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Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
When Mission: Impossible Had No Mission
Every major movie franchise has boxes to check. In Jurassic Park, dinosaurs must run amok; in Planet of the Apes, apes have to meditate on intelligence; in The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel absolutely has to evangelize the benefits of family, Corona beers, and tricked-out cars. But Mission: Impossible took four films to fully establish its franchise must-have: the ever more blurred lines between its death-defying, stunt-loving star, Tom Cruise, and the superspy he plays. For more than a decade, the series was defined instead by its lack of definition—at least, beyond having Cruise in the lead role as Ethan Hunt, and Ving Rhames recur as Hunt's ally. Each installment felt made by a director with a specific take on the material, and Cruise was their versatile instrument. But the four Mission: Impossible films that followed—culminating in the eighth and purportedly final installment, now in theaters—have taken a different approach. Instead of relying on a select few characters and story beats to link the films together, the movies have abided by a stricter canon. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, which earned a record-setting $63 million at the box office over its opening weekend, represents the most aggressive pivot away from the saga's more freewheeling origins: It self-seriously inserts supercuts of footage from its predecessors, reveals the purpose of a long-forgotten plot device, and turns a bit player from 1996's Mission: Impossible into a crucial character. In the process, it streamlines those earlier, delightfully unpredictable stories to the point of overlooking their true appeal. That tactic may be familiar to today's audiences, who are used to cinematic universes and intersecting story threads, but the Mission: Impossible franchise initially distinguished itself by eschewing continuity. New cast members came and went. Hunt lacked signature skills and catchphrases. The movies were messy, and didn't seem interested in building toward an overarching plan. Yet in their inconsistency, they prove the value of ignoring the brand-building pressures that have become the norm for big-budget features today. [Read: The unbearable weight of Mission: Impossible] Like the 1960s television show on which they're loosely based, the early Mission: Impossibles were stand-alone stories. The first two movies in particular stuck out for their bold authorial styles. First came Brian De Palma's film, which he drenched in noir-ish flair while also deploying vivid color and Dutch angles. It arrived at a time when blockbusters such as Independence Day and Twister leveled cities and prioritized world-ending spectacle. Without a formula in place, De Palma got to challenge genre conventions—for instance, by mining tension out of mere silence during the central set piece, which saw Hunt's team staging a tricky heist. The second film, 2000's Mission: Impossible II, went maximalist under the direction of John Woo, who punctuated almost every sequence with slow-motion visuals and dizzying snap zooms. The filmmaker also asserted that Hunt himself was malleable: Whereas in the first film, he fights off his enemies without ever firing a gun, in Woo's version, he's a cocksure Casanova mowing down his targets in hails of bullets. Woo also indulged in the action pageantry that De Palma had avoided—Mission: Impossible II seemed to contain twice the amount of explosions necessary for a popcorn film—but the climactic stunt is perhaps the smallest Cruise has ever had to pull off: When the villain stabs at Hunt with a knife, the point stops just before reaching his eye. The two films that followed conveyed a similar sense of unpredictability. For 2006's Mission: Impossible III and 2011's Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, Cruise, who also served as a producer, picked unconventional choices to direct: J. J. Abrams, then best known for creating twisty TV dramas such as Alias and Lost, took on the third entry, while Brad Bird, who'd cut his teeth in animation, handled Ghost Protocol. Like their more accomplished predecessors, both filmmakers were entrusted by Cruise and company to treat Mission: Impossible as a playground where they could demonstrate their own creative strengths. [Read: The sincerity and absurdity of Hollywood's best action franchise] Where De Palma and Woo focused on visual panache, Abrams and Bird stretched the limits of tone—and in doing so, revealed the adaptability of the franchise. Mission: Impossible III is unnervingly sobering amid its shootouts and double crosses; the film features a memorably chilling Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, a character's disturbing death, and a subplot about Hunt getting married. Ghost Protocol, meanwhile, is essentially a screwball comedy: Simon Pegg's character, Benji, provides a humorous button to many of the film's biggest scenes, and Bird treats Hunt like a marble caught in a Rube Goldberg machine packed with goofy gadgets, whether he's pinballing through a prison or being launched out of a car in the middle of a sandstorm. (Hunt even declares 'Mission accomplished,' only for the film to play the line for laughs.) In the years since Ghost Protocol, much of big-budget filmmaking has come to feel made by committee. Studios offer fans remakes, legacy sequels, and spin-offs that connect disparate story threads, bending over backwards to ensure that viewers understand they're being shown something related to preexisting media. (Just look at the title of the upcoming John Wick spin-off.) The new Mission: Impossible suffers by making similar moves. It struggles to make sense of Hunt's story as one long saga, yielding an awkwardly paced, lethargic-in-stretches film. The Final Reckoning insists that every assignment Hunt has ever taken, every ally he's ever made, and every enemy he's ever foiled have been connected, forming a neat line of stepping stones that paved the way for him to save the world one more time. Taken together, the first four Mission: Impossibles were compellingly disorganized, a stark contrast with Hollywood's ever more rigid notion of how to construct a franchise. They didn't build consistent lore. Each new installment didn't try to top the previous one—a popular move that's had diminishing returns. Although some observers critique their varying quality, the lack of consensus emphasizes the singularity of each of these efforts. They remind me of the instances of an individual filmmaker's vision found amid major cinematic properties these days, such as Taika Waititi putting his witty stamp on a Thor sequel, Fede Alvarez turning Alien: Romulus into a soundscape of jump scares, and on television, Tony Gilroy ensuring that the Star Wars prequel Andor never included a single Skywalker. If the older Mission: Impossible movies now feel dated and incongruous—whether within the franchise itself or as part of the cinematic landscape writ large—that's to their benefit. They let creative sensibilities, not commercial ones, take the lead. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Digital Trends
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Check out this great movie before it leaves Amazon Prime Video next week (May 2025)
Few directors went on a more impressive run through the late 1990s and early 2000s than Steven Soderbergh. In addition to winning the Oscar for Best Director and helming Ocean's Eleven, Soderbergh made several smaller movies that have stood the test of time. The greatest example is 1998's Out of Sight, a charming thriller starring George Clooney as a bank robber who finds himself in a hugely flirtatious relationship with Jennifer Lopez's Karen Sisco, a federal marshal looking to arrest him. Here are three reasons Out of Sight still hits more than 25 years later. Recommended Videos Lopez and Clooney have remarkable chemistry Although Out of Sight has elements of a great action movie, it is first and foremost a love story that heavily relies on the chemistry between Clooney and Lopez. Thankfully, both actors are more than up to the task. Clooney is playing exactly the kind of character you'd expect — a charming, slightly sleazy guy who is smarter than he lets on. Meanwhile, Lopez plays Sisco tough, but she's charmed by Clooney's thief long before she's willing to admit that to herself. Every scene they share is electric, the kind of onscreen chemistry that almost leaves the viewer tingling as they watch it. The supporting cast is excellent Although Clooney and Lopez deserve a lot of credit for the work they do here, Soderbergh assembled an incredible supporting cast to surround them. We've got Ving Rhames in his prime, a frazzled Steve Zahn, as well as Dennis Farina, Albert Brooks, and, maybe most importantly, Don Cheadle. On top of feeling like a cast filled with people who you might see on the street, the chemistry between every member of the cast is exceptional. Out of Sight was not the kind of movie that was destined to top the box office, but it's filled with recognizable faces anyway. Soderbergh knows exactly what he's doing In the past decade, Soderbergh has spent most of his time experimenting with different kinds of storytelling, and more power to him. In the 1990s and 2000s, though, there was no one more capable of combining action, comedy, and romance to deliver something utterly satisfying. That's exactly what he does with Out of Sight, a movie that is not about anything particularly complicated or emotional. Nevertheless, it's such an utterly satisfying movie and one that knows exactly how to achieve a perfect tonal balance. After watching, you feel like it's a masterpiece. You can watch Out of Sight on Amazon Prime Video.
Gizmodo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Why People Are Furious About the New ‘Lilo & Stitch'
Walt Disney Pictures' live-action Lilo & Stitch opened over Memorial Day weekend. While it's making massive numbers for the studio, fans of the original film are shocked by the enormous changes to the animated film in its adaptation. There's minor stuff like Pleakley's distance from drag, but the film's human version of the character still very much fancies femme wear anyways. There's also anger at the omission of Gantu, the Galactic Federation's strongman, who you could argue felt like a random third act villain in the overstuffed animated feature's ending (famously, the 2002 movie underwent major changes mid-production, since its original ending took place on a hijacked plane). What's more, the culture has shifted a lot in the past few decades. So it makes sense that the new movie makes some alterations, including offering a more grounded take on the story. In particular, the ending is stirring up heated discourse on the internet regarding Nani's (Sydney Agudong) custody of her little sister Lilo (Maia Kealoha). In the 2002 film, Nani overcomes her social worker, former CIA agent Cobra Bubbles (Ving Rhames in the original, Courtney B. Vance in the live action film), in his attempts to get Lilo taken away from her; he ultimately relents after family is placed under the protection of the interstellar Galactic Federation. That's not at all what happens in the remake. Here, Nani hands over guardianship to their grandmotherly neighbor Tutu (Amy Hill), who throughout the film watches over the sisters as they try to have a parent and child dynamic, so Nani can leave home and attend college. Nani, who is implied to be just out of high school, really struggles to keep her little family afloat in the new film, especially after Stitch crash-lands into their lives. Tutu, with the help of their case worker Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere, who voiced Nani in the animated film, playing a new character separated entirely from Vance's version of Bubbles, who remains a CIA agent), facilitates a way for the girls to stay sisters and yet both still have a childhood. And in Nani's case, that means the opportunity to leave her sister in safe hands while she follows her own goals, and presumably better provide for Lilo and Stitch in the future. This recontextualization of the story's themes drive this change, and not everyone is happy about it. The significant thread that ties everything together in both films is the exploration of 'Ohana,' the Hawaiian word for 'family,' and emphasizes that 'no one gets left behind or forgotten.' The original Lilo & Stitch, placed in a broader context of Hawaii's cultural relationship with the United States and colonial underpinnings between the two nations (touched on in both the original and the remake when Nani sings 'Aloha Oe' to her sister, a traditional song often interpreted as lamentation of the loss of Hawaii's sovereignty under American annexation), has often been considered as critiquing U.S. interests in Hawaii and the historical legacy of colonialism's separation of families. And so, a lot of the criticism of the new ending argues that Nani has seemingly giving up her sister to the system, in order to follow her own desires to go to college, betrays the idea of Ohana that's is championed by the original film. Instead, the live action film comes at this struggle by centering Nani being forced to grow up beyond her years in order to look after Lilo. In the original film, Nani is presented as older than she is in the live-action film (the fact that she is Lilo's guardian suggests that she's at least 18, although it's never explicitly stated), something that always struck me as a commentary on girls having to be treated as more traditionally motherly upon reaching a certain age, pushed into preconceived expectations and roles even in their youths. While Nani's story is more explicitly about her struggle to balance caring for Lilo with the mania compounded by Stitch's arrival, the story of young women, especially women of color, being forced by circumstance to grow up too quickly no doubt resonates with the broad audience a film like Lilo & Stitch has. As a mother now, I can look back at the 2002 film and see that Nani was still a kid herself, and prioritizes her sister over her own potential dreams and aspirations. She leaves herself behind to be her little sister's guardian after they lost their parents, especially because that version of Nani and Lilo didn't have a village to look out for them. Speaking to CinemaBlend, producer Jonathan Eirich shared that Chris Kekaniokalani Bright, who co-scripted the 2025 film, had some insight into how the animated version's lack of a community around Nani and Lilo didn't sit right. 'Something [Chris] said early on, he was like, 'I don't think in Hawai'i, if these two sisters had just lost their parents, I don't think they would be as isolated.' [Knowing] the community of Hawaii there would be support for them.' So, we sort of had this notion of this neighbor character, Tutu, that is actually there for them earlier in the story.' Community functioning as an extension of family becomes a new reinterpretation of Ohana in the live-action film. Instead of the case worker being Bubbles, trying to foil Nani's attempts at keeping Lilo (and his ex-CIA background once more explicitly tying him into the U.S.-Hawaii relationship as cultural context) in the animated feature, in the new film the case worker is now a fellow native Hawaiian character who encourages Nani to see if she can make the transition work. It really approaches this idea in a broader sense of Hawaiian culture, where we're repeatedly reminded that Nani's 'kuleana,' or responsibility, is to give Lilo the best possible future. In that context, you really feel for Nani as a girl struggling to keep her family afloat while grieving her parents. And this is before Stitch arrives in the picture, which really steers the focus to the sisters needing their childhood reclaimed as they have adventures with their new 'dog.' But no matter how the changes to the original were going to be handled, a backlash to Lilo & Stitch would've been inevitable regardless, given the broad cynicism towards Disney's live-action remakes in recent years regardless of their box office successes. Nani doesn't give up her sister to strangers in a foster system, as many who might not have seen the movie claim. Tutu and Mrs. Kekoa help them navigate toward a solution where they're still together and with their found family. She sees that she can lean on her extended family that's always been there, while also getting a chance to experience early adulthood without sacrificing herself or her sister. Hill herself recently expounded on that idea of found family within the concept of Ohana, prior to the blowback. 'It's not just the family, it's now the extended family. And I'm part of that extended family. I'm not blood related to them. I live next door. I knew the parents. I knew the kids since they were little. And I just feel so close to them. And it just is, of course, a natural progression to feel like I want to take care of them and also be a little nosy about things. Cause isn't that what family is?' she said in an interview posted on Stage. It makes sense for Tutu to play the role of guardian to not just Lilo, but Nani too, in supporting her pursuit of higher education and rediscovering her love of surfing. The movie even provides a more fantastical solution to the issue of Nani leaving her sister and Hawaii behind, which is set up earlier in the film. Remember that portal gun Jumba uses to get to various spots where Stitch was sighted? In the end, it's revealed that Nani now has it, which means she can come home home after school and still be very much present in Lilo's life. It sure beats sleeping in a dorm room when you can easily transport to your room at home, and it still keeps the sisters together—a best of both worlds that allows the remake to have its own take on similar themes to the animated original.
Geek Culture
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
‘Lilo & Stitch' & ‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' Conquer Global Box Office
It's a good day at the box office, with Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning racking up ticket sales over the Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. The two blockbusters drove the biggest opener in the holiday's history, earning US$183 million and US$63 million in the domestic market, respectively. On the international stage, the numbers add up to US$341 million and US$190 million, scoring the second-largest worldwide opening weekend of the year behind A Minecraft Movie , which brought in US$313 million over three days. Disney's latest adaptation also ranks as the third-highest start among its other live-action counterparts, following 2019's The Lion King and 2017's Beauty and the Beast . As for the long-running Tom Cruise-led series, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning now holds the record for the best opening in franchise history. This isn't the first time he has gone up against the animated classic: in June 2002, Minority Report narrowly beat out the original animated Lilo & Stitch when they opened opposite each other. Alongside Cruise, who reprises his role as Ethan Hunt, the eighth instalment also stars Ving Rhames ( Pulp Fiction ), Simon Pegg ( Shaun of the Dead ), Hayley Atwell ( Agent Carter ), Pom Klementieff ( Guardians of the Galaxy ), Greg Tarzan Davis ( Top Gun: Maverick ), and Esai Morales ( Bad Boys ). It picks up after last year's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , reuniting Cruise's Ethan Hunt with his crew, as he continues his mission to stop Gabriel Martinelli (Morales), a ghost from his past, from obtaining the AI programme known as 'the Entity'. Lilo & Stitch marks the film debut of Maia Kealoha as protagonist Lilo, with original writer-director Chris Sanders reprising his voice role as Stitch. It features some elements from the original animated classic, and chronicles the story of 'the bond formed between a lonely human girl named Lilo and a dog-like alien named Stitch, who is engineered to be a force of destruction. Pursuing aliens, social workers and the idea of the bond of family figure into the proceedings.' Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth's theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia's greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ranking the Mission: Impossible Movies
With Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hitting theaters everywhere, we've sorted and sifted through the previous M:I installments for a ranking of Ethan Hunt's high-octane IMF adventures. The Final Reckoning is said to conclude, story-wise, the awesome ride this film franchise has been on for the past 30 years, though that doesn't mean this will be the last Mission: Impossible movie as the title is, basically, "final" in name only. So let's explore this 30-year journey by listing the M:I movies from worst to best. Or, to put it a better way, least-great to greatest. Because they're all thrilling and fun in their own way. Previously, we ranked all of Ethan Hunt's IMF team members from each movie and the Mission: Impossible villains. Check those out when you're done here!7. Mission: Impossible 2 (2002) Mission: Impossible 2 was the most MTV-driven of all the M:I films, with tons of TV and nu-metal hype behind it. Yet it also continued the brief trend of these movies being sort of wild auteur-driven takes, shifting from the pulpy Hitchcockian Brian De Palma to Hong Kong action-poet John Woo. Thus, it stands as the most different of all the installments, and, ultimately the least satisfying. For this one outing, Ethan Hunt and the IMF team -- who we'd never see again aside from ol' reliable Luther (Ving Rhames) -- went full slo-mo action opera, complete with Woo's trademark doves, wild motorcycle stunts, and an overblown love triangle involving a thief named Nyah (Thandiwe Newton) and her connection to an ex-IMFer (Dougray Scott) looking to unleash a deadly plague. It was a "cool at the time" M:I movie that didn't age all that well once a different look and tone locked in place with M:I 3 six years later. Still, Anthony Hopkins playing Ethan's boss, just this once, was a nice addition and also we got our first taste of Tom Cruise doing a dangerous stunt -- the free solo rock-climbing up the side of Utah's Dead Horse Point. It wasn't as death-defying as his future escapades would be, since he had a harness and ropes (that were removed digitally in post) and a stunt double, but it sure looked cool to see him up there in the shots he himself performed, and it planted the seeds of more awesome stunts to come. 6. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023) After the highs of Mission: Impossible - Fallout, which was the culmination of the franchise steadily climbing in quality with each passing movie for a decade, Dead Reckoning (originally Dead Reckoning Part One) was a deflating step down. Yes, even with that spectacular motorcycle-off-the-cliff stunt. Firstly, Ethan Hunt and his team clashing with a rogue AI program felt out-of-step. Or, in the very least, a step too late as TV and movies had been doing AI stories for a long, long while before Ethan went toe-to-toe with "The Entity." Then there was the human villain (Esai Morales), who felt a bit toothless compared to past Big Bads, and whose ties to Ethan's past, which had never before been explored, felt a bit "Randy Meeks' Rules of the Horror Trilogy." Then throw in a controversial death and an ending action sequence that didn't thrill like the many M:I third-act crucibles before it, and you've got just a medium-good Impossible flick. Which is not what we need right when the entire run is wrapping things up. 5. Mission: Impossible (1996) The first Mission: Impossible movie was a blast, only really suffering here because better ones followed it down the line. Brian De Palma's strong visual eye and stylized flare for thrillers served this franchise opener well, as most of the story involves Ethan trying to clear his name and find the traitor who killed off his entire team, including his mentor Jim Phelps (Jon Voight playing the role Peter Graves made famous on the TV series). The "dangly" Langley Heist sequence was an instant hit, and was fodder for much pop culture parody at the time, and the TGY Bullet Train sequence at the end, even with mid-'90s CGI, still holds up amazingly well. The franchise would eventually find more of a traditional action movie tone, as bold set pieces, and Tom Cruise's running, would become more and more the focus, but the first M:I, which was also Cruise's first time as a producer, will always be a solid watch. Should you choose to accept it... 4. Mission: Impossible III (2006) J.J Abrams, who was coming from the TV world, wasn't exactly an audacious auteur pick like a Brian De Palma or John Woo, but Abrams was riding high on his series Alias, and Cruise, impressed by the show's clever, layered revival of the spy genre, chose his man. The result was Ethan Hunt getting a true love interest, and wife, in Michelle Monaghan's Julia, which in turn gave fans a chance to see Ethan become vulnerable in ways like never before. Unlike the romance in M:I 2, which came across as glossy and flimsy, this new relationship gave M:I 3 its foundation, and set the stage for Ethan's story going forward through the franchise. Throw in Ethan coming out of retirement to help a trainee (Keri Russell), a deliciously devilish turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, a traitor in the midst, a fantastic Vatican (person) heist, the introduction of Simon Pegg as Benji, and a (literal) heart-stopping finish, and you get an emotionally deeper Mission: Impossible as well as the excellent M:I movie that carved a whole new path for the saga. 3. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) The final Mission: Impossible movie on the "rotating directors" train - before they'd all be directed by Tom Cruise's main collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie - was Ghost Protocol, a soaring high point for the franchise directed by Brad Bird, who was helming his first live-action movie after almost a decade at Pixar where he wrote and directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Ghost Protocol is a triumph, building off the M:I 3 template, presenting classic spy thrills in fresh ways, making time for laughs, and officially kicking off the era of "Tom Cruise does a stunt where he might actually die." Because who can ever forget the scaling of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. A true leveling up of the rock-climbing in M:I 2. Yes, it's the third time Ethan's disavowed by the IMF and labeled a traitor. But Ghost Protocol ramps up the danger, raises the stakes, gives Benji actual field work, has Tom Cruise running through a sandstorm, and caps it all off with an edge-of-your-seat fight in a 20-story car tower. And just when you think it may have pulled an Alien 3, it rewards those who were invested in Ethan and Julia in the previous movie. For many ImpossiFans, this is their favorite Ethan and Co. adventure. 2. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) By the time Rogue Nation rolled around - the fifth Mission: Impossible film - the franchise has found its true groove and Ethan Hunt's world felt truly lived-in and connected in the ways the early entries didn't establish. With Luther and Benji now fixed at his side, Ethan would meet both Rebecca Ferguson's dangerous disavowed MI6 Agent Ilsa Faust and Sean Harris' creepy, dastardly Solomon Lane, one of the franchise's best villains. Battling The Syndicate, a global terrorist operation populated by thought-to-be-dead spies and mercenaries, Ethan faced down his toughest foe to date. Christopher McQuarrie seamlessly stepped into the director's chair and delivered a cracking good time, with a car chase in Morocco, an underwater vault heist (featuring Cruise holding his breath for six minutes), a shoot-out at the Vienna State Opera, and an uneasy alliance between Ethan and Ilsa that felt like a shot of adrenaline for the long-running saga. 1. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) Fallout delivered in big, unexpected ways. Also known as the "reason why Henry Cavill's face looked so weird and dumb in the Justice League reshoots," this seventh M:I installment not only brought back the sinister Solomon Lane for an encore, making him Ethan Hunt's Blofeld, of sorts, but it also wrapped back around to former flame Julia, connecting Ethan's greatest love to his most diabolical enemy. Because of Lane's return, Fallout felt like a more direct sequel to Rogue Nation, though the connective tissue in Fallout in general made everything done in the Mission: Impossible-verse over the previous decade feel massively satisfying. And the action sequences were just beyond phenomenal. Yes, Tom Cruise doing a HALO jump for real was amazing, but the helicopter chase at the end was something Mission: Impossible fans - hell, movie fans - will never forget. Back in 2018, big showy blockbusters were at all-time levels of popularity, thanks in large part to the MCU, and Mission: Impossible took this opportunity to gift us with its biggest and best film. The Final Reckoning is supposed to feel like the pinnacle, and thematic resolution, of the entire series. But if it falls short, somehow then Fallout can still be that for us. Just a few years earlier. What's your favorite Mission: Impossible filM? How would you rank them all? Vote in our poll and let us know below...
