Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Rated PG-13 for bloody images, action, brief language, and sequences of strong violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%
In Theaters
Finally, we are getting the finale of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible franchise, which also happens to be the second part of this two-part mission. Continuing the tale from before, Ethan (Cruise) is on the hunt to find and destroy The Entity, an AI system that has gotten out of control and which threatens the entire planet.  The key to finding The Entity lies with stopping Gabriel, the one man chosen to be the human intermediary as it tries to take over the world.  Traveling from continent to continent, Ethan and his team play a dangerous game of chess with millions of lives at stake.  I must hand it to Cruise – while I don’t really care for him or his crazy personal life, he is really good at making movies.  And this one is truly epic, especially when you take the two movies as a whole.  For the first hour, the film is surprisingly soft, with only a splash of action and a lot of exposition.  But at almost three hours long, you can guess correctly that that will change, and it manages to put you on the edge of your seat, chewing your nails down to their nubs, for much of the second and third act.  Especially impressive is that Cruise is still doing most of his own stunts, and the stunts look very much out of control and extremely dangerous.  But if it were just action, it would suffer under its own weight, so thankfully there is a solid and relevant story behind it all, and while the pieces of the puzzle are technically all big MacGuffins, you are completely invested in their importance and their necessity.  If the film has one fault, it’s that it spends way too much time, throughout, making sure the audience understands that this franchise is almost thirty years old, with multiple flashbacks and old characters, or references to old characters, popping in to say hi.  I’m guessing that they are assuming that much of the audience might be new to the series and this might help advertise to go back and watch the earlier films.  But cutting out ten to fifteen minutes would have served the story better in this particular case.  A-
Lilo & StitchÂ
Rated PG for thematic elements, peril and action
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75%
In Theaters
It’s been 23 years since the animated Disney film Lilo & Stitch hit theaters. Going to Disneyland now, you would think this movie was one of Disney’s greatest hits, but upon its release, it never topped the box office and left theaters having only made a relatively poor showing of $145 million in the U.S.  But over the years, Stitch has become one of Disney’s most beloved characters, and now it is getting the live-action treatment.  The story follows an alien genetic experiment which would serve as a weapon, sure to destroy anything in its path.  When the leaders of the space federation discover its presence, they wish to destroy it, but it finds a way to get into an escape pod set for Earth, specifically landing in Hawaii.  After wrecking a wedding, it ends up in a dog pound where a young orphan named Lilo adopts it and takes it home to live with her and her older sister.  Meanwhile, a pair of misfit aliens travel to Earth to seek it out and bring it back.  It’s quite a lovable story, and as terrifying as Stitch really is, he is adorably terrible here.  The live action take, unlike many of the recent Disney redos, is almost preferable to the animated version.  It looks and feels at home in this skin and manages to pop off a few changes and some nice surprises.  Originally directed by Dean DeBlois (How to Train Your Dragon – animated and live-action) and Chris Sanders (The Wild Robot), the film managed to put these two extremely talented filmmakers on the map and into the award-winning careers they very much deserve.  And since both were too busy (Chris did find time to do the voice of Stitch at least), Disney hired newcomer Dean Fleischer-Camp (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On) to take on this project, and what a great choice he managed to be.  So, while Lilo & Stitch lost to Tom Cruise in 2002 (Minority Report beat them opening weekend and beyond) I fully predict this new version to crush it at the box office and give the story the critical and financial success it deserves.  B+
The Last Rodeo
Rated PG for language, violence and thematic elements
In Theaters
From Angel Studios, the studio that brought us The Chosen, comes this faith-based drama about a retired bull rider (Neal McDonough) who is forced to ride again in order to make enough money to pay for his grandchild’s medical bills when he is diagnosed with brain cancer.  Unfortunately, this film is all heart and no brains, as they clearly did zero research on how the health system works in America.  It’s like they needed the catalyst of the boy who couldn’t afford brain surgery in order to get to the bull riding, and so they chose to push their way through a story that has no place in reality.  As this is a film made by conservatives, it is possible that they were trying to make some kind of political statement, however, this tale would best be served by a country with universal healthcare.  They didn’t once bring up the consideration of St. Jude’s or other hospitals with charities that could have helped.  And in a country where a mother can use the N word in a playground and raise almost a million dollars on a crowd funding site by doing so, I’d guess that even if there was a hospital that wouldn’t operate on him without upfront cash, that there would be other options before putting an old man back on a deadly bull.  Then again, my path for the story wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic or necessary.  This project does try to be more inspirational than Bible-thumping, which is one of its more positive qualities.  Also, McDonough puts on a decent enough performance to give the film some street cred.  But ultimately, I want to see good faith-based projects and really wish that studios like this would put more careful thought into their writing.  C-
Danny Minton may be reached at danny@dannyminton.com.Â
 Â
If the full content does not display, visit the article originally published on this site
