For the week of December 14th, Paramount Home Media Entertainment is bringing Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation to Blu-ray. A lot of sequels - most, if we're being honest - get worse the longer they chug along, and the Mission: Impossible series certainly didn't seem exempt from this pattern; for all the money it made, 2011's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol coasted off a few expert setpieces and some witty supporting performances (from Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner) in yet another attempt to stoke star Tom Cruise's ego. Whatever semblance of depth or character the first movie had vanished, and the whole endeavor felt about as hollow as blockbusters got. Thankfully, with Rogue Nation, Cruise and the series have course-corrected in a big way: in some ways, this entry might be the franchise's high-water mark. The plot is nothing special - once again, IMF agent Ethan Hunt finds himself targeting/targeted by a shadowy criminal organization (in the form of British character actor Sean Harris), and once again, he must resort to all sorts of physical derring-do to save the world - but the execution considerably elevates all the proceedings. To his credit, Cruise gets two crackerjack action sequences that seem to test both his strength and sanity (he attaches himself to the side of a plane as it's taking off, and then he has to hold his breath underwater for a terrifying amount of time), although his athleticism isn't as bracing as the welcome strain of modesty we now find in his character. See, Rogue Nation comes courtesy of writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, who covered scripting duties on Cruise's little-seen-but-much-loved Edge of Tomorrow, and if there's anything that sci-fi actioner taught viewers, it's that Cruise is never more appealing or relatable than when he's getting the crap kicked out of him. So it goes in Rogue Nation, which delights in kicking Ethan when he's down - a fight at the opera is all the more thrilling because Ethan looks smaller and more tired than his opponent, and the underwater scene I mentioned goes catastrophically awry. All these setbacks force Ethan to fight (and think!) harder, and so his eventually victory feels all the more satisfying because it's so narrowly won. Plus, Ethan isn't even the biggest badass in the film. That honor goes to newcomer Rebecca Ferguson, playing a double (or is it triple?) agent that keeps crossing paths with Ethan at all the wrong times. Ferguson is such a commanding presence that she damn near becomes Rogue Nation's stealth lead. Between this and Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015 has been a very good year for letting strong female characters hijack movies away from their male leads. How nice is it to see another male-female partnership that isn't romantically motivated, where the characters approach one another through mutual respect and trust. The movie is almost a Howard Hawks picture, in that regard. So, yeah, the action sequences are great (and I haven't even mentioned the incredible motorcycle chase), and sure, Ethan's team gives as good as they get (Pegg is the standout again, but Renner's dry underplaying steals every scene he's in, as does Alec Baldwin, doing his Jack Donaghy act as a government stooge trying to dismantle the IMF). But McQuarrie and Cruise have hidden the best stuff in plain sight, and all in the guise of an efficient, unpretentious thrill-ride. A welcome surprise.
In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman wrote that the film "certainly flirts with the disasters of franchise fatigue and betting on bigger action to draw in more viewers. Parts of the film feel like little more than a playground in which the filmmakers indulge in pushing the limits of Action movie extravaganza. The story doesn't break new ground and the characters aren't pushed all that hard outside of their physical demands - their spirits don't feel quite so burdened as their bodies - leaving parts of the movie feeling less story driven and more bridges to the next big, extended stunt. The movie begins with a sequence so spectacular that it could probably end most Action movies. It sets a breathless, death-defying tone but also a tone that establishes the idea that the movie is more about dazzling audiences and less about telling a good, meaningful story that challenges the characters. But gradually the film regains its equilibrium, blending in what becomes a healthy, though not fully robust, story, certainly not one that's going to redefine the franchise but one with enough earned dramatic credit - thanks in large part to a richly developed and portrayed villain courtesy of Sean Harris whose slyly evil performance is classically understated yet intensely dangerous - to keep it flowing in its narrative and present the action with a bit more purpose beyond pure spectacle."
From Universal Studios Home Entertainment comes the comedy sequel Ted 2. As popular as it was - and we're talking one of the most successful R-rated comedies of all time, so in your face, Animal House - the first Ted was a perfect encapsulation of writer-director-star Seth MacFarlane's strengths and weaknesses. As with his hit animated series Family Guy, when Ted was funny, it was explosively, brutally so; the problem was, when it wasn't funny, it was just as aggressively unfunny, and the ratio of hits-to-misses held fast at 1:1. That figure is harder to stomach when your movie runs just under two hours, and Ted 2's biggest sin is that it's even longer. At 126 minutes, the film sags under the glut of bad jokes, and while there's a solid hour of funny, we have to endure an hour of nothing, including a reprise of the terrible material involving Giovanni Ribisi's psychotic, Ted-obsessed man-child. Somewhere down the line, MacFarlane lost the ability to edit, and that's a shame because when Ted 2 stops flailing around so much, it's actually quite endearing. If the whole movie were just eighty minutes of Ted and his best friend John (Mark Wahlberg) getting high and goofing around, we'd be looking at a new comedy classic. Wahlberg is such an open, goofy presence in these situations, and he never condescends to the reality of acting opposite a CGI teddy-bear: he genuinely loves Ted, and their affection for one another is equal parts funny and sweet. But since MacFarlane can't leave well enough alone, he overloads their wonderful bromance with stuff about Tom Brady's genitals, a boring love interest (Amanda Seyfried) for Wahlberg's character, and some genuinely offensive material that has Ted trying to assert his civil rights. Now I'm no prude, and some of Ted 2's best moments come from the crassest places (I could have watched a whole reel of the scene where John and Ted heckle an improv comedy group by trying to get them to engineer scenarios around such non-P.C. topics as "Bill Cosby" or "the law offices at Charlie Hebdo"). But Ted's struggles to assert himself find him making light of the Civil Rights Movement in some tone-deaf ways that, coupled with MacFarlane's insistence on distended gags about black people, make me question if the Ted mastermind knows the difference between edgy and racist. Oh, well - there's always Blazing Saddles to rewatch.
Martin Liebman had a far more favorable opinion, calling the film "a high energy film that, a bit too frequently, becomes bogged down in somewhat repetitive actions and verbal exchanges that don't kill the pace -- it's still a laugh-out-loud and very fun ride -- but that instead keep it in neutral, preventing it from maintaining a linear, upwards momentum at all times. There's a tendency to drag out gags or repeat the same jokes, which works once or twice in establishing, or in the case of the sequel, reinforcing the rapport between Ted and John, but by mid movie there should be a greater emphasis on pushing the story forward and wrapping the humor into it, not vice versa. Still, the movie is a blast and the cast is terrific. Wahlberg really nails the part, playing a character that certainly doesn't stretch him as an actor but that allows him to have plenty of fun on the set, interacting with the beautifully animated bear that looks absolutely real and comes to life with a perfectly attuned vocal performance from Director Seth MacFarlane, who nails the balance between crude and tender and vulgar and relatable. The film enjoys excellent work from series newcomer Amanda Seyfried and the film plays host to plenty of great cameos, some of which are outlined in one of the Blu-ray supplements and some of which are left for the audience to find for themselves."
Still, Ted 2 isn't the biggest dud of the week; that honor would go to Twentieth Century Fox's new reboot of Fantastic Four. Fox might have wanted to kickstart the franchise again just to keep the IP from reverting back to Marvel, but certainly no one would complain if the results turned out better than Tim Story's low-rent, no-stakes entries from 2005 and 2007 (we got good performances from Chris Evans as the Human Torch and Michael Chiklis as The Thing. That's. About. It.). And to be fair, this Fantastic Four has a better surface pedigree. Swap out Evans, Chiklis, and Ioan Gruffudd (who was a wan Mr. Fantastic) for the talented young actors Michael B. Jordan (who's killing it in Creed right now), Jamie Bell, and Whiplash's Miles Teller, and replace Story with Josh Trank, who did such a good job on Chronicle and who promised that his Fantastic Four would put more of an emphasis on Cronenbergian body horror as he showed his young heroes gaining their superhero powers. How surprising, then, that the new Fantastic Four isn't just a catastrophic misfire, but it also might be worse than Story's versions. The 2015 Fantastic Four has no idea what it wants to be. At times, it's shooting for an Amblin'-esque adventure story: the opening, which focuses on the early bond between Reed Richards (played as an adult by Teller) and Ben Grimm (Bell), feels very Spielberg-lite. And that approach - playful but mysterious - would be fine, except then the movie morphs into a brooding story of social outcasts as Richards, Grimm, Johnny Storm (Jordan), and Sue Storm (Kate Mara, better than the first movie's Jessica Alba, but saddled with a just-as-unfortunate wig as Alba had) begin working together to master interdimensional travel. Their first such voyage changes the tonal gears again, and here's where the Cronenberg influence kicks in, with Trank showing our heroes' adapting to their newfound powers in agonizing detail, and while this section is the most interesting, it's still way too upsetting and violent for what started out as a fun kids' movies. But fun is in short supply here. Trank and screenwriter Simon Kinberg don't even let us see the Four as a real team, quickly scattering them in the wind and bringing them back only for an abbreviated boss fight against a bloodthirsty Doctor Doom (Toby Kebbell, who's terrible). By the end, the team is finally in place, but many viewers will be hard-pressed to care. Still, it feels a bit unfair criticizing the film, considering Trank has alleged that the theatrical cut is empirically not his preferred version of the movie, but until that version surfaces (if it ever does), all we have is this mess to go by.
Finally, Synapse Films is bringing a newly restored version of Triumph of the Will. Noted film archivist Robert A. Harris - he of the sparkling Spartacus and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World restorations, among others - has devoted his attentions to this, the most famous propaganda film ever made. The directive of director Leni Riefenstahl's documentary is simple: Riefenstahl covers the 1934 Nazi rally at Nuremberg, an event that included one of Adolf Hitler's most chilling public appearances (Hitler yokes together such incidents as the rise of his Hitler Youth, the Reichsarbeitsdienst Labor Service, and the "Night of Long Knives" into a stirring invocation of German strength). However, the scope is anything but, as Riefenstahl imbued the four-day proceedings with fetishistic detail and national pride. In raw epic terms, Ben-Hur has nothing on Triumph of the Will, with Riefenstahl capturing over hundreds of thousands of Nazis and Nazi supporters cheering in admiration for the Führer, who Riefenstahl gives an almost mythic grandeur. It's hard to imagine now, after the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust, how anyone could rally in support of such a monster, but Riefenstahl makes Hitler look like an ideal, an ever-powerful, ever-magnetic totem for Germany to rally behind. Roger Ebert famously called the film "paralyzingly dull, simpleminded, overlong and not even "manipulative," but he's missing the point a little bit. What matters is that at one point, too many people thought Hitler worthy of their affections, and Riefenstahl's work was enough to cement that idea for decades to come. You watch Triumph of the Will with your heart in your chest - it's like a feature-length collective delusion.