Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) - Cruise and Woo deliver red-hot action spectacle

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Star Tom Cruise entrenched in a sea of fire on the eye-stopping poster for John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2

IMF agent Ethan Hunt gets a new mission: Using a beautiful woman as bait, he is to retrieve a deadly virus from his now rogue ex-colleague. Hunt falls in love with his bait, however, complicating matters.

Mission: Impossible 2 is written by Robert Towne (Cisco Pike (1971)), with Brannon Braga (Salem (2014-16)) and Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica (2004-09)) contributing story elements, and directed by great Chinese filmmaker John Woo (The Young Dragons/Tie han rou qing (1974)).
It is a spectacular and highly stylized action vehicle built around its towering star Tom Cruise (Eyes Wide Shut (1999)), whose screen power has been matched by few in all the history of cinema. But the whole cast and crew give it their all on what is certainly Woo's best film made in the West.
Ving Rhames' (Piranha 3D (2010)) Luther character is a gift to the franchise; Anthony Hopkins (Slipstream (2007)) is another joy here, and Thandiwe Newton (RocknRolla (2008)) is a beauty as the woman Hunt falls for. Dougray Scott's (Last Passenger (2013)) villain is a bit of a disappointment though, and one misses a name actor in the part to be honest.
Hans Zimmer's (Widows (2008)) score feels like a rehearsal to his later (great) work in The Dark Knight (2008): Somewhat comic kitsch meets solemn, Greek myth-like grandeur - and hard rock.
But M:I 2 is all about visuals, and those provided here an action fan will not want to miss.

Related post:

John Woo: Face/Off (1997) - Travolta and Cage butt heads in Woo's wild, silly action machine

Watch the incredible intro of the film here

Cost: 125 mil. $
Box office: 546.3 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.37 times its cost)
[Mission: Impossible 2 premiered 18 May (Los Angeles) and runs 123 minutes. Towne has reported that several action sequences were planned for the film, before its story was set. Shooting took place from April - December 1999 in Australia, including Sydney, Utah, Arizona and in California, including Los Angeles. Cruise refused to change his introduction scene of him free-climbing in Utah's Moab, which was done only with a harness and no safety net. In a jump in the scene, he tore his shoulder. Newton has many years later recalled Cruise's perfectionism on-set as a "nightmare". Hopkins was paid 5 mil. $ for his part; Cruise made incredible 75 mil. $ on the film through gross participation salary. The film opened #1 to a 57.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it retained the #1 spot for another 2 weekends and spent a subsequent 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#4), grossing 215.4 mil. $ (39.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 94.1 mil. $ (17.2 %) and the UK with 26.3 mil. $ (4.8 %). It was the highest-grossing film worldwide of 2000 and the highest-grossing in the M:I franchise until Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), the 4th entry. The M:I franchise with Cruise at the helm has spawned 4 films since M:I 2, with 2 more production. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Woo returned with Windtalkers (2002). Cruise returned in Vanilla Sky (2001). Mission: Impossible 2 is rotten at 57 % with a 5.96/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Mission: Impossible 2?

The Firm (1993) - Pollack and Cruise scored big with 1993's lesser Grisham adaptation

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+ 3rd Worst Movie of the Year

Tom Cruise looking ponderous and running in a suit in a steely blue-toned poster for Sydney Pollack's The Firm could really sell a film in 1993

A freshly Harvard-graduated lawyer joins a firm in Memphis that launders mob money, and he soon gets the attention of the FBI.

The Firm is written by David Rabe (Streamers (1983)), Robert Towne (Drive, He Said (1971)) and David Rayfiel (The Morning After (1986)), adapting John Grisham's (The Summons (2002)) same-titled 1991 bestseller, and directed by great Indianan filmmaker Sydney Pollack (Tootsie (1982)). 1993 saw the release of another high-profile Grisham adaptation, Alan J. Pakula's infinitely better thriller masterpiece The Pelican Brief.
The Memphis law-firm is presented as an almost mythical, pompous institution, and the story's point of having this firm laundering the entire earnings of the Chicago mob seems a bit silly. But besides this the narrative unfolds without a hitch, as an intimidating gang of fine actors (including Gene Hackman (Wyatt Earp (1994)), Ed Harris (Sweetwater (2013)), Hal Holbrook (Haven (2001, TV movie)), Jerry Harding (The Magnificent Seven (1998, TV-series)) and others) doodle around to Dave Grusin's jazzy piano score.
Tom Cruise (The Mummy (2017)) leads confidently, but his wife is played without vision by Jeanne Tripplehorn (Steal This Movie (2000)), and since The Firm places considerable weight upon their relationship, - and has a long running time, - it lowers the suspense, which lives best in the film's noirish, cat-and-mouse-like scenes.

Related post:

Sydney Pollack: Eyes Wide Shut (1999) - Kubrick signs off with thrilling, sexually oriented adaptation (actor) 

1993 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch a 2-minute clip from the beginning of the film here

Cost: 42 mil. $
Box office: 270.2 mil. $
= Huge hit
[The Firm premiered 23 June (New York) and runs 154 minutes. Shooting took place in Washington, Memphis, Tennessee, the Cayman Islands, Massachusetts, including Boston, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C. from November 1992 - March 1993. Hackman's credit was a matter of dispute, as Cruise's contract stipulated above-title credit for him alone. Hackman got pre-title credit in the film and went uncredited in the end credit scroll and on the posters. The film is reportedly faithful to the novel in most respects but has a different ending. The film opened #1 to a 25.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed atop for another two weeks and stayed in the top 5 for two more weeks (#3-#3) and grossed 158.3 mil. $ (58.6 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this review. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Supporting Actress (Holly Hunter, who won the Best Actress Oscar that year for her performance in The Piano), lost to Anna Paquin in The Piano, and Best Score (Grusin), lost to John Williams for Schindler's List. It was also nominated for a BAFTA, a Grammy and received other honors. A TV-series sequel also called The Firm was released in 2012 and canceled after its first season. Pollack returned with Sabrina (1995). Cruise returned in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994). The Firm is certified fresh at 76 % with a 6.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Firm?

Days of Thunder (1990) or, Very Little Thunder

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The flashy poster for Tony Scott's Days of Thunder doesn't exactly sell its star Tom Cruise short

QUICK REVIEW:

The prince of racing and his ups and downs.

Thunder presents a thick story that's simultaneously a thin story, you might say. Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)) is terrific from first shot, while Randy Quaid (Not Another Teen Movie (2001)) and Robert Duvall (True Confessions (1981)) yell and scream, respectively, while trotting around in the background in this dull case, which is an obvious attempt to make a new Top Gun (1986), only in new surroundings.
Nicole Kidman (Eyes Wide Shut (1999)) has charm as Cruise's love interest, - the two got married off-camera in 1990, (and divorced 11 years later), - and the two, understandably, have good chemistry here, but Kidman's role in Thunder is far beneath her talent. And that is a general problem for this weak, only slightly interesting serving of sports nonsense.
It was written by Robert Towne (Shampoo (1975)), with Cruise supplying story elements, and directed by the late English master filmmaker Tony Scott (The Hunger (1983)).
- Not much thunder in this vehicle.

Related reviews:
 
Tony Scott: Stoker (2013) - Chan-wook Park's over-styled American debut revolts and bores in turns (producer)  
Déjà Vu (2006) - T. Scott cuts a helluva suspense-cake!
Domino (2005) - T. Scott's bounty-hunter biopic a complete misfire, mega-flop

Watch the original trailer for the film here

Cost: 60 mil. $
Box office: 157.9 mil. $
= Box office success
[Days of Thunder was released June 27 and runs 108 minutes. It was shot in Daytona and Charlotte, North Carolina from January - May 1990, going no less than 3 months over schedule. The shoot was fraught with problems and a team of producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, writer Towne and director Scott, who argued a lot and, reportedly especially the former three, increased the spendings drastically with outrageous production decisions like building a private gym for themselves, giving away designer dresses to woo women, building sets multiple times, throwing expensive parties and pressing cast and crew members to work (expensive) overtime. The result was a nearly doubled budget that could have posed a serious problem for them all. But the film opened #1 to 15.4 mil. $ in North America, where it grossed 82.6 mil. $ (52.3 % of the total gross). The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Sound, losing to Dances with Wolves (1990). It was also successful on video, making at least an additional 40 mil. $ there. - But the bloated budget and diminished quality of the film still makes its success much smaller than Top Gun's, which made back its budget almost 24 times, (Thunder only did so 2.6 times.) Days of Thunder is rotten at 38 % with a 4.8 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Days of Thunder?

Chinatown (1974) - Roman Polanski's masterpiece

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Irresistible German poster for Roman Polanski's Chinatown

QUICK REVIEW:

Private detective J.J. Gittes is first taken by his nose on a job of revealing a powerful water board scientist's possible adultery. He then learns that he's got a risky and much bigger, complex case before him.
Chinatown is a masterful film treasure that can be watched again and again to equal pleasure and stupefaction each time. It is a film noir mystery plot with many twists, full characters, great scenes, great lines and fascinating localities. A sophisticated masterwork through and through that marks Polish master director Roman Polanski's (Rosemary's Baby (1968)) only return to film in the U.S. following the brutal murder of his pregnant wife actress Sharon Tate by the Manson Family in Los Angeles in 1969. (Polanski was in Europe at the time.)
You get the sense that, besides the great script by Robert Towne (The Two Jakes (1990)), - which is what brought Polanski back to painful Los Angeles, and, outrageously, is the only Oscar-winning aspect of Chinatown, - in the direction there's no fooling around, no playing about: The tone is so consistent, the general feeling so deliberate, so controlled and elegant, all leading up to the overwhelming finale that still is a heart-stopper. The plot moves forward without pause throughout Chinatown as in steps that each of them reveal some more of the truth of the corruption for us; right until the finale in, where the structural code of the film is broken, so to speak, and all the ghouls come out of the closets in a rush of drama and violence and horror. If you let yourself be immersed in the film, the result is quite shocking, and it was the personal insistence and brilliance of Polanski that gave us the ending that we all now know and treasure so, (Towne's script SPOILER had a happy ending.) You feel Polanski's personal involvement in making this film and that is why Chinatown is his best film. He is there in the flesh throughout, (not only in the scene in which he's actually there and cuts open Jack Nicholson's nose), required by a profound personal wound to get this one right down to the letter.
Nicholson (The Shining (1980)) is great and gives one of his career's best performances as the smart, cheeky, ambitious Gittes. Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde (1967)) is perfect as the mysterious femme fatale with a horrible secret. And John Huston (The African Queen (1951) director) is a great villain, the leather-faced master sinner, Noah Cross, whose religious-symbolic name seems to contribute to Polanski's fantastically dark, gloomy commentary and world view that suits this great noir perfectly and will make you shudder.
Chinatown also has an Oscar-nominated Jerry Goldsmith (Mulan (1998)) score which is recognized as one of the greatest of all time.
If you haven't seen Chinatown yet, you've got a hell of a movie in store, so take your time to sit down with some good coffee and perhaps a pack of cigarettes to watch it in one stretch. - You'll thank me later!

Related review: 

Roman Polanski: The Ghost Writer (2010) - A master at work

Great German poster for Roman Polanski's Chinatown

Another great poster, this one Spanish, for Roman Polanski's Chinatown

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 29.2 mil. $
= Big hit

Do you agree on Chinatown's excellence?
Anything you'd like to add?

Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961) - Cheap, fast, amusing spoof/spy thriller/creature feature

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Fetching poster, although nothing of the kind visualized here happens in Roger Corman's Creature From the Haunted Sea, where the monster has a normal human-sized hand (because it's a human in a terrible monster suit)

QUICK REVIEW:

Creature From the Haunted Sea presents a really far out story about an undercover agent, a Cuban treasure and a homicidal sea monster. - It's a strange film!
Creature From the Haunted Sea is a hopelessly primitive genre hybrid, part horror, part spy movie, and part spoof comedy (of gangster and monster movies). It is made in an irreverent tone that makes a good deal of what happens amusing for people who are familiar with these genres and/or with filmmaker Roger Corman's (The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)) body of work.
This film has many weird and funny elements in it: A murder with a plunger. Two leading roles who throughout the movie communicate in animal sounds. The 'shocking' monster, which mostly looks like a person in a bad Halloween suit, (because that's what it basically is.) Underwater scenes with a lot of animals. And then of course the extensive dialog in Spanish, which is very funny.
Some may sit back after watching Creature From the Haunted Sea with a feeling of 'why?'. Corman probably would answer, 'why not!?!' - If you can make money making a movie like this, why the heck wouldn't you?!? (A very good point, I think.)
The film is in public domain now and available for free and legal watch here.
After a gif of the "unspeakable secret of the SEA OF LOST SHIPS", some hysterical trivia about the movie will follow:

The monster suit, on terrifying display up here, was reportedly devised from a wet suit, some moss, lots of Brillo pads, tennis balls for the eyes, ping pong balls for the pupils, pipe-cleaners for claws and oilcloth for slime effect.
Apart from the funny Spanish in the film, a lot of the English dialog is hilarious as well. Examples:

Sparks Moran: [as Carmelita embraces and kisses him] As a trained espionage agent I could tell that she was attracted to me. 

Sparks Moran: [narrating] The first move in the great conspiracy had been made. The Cuban treasury was now in the gentle hands of Renzo Capetto, the most trustworthy man ever to be deported from Sicily. They thought they were home-free, but little did they know that I, Sparks Moran, was an American agent. Luckily, I had managed to work my way onto the crew by posing as a notorious gun machine burglar from Chicago. My real name is XK-15.

This often narrating character 'Sparks Moran' is played by Robert Towne, the later in life screenwriter legend of Chinatown (1974), The Firm (1993), Mission: Impossible II (2000) etc. (Towne is credited as 'Edward Wain'.)

The movie was written in three days, based on a script that Corman had already filmed twice before, as Naked Paradise and Beast From Haunted Cave. The film was shot back-to-back between The Last Woman on Earth and Battle of Blood Island, two films that Corman was shooting in Puerto Rico for tax incentive reasons.
The film was shot in 5 days, with Mexican extras being paid 1 $ to participate. The score for Creature of the Haunted Sea is by Fred Katz, another wild-man, who allegedly sold Corman the same score for seven different films, including Creature From the Haunted Sea, A Bucket of Blood, The Wasp Woman and The Little Shop of Horrors.

Related reviews.

Roger Corman:  Philadelphia (1993) - AIDS and homosexuality acknowledged in great drama (actor)
The Wild Angels (1966) - Young biker rebels deliver a counter-culture punch in Corman's hands
House of Usher/The Fall of the House of Usher/The Mysterious House of Usher (1960) - Corman's exuberant first house pf Poeish horror

Watch the self-parodying, strange trailer here

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

Did you see Creature From the Haunted Sea?
What did you think?
What do you think of Roger Corman and his cheap, fast movies?