BEFORE: I kind of shot myself in the foot by watching "Born on the Fourth of July" last December. I was doing a chain of war films, and I didn't realize I'd be doing a second Tom Cruise chain, or even that I'd be doing birthday shouts. So that tie-in is off-limits today, the next best option is to watch a film where Cruise plays a secret agent - I hope he's on our side.
And STILL the Captain America movie hasn't been released? That means someone passed on 3 possible tie-ins: Memorial Day, Flag Day and the Fourth of July weekend, two of which are traditional blockbuster 3-day events. It makes me wonder if anyone in the scheduling department at Marvel/Disney knows what they're doing.
THE PLOT: A story of a girl who gets mixed up with a spy trying to clear his name.
AFTER: Well, at least this shares some elements with "Minority Report", in that Cruise's character is being set up, or is made to appear that he's gone rogue. It always seems to be Tom Cruise's character against the world, doesn't it? From "Mission: Impossible" to "Eyes Wide Shut" to "The Firm" and even "War of the Worlds", what's the common factor? Cruise taking on some kind of massive conspiracy, battling incredible odds. I wonder if that's a coincidence or a series of conscious choices.
For tonight's film, he plays a spy who appears to be working alone, against some unspecified opponents and possibly even his own agency - or maybe he's crazy, the film hints at the possibility that he might be a regular guy who's insane and just thinks he's a spy. But the skills he displays in one of the three or four astoundingly impossible action sequences are shorthand for spy, aka movie superhero.
Cameron Diaz (last seen in "The Last Supper") plays the regular woman (an auto mechanic, an atypical female role) who gets caught up in his spy business, which involves protecting the inventor of one of those technical MacGuffins that everyone wants to get their hands on. In that sense the film is sort of by-the-numbers, but the car chases and fights really set this film apart from your typical spy flick. It seems over the years they've gotten better and better, or at least there's a feeling that they have to top the action sequences we've seen before.
Unfortunately there's an air of mystery that's created by Diaz's character blacking out or being drugged, and waking up in a car, or a speedboat, or a new location, without knowledge of how she got there. That counts as cheating in the language of film, like a character saying "I escaped somehow!" without providing any details. This means that the best action sequences and escapes happen off-camera, or are left to the viewer's imagination.
And there's a shift in P.O.V. - Diaz's character is our regular-person's viewpoint into the spy world, and the air of mystery and magic is maintained through her. But near the end of the film we start to see things from Cruise's character's P.O.V. Why couldn't the original tone have been maintained until the end? It's a neat trick, but it still counts as a trick.
Other than that, no quibbles tonight.
Also starring Paul Dano (last seen in "There Will Be Blood"), Peter Sarsgaard (last seen in "Kinsey"), Viola Davis (last seen in "Doubt"), with a cameo from Celia Weston (last seen in "The Talented Mr. Ripley").
RATING: 6 out of 10 pistons
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