Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018)

There are tons of spy movies out there, but Mission Impossible is done extraordinarily well, with some of the most exciting action scenes there are. Tom Cruise is 56 but he is still a real action star.  He runs so fast on camera and he jumps out of planes (that scene is really impressive); he is unstoppable! Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are hilarious. They're actually my favorite part of the movie. The story has really excellent bits. The first half of the story works, and the second half of the story works, separately. But then the second half of the story makes the first half irrelevant. A few issues with the plot. It revolves around three nuclear weapons. The original story in the first half has an appropriate use of nuclear weapons, but the second half makes use of the nukes in a conventional way, meaning that it is irrelevant that the weapons are nuclearized since ordinary explosives would have done the same trick. It's also kind of insensitive and tasteless to set your nuclear weapons movie in Kashmir, a region known for nearly starting a nuclear war. Finally Rebecca Ferguson and Michelle Monaghan look exactly the same. They could've dyed someone's hair because I did not know they were separate people until they were on screen together. 

The Greatest Showman (2017)

Why is this movie so boring? I like a good musical but it's just really uninteresting. The music is drab. I don't know what everyone sees in "This Is Me." Pasek and Paul are responsible for La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen; they can't all be good, I guess. I get that it's a family movie, but it feels like a kids movie. There are so many good family movies nowadays that are not so kiddy. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is, but it is not made for us. There was so much opportunity to develop some of these characters, but they never really do. Zendaya, for example, doesn't have enough lines. The opening is the glitziest part of the movie. You expect the circus to have more spectacle.

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)

This movie was pleasantly hilarious. Meryl Streep can basically do no wrong, you can always count on her (Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg are pretty funny too). She plays a rich patron of the arts who thinks she can sing and no one has the heart or the guts to tell her that she can't. Her lack of operatic abilities is astounding. She is so bad that the audience in the film can't help but laugh. And that laughter is infectious. 

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Tom Cruise is the quintessential action star.  In the very first scene, Tom Cruise literally jumps onto a plane and hangs onto it from the outside as it takes off.  And this is just the beginning!  There are chase scenes galore, on foot, on motor bikes, in cars, you name it. There is constant action and non-stop adrenaline to keep this movie going.  There is another formidable action star to complement Cruise's performance.  Rebecca Ferguson kicks ass.  The two of them together are extraordinarily fun to watch.  Fun is the best way to describe this movie.  The plot is easy to follow meaning there are no hindrances to enjoying everything this movie has to offer.

I particularly liked the opera scene, in which a production of Puccini's Turandot is interrupted.  It is beautifully shot at the incredible Vienna State Opera.  I appreciated that motifs from Calaf's aria Nessun Dorma from Turandot reappeared in the score several times amid the famous Mission: Impossible theme.  The best known tenor aria and the best known movie theme all rolled into one.