A typical summer blockbuster that, fortunately, was mainly good fun. Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 has a fast pace although the plot was totally bonkers. Yet another car chase, although to be fair this one has never been done before (shame you could tell so much was set in the studio). And another chase on top of a train. All done at Watford's Leavesden Studios. So a little repetitive. I liked it best when the gang gets together. And there are roles for Hayley Atwell (by far the best thing about the movie), Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby as well as the usual cohorts.
Someone said that J Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. "Should they have done those things?" My answer is if they didn't, someone else would. So no. The film critic Jonathon Dean says "I grew up in the 1980's and assumed that would be how we would meet our end". Just try growing up in London in the 1950's and wondering if the next aeroplane going over would be dropping that bomb.
Oppenheimer is an in depth study into the one man who just happened to lead the team that created the atom bomb. Told in three parts, the first absolutely brilliant, the second messy but riveting and the third a big surprise. I did wonder at the end of the second section what that last part would be. Lots of political and philosophical stuff that I loved. It was only then that I understood why a certain segment is filmed in black and white. Director and writer Christopher Nolan loves to chop and change time lines so this device helps enormously.
The cast is universally excellent. Obviously Cillian Murphy is great as Oppenheimer, but I preferred Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss. A tormented foil that has made best supporting actor his own. Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh are fine even if Nolan never writes so well for women. Lovely cameos from Rami Malek and Gary Oldman.
I knew the film was three hours long but time went so quickly, there are big scenes that go in a flash, sometimes all cuts and editing keep up the fast pace. I went to see it in the IMAX screen as this is how Nolan filmed it, but there was no need. His story and direction are all that you need for one of the big films of all time.
I wasn't going to see the latest Indiana Jones film (nearly two and half hours was far too long) but it was that or Barbie. In the end I was pleasantly surprised. Director James Mangold does well with what was surprisingly a pretty good script. The stunts were fine and occasionally hilarious. The locations were equally impressive, especially Sicily where we went on holiday many years ago. Harrison Ford just about holds things together, the conversion to his younger self a miracle of modern technology. I was unsure about the casting of Phoebe Waller Bridge who I found less than convincing. But we do get a cameo from Antonio Banderas. And Toby Jones. Who would have thought.
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