ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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I like all the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movies, and I even like his “almost Mission Impossible” movie with Cameron Diaz. It’s an action-pack chick flick with hysterical humor. That’s like a Mercedez Benz with leather seats and the deluxe options package.

The third movie today is a disappointing 2010 movie so forgettable that that only I remember is that it has something to do with an invasion.
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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)




Fans of the original show often point out the differences between it and the movie versions. Granted there are plenty of 'em, but this one seems to go to great lengths to pay tribute to the series — right up to having the title work include quick scenes from the movie, just like the series did.

I thought that was cool.

And the classic theme weaves its way in and out of the action during all the scenes involving a master plan. It happens fairly often.

I thought that was cool, too.

One of MI's most popular ideas was used in a new, hi-tech manner, the old "corridor that looks empty when it's really a half-corridor with a rear projection screen to make it LOOK empty" trick.

That was definitely very cool.

As for the other sci-fi elements in this one . . . well, it's Christmas, kids! Here's Santa's list of goodies.

Contact lenses that provide real-time data directly to the wearer's eyes, a sonic device that disintegrates concrete, sexy black gloves that stick to window glass and turn the wearer into Spider-Man, and the aforementioned portable video screen that creates David Copperfield illusions.

And Santa's little helpers also gift us with a rusty railroad boxcar that looks like a starship on the inside, packed with enough futuristic toys to make you glad you were a good boy all year long.

As for the plot, it has a lot more balls than that wimpy crap about the mysterious "Rabbit's Foot" the last one fed us.

In this one, a Russian nutcakesky thinks nuclear war is good for the environment, and he wants to start one so mankind can build new stuff on the ruins of the old stuff that gets nuked. He actually defends this crazy idea by pointing out that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are much nicer places now than they were just before the A-bombs fell.

How do you argue with logic like that?

One thing that pleased me enormously was the way the movie did not try to beat my brain to death with endless action scenes, the way John Woo did with MI2. This one was a "thinking man's" story, with characters that used their brains much more often than their fists and firearms.

The whole scene that took place in two different hotel rooms at once to trick the bad guys was classic Mission: Impossible — and brilliantly done.

I'm hoping our resident "Mission: Impossible" fans felt this one did the original series proud.
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Knight and Day (2010)



If you like Tom Cruise (and I do) and you like the Mission: Impossible movies (and again, I do), you gotta love this wild and wacky flick. The plot involves a boy genius who invents a battery that would power 1,000 pink mechanized bunnies for 100 years and keep them going and going and going . . .

But that's not really the interesting part.

This is sort of like "Ethan Hunt lightens up and goes bananas", with the charming Cameron Diaz stealing our foolish hearts and screaming in the cutest way every time she's thinks she's about to die, which is about once every ten minutes during the slow parts.

And there aren't many slow parts.

I consider this movie to be the perfect blend of wild action and wonderful humor, blended in joyous harmony to deliver 110 minutes of rib-tickling humor and spine-tingling suspense.

Add a bag of popcorn and you'll have so much fun you'll feel guilty the next day.
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Skyline (2010)



I think I saw this one once. It sounds like a wild story based on the Wikipedia plot synopsis. Here's the good parts.
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. . . blue lights descend from the sky, hypnotizing anyone who looks at them. The light affects them physically, causing them to become zombie-like. Any immobilized humans are collected by the light machines. . . alien ships descend through the clouds and vacuum up thousands of screaming people.
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Sounds great, right? But the critics didn't think so. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 15% rating based on 67 reviews. Not too good, eh?

Writing in Variety, Joe Leydon panned the film: "Imagine a Kmart mash-up of Transformers and iIndependence Day and you're appropriately primed for Skyline, an underwhelming and derivative sci-fi thriller that's only marginally more impressive than a run-of-the-mill SyFy Channel telepic."

With that in mind you'd think it would have crashed and burned at the box office, but no -- it did pretty good. Wikipedia lists the budget as $10-20 million (which makes me wonder who the bookkeeper was. )

And the box office take was -- (Drum roll, please) -- $79 million! A 400% profit ain't bad a'tall.

But, like I said, I think I saw it, and . . . I don't remember much about it. So I figure its sort of forgettable. Anybody know otherwise?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)