A new Imax poster has been released for The Equalizer 2 and, on first glance, it may just look like a silhouette of Lady Justice superimposed on Denzel Washington’s shirt, but look closer. Look
deeper.
Geeks across the globe reconvened in San Diego this weekend for their annual meeting of dressing up and playing with toys and arguing over which superpower is the awesomest. Haha NERDS. Anyway, here's a round-up of all the super-cool and important film and TV stuff that happened.
Another installment of the most original feature series in online history: the one where four people get together over email to force themselves to talk about the Mission: Impossible movies, instead of just enjoying them like everyone else on the planet. Today: Mission: Impossible III, directed by Jonathan Jonathan Abrams.
This doesn't really need an introduction. We're talking about all the Mission: Impossible movies. Online. It says so in the title. Just get on with it. Today on Discussion: Impossible: it's Mission: Impossible II! Before we start, I must insist you all open
this window and have this music playing in the background to set the scene and take you back to a very specific, very terrible time and place.
How do you follow an epic tragedy in which the world’s biggest A-list stars traverse the universe facing the most dire of movie stakes? How do you continue after the bummer-cliffhanger of seeing an all-powerful despot succeed in his plan to mercilessly wipe out half of the entire universe? You bring the LOLs! It serves as welcome respite, but essentially Marvel has followed its most consequential movie with its least.
Posted by
Ali Gray at 07:00 on 17 Jul 2018
I'm being forced to embrace the disjointed madness emanating from DC Headquarters right now, because while Marvel have cracked the formula and landed on a consistent tone for their cinematic universe, DC have got nothing to lose. They're playing discordant, cinematic jazz. We're fully in 'no bad ideas' territory with this insane new Aquaman poster: it's the last day of school term and the kids are running the classroom now. They're all over the fucking shop, is essentially what I'm getting at.
Posted by
Ali Gray at 18:00 on 13 Jul 2018
Forget the rubber masks and the death-defying stunts: the Mission: Impossible movies' true gimmick is its insistence on hiring a different director for each outing, building a franchise that feels fresh and flavourful with every new installment. Fallout, however, is unique in that it marks the return of Rogue Nation director Chris McQuarrie, the first man to have a second go on Ethan Hunt. The results speak for themselves: what the series' first true sequel trades off in originality, it more than makes up for in dramatic tension and sky high stakes. Rooted deep within the franchise and connecting back to every other M:I movie, Fallout still feels uncomplicated and unbothered by baggage collected over 22 years. It's the most effective execution of the Mission: Impossible formula so far - a heady mix of humour, action and adventure, distilled to its purest form.
Almost all films starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (or ‘Dwock’, as I will now call him, for ease) play on the fact that he is an impossibly-shaped human with overinflated balloon arms that are at constant risk of bursting and jettisoning his screeching cannonball head around the room. Not to mention that he acts like a small child that has somehow Freaky-Fridayed with his favourite He-Man figure and doesn’t know how long he has left to make the most of it. As such, Dwock always plays larger-than-life characters in larger-than-life films. Skyscraper, however, sees a return to relatively more serious action. It’s still an overblown, ludicrous mess, but it’s genuinely refreshing to see a film like this played with such sincerity. Such ridiculous, idiotic sincerity.
As you might have guessed from this feature's title, I've gathered together the great and good to discuss all five Mission: Impossible movies, before the sixth installment bungees through the skylight and shoots us all with its fun-gun. I was going to call it 'Chattin' Impossible' before Matt came up with the above title (actual WhatsApp quote: "Jesus Christ do I have to do everything"). Hopefully it'll go just as well as the exhaustive
Marvel Cinematic Universe walkthrough we started and abandoned after three movies. Let's begin Discussion: Impossible!
