Mission Impossible III (MovieWatch 2007 #2)

My second movie of the year was another "family-friendly" choice, which I viewed with my wife and son.



Mission Impossible III (I refuse to call M:I:3) was a movie I genuinely wanted to see on the big screen - meaning a real movie theater, and not my personal Screening Room. I have been a big fan of the film's director, J. J. Abrams, since first seeing his television pilot episode of Alias. And then he had another little TV show called Lost which I am particularly fond of. So when I heard he was directing the next installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, I was really anxious to see what he could do with a film's budget. He had maintained movie-quality television on a fraction of the coin, so what kind of madness would he unleash on the silver screen? I couldn't wait to see.



But then I started seeing Tom Cruise nearly everywhere. And I found myself, inexplicably, getting sick of him. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a fan of Tom Cruise, the actor. I have said publicly he is the most focused actor of his generation. Every choice he made in his career put him together with the very best directors alive. Kubrick. Scorsese. Coppola. Spielberg. Pollack. Stone. He worked with them all. So the respect is there. But I decided to make an admittedly small statement with my movie dollar, I choose not to see the film in the theater.



But there was no way I was passing it up on DVD.



So how well did Mr. Abrams fair on his first feature film?



Flying colors, baby. This was flat-out entertainment from opening frame to closing credits. Lean, mean and thrilling, it's

easily the best installment of the franchise. Even my wife liked it!



HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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MovieWatch 2007 Begins!

I love to watch movies (not exactly a news flash), but I have never taken the time to actually document all the films that I watch over the course of a year. I'm going to try and change that this year. My plan is to post all the movies I watch over the next 12 months, and offer a brief review along with a recommendation to either check it out, or skip it.



So what was the first movie viewed for 2007?



The choice was tough - for several reasons. I got several great movies on DVD for Christmas this year. Including Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, the Criterion edition of John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln, starring Henry Fonda, and the six-hour Italian epic The Best of Youth (La Meglio Gioventu) (which was one of my favorite films viewed last year - hence the request for it on DVD!)



But the winner is....









Superman II - the Richard Donner Cut.



Okay, maybe this seems an unlikely choice, but my son had asked me twice (since Christmas) to see it, and I kept delaying (well, actually I was having too much fun playing with our new Xbox 360) but I finally decided it was time to watch a movie, and this was one of the few I got this year, that he had any interest in seeing.



The story behind this special edition of the 1980 sequel to Donner's original Superman, is a fascinating one. It seems that there was a lot of bickering about how much money was going to be spent on the film. Donner had shot a large percentage of the sequel while shooting the original film - including a lengthy exchange between Superman (Christopher Reeve) and his father Jor-El (Marlon Brando).



The film's producer's didn't want to pay Brando the large fee he was requesting for only about 10 minutes of screen time. So they decided they wouldn't use him, and informed Donner that was the way it was going to be.



But for the director, this was unacceptable. A key sequence in the film relied on the emotional impact of father and son facing a decision that will effect the whole world - it just wouldn't work without the father. Words were exchanged, Donner left the picture and Richard Lester took over the helm.



Now, 30 years later, the footage that Donner shot and intended to use in the film has been found, and he's been given an opportunity to finally complete his movie, his way.



And I'm glad he did.



The scenes with Brando are terrific (and not JUST because he's Brando). The movie shows its age a bit, but the overall impact is one of solid entertainment. Gene Hackman is a scene-stealer as the egomaniacal, criminal genius Lex Luthor. Margot Kidder is wonderful as Superman's crush Lois Lane, and Terence Stamp is almost unrecognizable as the evil General Zod.



The movie is a worthy follow-up to the original Superman, which single-handedly invented the modern superhero movie.



RECOMMENDED

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