"The Summer Action Series"

Gone In Sixty Seconds
directed by Dominic Sena
Starring Nicholas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall

Mission:Impossible II
directed by John Woo
Starring Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames

X-Men
directed by Bryan Singer
Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Anna Paquin

           Jerry Bruckheimer began producing big-budget action blockbusters in the ‘80s with partner Don Simpson.  That was the decade of the action hero, where movies needed no titles or characters because they were always referred to as ‘vehicles’ for stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, and other lone, witty gunmenv(A minor exception being late-decade ‘buddy pictures’).
        Around the mid-‘90s, coincidently after the failure of Schwarzenegger’s apt-titled Last Action Hero, action films took a turn toward ensemble casts. While the high-paid superstars of the past began trying comedies and romances, Producers like Dean Devlin (Independence Day) and Bruckheimer (Armageddon) came up with a new success scheme borrowing from the formulas of disaster and sci-fi epics as well as Robert Altman.   Without the huge stars, productions could rely on a few semi-stars and a surplus of colorful young up-and-comers with a once highly respected veteran actor rounding out the cast.  It was cheaper and allowed for more audience appeal, as if each viewer was granted an extended family with which to choose their favorite uncle.
       Gone In Sixty Seconds is the newest ensemble action movie from Jerry Bruckheimer.   Although not the exciting masterpiece of my favorite of his films,  The Rock, Gone is a traditional macho thrill with an enjoyable, one-liner cast. 
       Nicholas Cage plays the semi-star, semi-hero who must save his younger brother (Giovanni Ribisi, young up-and-comer) from an evil exporter (Shallow Grave’s Christopher Eccleston) by gathering a team of experts to steal 50 cars in one night.   The plot may seem ridiculous, and as far as I can tell, a very loose remake of the same-titled 1974 film, but in many ways, it is just a smaller scale retread of Bruckheimer’s Armageddon.   Instead of expert oil-drillers, there are expert car-thieves.   Instead of a montage of NASA training exercises, there is a montage of car-theft.  Instead of the world being saved, there is one punk kid being saved.   Both movies feature the inevitable scenes where the rogue team members are recruited.
      The main difference that makes Gone enjoyable is the ensemble cast.  Sure, nobody comes close to the viewing pleasure of Owen Wilson, but also none come close to the vomit-inducing Liv Tyler.   Nearly everyone is fun to watch, with the exception of Angelina Jolie and Ribisi who aren’t given much to do.   My favorite uncle in this picture, edging out seasoned vets like Duvall and Delroy Lindo (as the detective on Cage’s ass), is Chi McBride as the lovably funny ‘Donny’.  Also entertaining is silent but deadly Vinnie Jones (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and Timothy Olyphant(Go) who gets the best one-liners as young Detective Drycoff.  
                 With as many characters as this film has, you cannot expect much background on who these people are, but that isn’t what Jerry Bruckheimer aims for.   He wants the audience to have fun, and unless you’re a snobby film critic pointing out the clichés, unimaginatives, flaws, and implausibles, that should be what you get.

                     If you know the Mission:Impossible television series well, you should have predicted it would be a very possible mission for John Woo after his face-switching Face/Off.  If you know the Mission: Impossible television series well, you should have predicted it would be an impossible mission for Tom Cruise to incorporate himself, equally, within an ensemble premise.
                     Tom Cruise is fully capable of appearing alongside a multitude of characters without taking the spotlight, as he did in Magnolia last year.   He was even granted an Oscar nomination for such.   He was even granted a personality.  
          In Mission:Impossible II, which he also produced, Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, head of an elite covert operations unit who must retrieve and destroy samples of a deadly virus before a group of terrorists can use it for their own purpose.   As usual, he is allowed to choose a few teammates to help in his mission.    One recruit happens to be a non IMF regular (Thandie Newton), who also happens to be an international thief and a beautiful woman, only to be used as a prostitute for her ex-boyfriend, who so happens to be the head terrorist involved.
           John Polson and Ving Rhames (returning as Luther Stickell) round out the team, though appear in perspective as low-level servants without any impossible task for themselves, except for Rhames surviving his exploding van.    Unfortunately, these two characters look like they’d be a lot of fun given a lot more chance.   Instead, we are treated to Cruise (not looking nearly as cute as in the first film) and Newton (a poor-man’s Catherine Zeta-Jones), both of whom are very uninteresting, but Woo does try to remind us how beautiful they are with all the slow-motion close-ups they get while wooing each other (don’t excuse the pun). 
         Also boring is the villain, played by Dougray Scott in his best desire to be Antonio Banderas, and not convincing me he would have made a good choice as Wolverine in X-Men.  Luckily the untrusting henchman (Richard Roxburgh) seemed to make-up in the bad-guy category if only because he reminds me of author Joe Queenan.
         Despite having no characters to really enjoy, though, I did not hate this movie.   The plot was, at least, not as confusing as the first Mission: Impossible, and much of the spy-tech stuff and action scenes were a lot of fun.  And then there is the mask-wearing, face-switching deal.  As unbelievable as it seems that masks so realistic could exist, they are used to better effect than in the previous installment(reminding me of Hannibal’s get-away in Silence of the Lambs). 
         John Woo has made so many better films than this in his native Hong Kong, with Face/Off being his only Hollywood picture to impress me.    Aside from excessive use of slow-motion (without which the film may only be 30 minutes long) and a weak stand-off, there isn’t  even enough of his token style to make his fans happy.   I must say, though, at least he’s not using Van Damme anymore than he had to.
         If my wishes came true, I would hope that Tom Cruise could stop trying to revive the dead action hero genre and go back to what he’s good at (I’m sure there’s something), and hope that action movies continued with their ensemble trend or get back some of those witty, exciting guys I love like Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis, unless they’re too old, in which case a new breed must be found.

          John Woo would love a character like Mystique, a shape-shifting villain in the newest comic-book adaptation, X-Men.  Maybe he could do the sequel.  I’m sure he could relate to making a team-centered premise into a one-man show.  Maybe we should thank him, at least, for keeping Dougray Scott from playing Wolverine, allowing Hugh Jackman to perform amazingly in the one-man show.
        X-Men tells the tale known by millions of comic-book geeks around the world, including myself.  The next step in evolution has created mutants, a new species of humans that have unique super-powers.   They have separated into two categories: Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who feel superior to homo-sapiens and want them wiped out; and Professor Xavier’s X-Men who want nothing more than to fit in with the world, fighting Magneto, who makes segregation seem like a good idea.  It is a familiar war within the equal rights cause, pitting a model of Martin Luther King against a model of Malcolm X or Huey Newton. 
         The newest recruits to the X-Men are Rogue (Anna Paquinn) as a young girl who can absorb the powers of others and Wolverine (Jackman), a lone rebel with a helpful healing factor and sharp, metal claws.   They join Cyclops who can shoot lasers from his eyes, Storm who can manipulate the weather, and Jean Grey, a telekinetic.   While the three originals seem useless and weak, Wolverine soon becomes the strongest asset to the team, and most appealing to fans, with his cynical attitude and anti-protagonist philosophy.   Hugh Jackman plays him so well, too, that I cannot complain about the others being left out of the spotlight.   Picky fans can complain that he is too tall, or not bulky enough, but, come on, could anyone have the Han Solo, mercenary charm as well?
                   I think not.   He does an amazing job, distracting from known-to-be-good-actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan.
         Having anticipating this movie for nearly ten years now (a tad below my anticipations for the in-the-works “Hitchhiker’s Guide” movie), there were some things that I couldn’t help being disappointed with.   At least it wasn’t nearly as horrible as Phantom Menace, though.    There are the little character cameos and inside jokes that only true fans will spot, and they made me feel utterly satisfied that Bryan Singer knew the subject matter well.  The film was also not the quality of the original Superman which didn’t share half the technology incorporated here, yet came much closer to perfection as a film on its own as much as in its adaptation.   There are times when the look of X-Men’s special effects remind me too much of the Tim Burton-less “Batman” movies. 
        The flaws the film has could cost X-Men an audience who isn’t familiar with the series.    I have had trouble finding many people who hadn’t either read the books or seen the cartoon show, though, so I’m sure it will be successful in making a lot of money and breeding a franchise.   As a former comic-book geek, not far from the level of “The Simpsons’” chubby character, I welcome the sequels with open arms.

"I wouldn't finish that joke about me picking my nose if I were you."