and an emphasis on the connections between the characters. Loyalty to the cause has always been paramount in these movies, but the bond between the characters has been tempered, probably because we are near the end of the franchise, by a dose of nostalgia and sentimentality.
Still, this is, first and foremost, an action movie, the characters each have an archetype to fill. Rhames and Pegg are the playful foils, Vanessa Kirby is a deliciously vampy femme fatale and Esai Morales is the kind of baddie who makes grand pronouncements like, 鈥淚 will disappear like smoke in a hurricane.鈥
Most notable is the latest lead addition, Grace. She is a slippery character whose motives shift and change with the wind, which makes her interesting. Unlike Isla (Rebecca Ferguson), however, who could handle herself in any situation, Grace is more a damsel in distress, although in the arena of self-preservation, she is a master. She is the kind of character that franchises are built around.
鈥淢ission: Impossible鈥擠ead Reckoning Part One鈥 isn鈥檛 all played at 11. It has peaks and valleys, of course, but the valleys are welcome respite from the sensory overload provided by the spectacle and adrenaline. It is a heckuva mission, satisfying, even if we have to wait a year or more, for the story鈥檚 conclusion.
THE MIRACLE CLUB: 2 ½ STARS
Despite the title, 鈥淭he Miracle Club鈥 isn鈥檛 so much about miracles as it is redemption, faith and uplift.
Set in 1967, in Ballygar, Ireland, this is the story of four women. Chrissie (Laura Linney) left the seaside town for Boston under a cloud 40 years before and hasn鈥檛 been back. When she returns for her mother鈥檚 funeral, she must face the demons of the past, and the people she left behind, including her former BFF Eileen (Kathy Bates) and her late mother鈥檚 passive-aggressive best friend Lily (Maggie Smith). Bitterness runs deep between the three, each harbouring grudges that have bubbled for four decades.
At a church fundraiser, Father Dermot Byrne (Mark O鈥橦alloran)鈥攖he local priest and centre of religious life in the small town鈥攖hrows a talent show. The prize is a trip to Lourdes in southwest France. One of the most visited places by Catholics from around the world, it is a pilgrimage site where, since 1858, the faithful have flocked to pray for miracles while bathing in the healing waters where a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous is said to have witnessed visions of the Virgin Mary.
Despite their best efforts at the talent show, Eileen, Lily and new mom Dolly (Agnes O鈥機asey) come in second, winning a hunk of meat instead of the coveted tickets. The first-place winner, feeling sorry for them, offers his tickets to them, and soon they are boarding the bus for Lourdes. Along for the ride is Chrissie, who uses her mother鈥檚 ticket for the trip.
On site in the holy town, miracles are in short supply but the situation forces the three generations of women to confront their pasts and prejudices. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 come to Lourdes for a miracle,鈥 says Father Byrne. 鈥淵ou come for the strength to go on when there is no miracle.鈥
鈥淭he Miracle Club鈥 isn鈥檛 about divine agency. Nothing miraculous happens, excepting the power of truth and compassion to heal the long-simmering wounds each of these women carry. Their shared trauma (NO SPOILERS HERE) overwhelms their lives, forming who they are as people. The actors imprint each of these characters with the cumulative weight of their lives, willing Eileen, Lily and Chrissie into stubborn life, despite a script that attempts to keep them as stereotypes.
It is these performances that give 鈥淭he Miracle Club鈥 much of its power to engage with the audience. It is in each of their abilities to imply the inner lives of the characters without necessarily verbalizing them, that shows how deeply they have been devastated by past events. That, and the movie鈥檚 evocative sense of time and place, create the backdrop for the more pedestrian story in the foreground.
THE DEEPEST BREATH: 3 ½ STARS
As extreme sports go, few entail the danger of free-diving. Often immersed hundreds of metres under the water, with no breathing apparatus, divers rely on mental and physical rigor to ensure success. One wrong move, a few seconds extra under the extraordinary pressure of the water, and all can be lost.
A new documentary, 鈥淭he Deepest Breath,鈥 now playing in theatres before moving to Netflix next week, is an up-close-and-personal look at the sport and the people who risk their lives to practice it.
Director Laura McGann assembles a study of the sport, vividly utilizing underwater photography and interviews with practitioners to provide context, and set the stage for the film鈥檚 main story, the story of Irish adventurer Stephen Keenan and Italian freediving champion Alessia Zecchini.
Determined to set a world鈥檚 record, Zecchini sets her sights on 鈥渢he last quiet place on Earth,鈥 the Blue Hole Arch, a claustrophobic 85-foot-long tunnel 184 feet below the Red Sea in Egypt. The treacherous tunnel has claimed at least 100 divers, so to aid in her dive, Keenan will act as her safety diver. His job is to track her underwater movements in case she gets lost or blacks out due to the lack of breath.
No spoilers here, but the dive does not go as planned.
With beautiful and often haunting underwater photography, director McGann gives 鈥淭he Deepest Breath鈥 a you-are-there feeling. The starkness of the dive footage effectively emphasizes the singularity of the sport; the self-reliance and mental preparation it takes to take the plunge.
The film is slightly less successful in the telling of its story. The first half of the doc is filled with choppy storytelling, archival interviews and digressions on behalf of its cast of characters. It makes for an uneven experience, but the immersive nature of the filmmaking in the ethereal underwater scenes calms any rough waters in the storytelling.
鈥淭he Deepest Breath鈥 may not be a completely satisfying account of why people risk their lives in this extreme sport, but it is a compelling visual record of those who do.
