KWIF: Oppenheimer + M:I-DR Pt. 1

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week (maybe) I have a spotlight movie which I write a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else I watched that week I do a quick little summary of my thoughts. KWIF is not a fart from the front butt.

This Week:
Oppenheimer (2023, d. Christopher Nolan - in 70mm)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Pt. 1 (2023, d. Christopher McQuarrie - in theatre)

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For Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's storytelling construct - in which the film's scattershot narrative jumps back and forth across 3 different timelines in a non-linear fashion - is his conceptualization of the process of an atomic explosion -particles bouncing off of each other (to my rudimentary understanding)- but as cinema.  

Truth is, I went into a 10am 70mm screening of a 3 hour historical drama on 5 hours sleep and no caffeine expecting (not wanting, but expecting) sleep to take me over. It was quite the opposite experience.

The structural choices were riveting, and required my brain to be on alert. I was engaged in surprising ways, even though the crux of the film delivers a message I'd long reached on my own. It's a little blunt (not talking Emily here) on its message about Oppenheimer's legacy, his reputation, and what we should think of the man, especially in its third act's late stages, but it earns the right to say such things...mostly.

It's not hard to follow the storylines, really, but then Nolan had long ago mastered the non-linear narrative and this is an even more impressive feat than Tenet in that regards because there's not a single action sequence to speak of. I may be confused on the timeline of the specific events, but a pretty whole picture is revealed in spite of it.

Ludwig Goransson, next to Nolan and lead Cilian Murphy, is the third key to this project playing out. Certainly tasked by Nolan to never stop, the music can be overwhelming at times, as there's to be no quiet in this film, until the one moment quiet is needed. Fans of The Last Jedi already know where this is going. It's strong, often powerful work otherwise.

Nolan attempts to inject some sex into this brainy bio-drama but the effort comes off as Nolan's films often do in this regard, clinical, cerebral, certainly not alluring or arousing.

It's a sobering film, and I dislike the decision not to show the aftereffects of what a detonation on a populace actually looks like. It may be graphic, exploitative, and unpleasant, sure, but I think it'd a necessary punch to remind us this isn't just a fiction.

It's not my favourite Nolan movie, not by a long shot, but it is his most potent and sobering, and just maybe his greatest accomplishment.

The Flash Scale: So much better than The Flash. Like if Oppenheimer is an atomic explosion, The Flash is a wet fart in comparison.

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Because of the Tom Cruise-ness of it all, I was pretty resistant to embracing the Mission:Impossible series until, one week of rewatching, I discovered that, hey, I actually like all these (mostly).  It's still not a series I obsess over nor do I revisit them with any regularity, and unlike Bond films which distinguish themselves from one another pretty comfortably, most of the M:I films (particularly the McQuarrie ones) tend to blur with each other.

That said, I was still pretty enthused to go see Dead Reckoning Part One (the latest entry in the Year of Two-Parters). More crazy TC stunts, more Becky Fergs, more Vanessa Kirby, and the addition of Hayley Atwell...that's maybe too many of my on-screen crushes together at once (it's like Gunpowder Milkshake all over again).  Just my luck, though, I missed the scene where the three of them all get to act against one another. Stupid 1/2 litre iced tea I drank at lunch.

The plot of M:I-DRpt1 finds Ethan (once again having gone rogue within minutes of the film starting) squaring off against an artificial intelligence who sees him as its only threat to its total dominion over humanity. Because, you know, Ethan Hunt is just so altruistic, pro-humanity, such an outside-the-box thinker, and the ultimate moralist. He's become increasingly fashioned in Cruise's own image of himself, and I think Dead Reckoning (part 1, lest we forget) is the tipping point where it starts to become too much wish fulfillment for the 60-year-old megastar.  Especially in the wake of the Boomer power-fantasy of Top Gun: Maverick, it seems like the moral of every Tom Cruise movie is "still vital, still relevant, better than ever".

But I can get past that part, especially given how simultaneously silly and thrilling McQuarrie's Missions:Impossible have gotten over the past few series. This one is pretty crackin' big corker of a superspy action film (I mean, obviously...it's in TWO PARTS!) that should electrify any audience.

Unfortunately, it's also a film that has a particularly sour turning point which just gets worse, at least for me, the more it rolls around in my mind.

[SPOILERS]

They fridge Ilsa.  Her death, particularly after an earlier-in-the-movie fake-out, is really freaking annoying. I want Ilsa to be Ethan's better as a super-spy, but it's clear the filmmakers don't want it that way.  Ethan Hunt has to be, not just the best spy ever, but the best person ever.  Ilsa's death is then used additional motivation for Ethan's mission, and revenge.  

It's not just that, though, as the filmmakers then seed in some heretofore unknown backstory about Ethan's motivation for joining IMF originally...which involved another woman being fridged by the same guy who kills Ilsa. 

Two fridgings in one movie? What fucking year are we living in?!? If this were, say, a Scream movie which satirizes Hollywood tropes, I could see it, but there's not a metatext bone in this film's body. Subtext, sure, metatext, nossaemuch. 

Truth told, it would have been 1000 times more interesting killing Ethan and having Ilsa pick up the pieces. Or kill Benji or Luther if you want to really pack an emotional wallop. This just stinks.

There's also been this longstanding trope in M:I of Ethan showing a moment of kindness to a gorgeous female assassin or spy and turning them to his side at just the moment when he needs them. He does so again here, in egregious fashion with Pom Klementieff's painted killer, a fun, one-note role stepped right out of a Roger Moore Bond flick.  The trope does actually get called out here, but it's still maddening as it functions solely as ego flattery for the film's lead.

[END SPOILERS]

Cruise is fine, here. I won't say he's in top form, because he's not. Throughout (likely because the shoot was delayed due to COVID) he looks different from one scene to the next.  At times, he looks like he's wearing an ill-fitting Ethan Hunt mask throughout the film. Yes I being petty, insulting the man's precious moneymaker, but the reality is, age is finally starting to catch up with him in ways he can't avoid. It's not too distracting, except when he's hitting on women 15-20 years (or more) younger than he is.  Then it just feels like sad, handsome grandpa.

Upon the first meeting between Ethan Hunt and Haley Atwell's Grace, she looks like she's just come face to face with international movie star and famous handsome man Tom Cruise, and not some rando of whom she has no prior knowledge. She seems dazzled for a minute, and it's an odd choice, and their dynamic continues to be weird throughout. Atwell is superb, but the intent of the dynamic between Ethan and Grace never seems clear (especially complicated by the Ilsa situation). 

If you aren't bothered by the hoary comic book tropes that should have died in the 90's and ego-driven story decisions, then you will be wildly entertained. If you are bothered by such things, you'll still be wildly entertained while also pretty frustrated.

The Flash Scale: better than The Flash, but maybe just as aggravating?

As far as this year's 2-parters go, marginally better than Fast X (less silly, but surprisingly not that much less silly... I could see Fast X part 2 and Dead Reckoning part 2 actually being a crossover and still working somehow), not even close to as good as Across the Spideverse.