Dum dum dum, dum dum dum. Dum dum dum, dum dum dum...
...Doodle-oo, doodle-oo, doodle-oo. DADUM!
Lalo Schifrin has nothing on us! What do you mean you didn't recognise that as the Mission:Impossible theme? It's not our fault that the internet is unable to translate our unique phonetic musical notation. Just deal with it ok!
Let's try some algebra instead: TC + PSH + JJ = M:I III. And if you're Rob Hanks writing in the Independent that's the forumla for a four star "compulsive watch".
Yes, really: a broadsheet four star review for a Mission:Impossible film! We could hardly believe it either.
So what's so good about it Hankster?
Well apparently we're getting a good amount of "bangs for our buck" here, in fact "all the bangs you could possibly want... delivered with a sense of narrative rhythm and even restraint."
Hanks also like Abram's directorial style, comparing his narrative tricks to Hitchcockian "McGuffins" and claiming that his brave decision to show a little reserve when it comes to certain action sequences actually pays off.
The only criticism is that the last 15 minutes falter a little, other than that Hanks thinks M:I III (we're getting sick of typing that already) is "a step forward for the big-budget Hollywood action spectacular generally." A pretty big claim.
Only a little less evangelistic is The Times reviewer (no online byline, sorry) who gives the film three stars.
In fact we might have to go and pick up a copy of The Times to find out who this review's written by, because it's freaking us out a little bit.
Consider this paragraph:
Agent Ethan Hunt has acquired a saintly and shapely new wife (Michelle Monaghan) since his last outing, but that famous toothpaste smile slides disingenuously around his ankles the moment the phone rings for him. Love never comes easy to the lonely hero of a long-distance franchise. Intimacy must never soften those diamond- hard reactions, or insinuate itself between a hero and his mission. This is one of the alarming teases that are planted like landmines in Abrams’s story. But the director’s efforts to turn the world’s highest paid spy into a romeo are quixotic at best.
What the hell was all that about? It's even more unfortunate when you consider that that's the only excerpt from the review we can quote because, apart from a remark about how the film's gadgets are "fabulous", the rest of the review is pure spoiler.
However, the penultimate paragraph does start with the words "The pleasure, as always, is tossing Cruise off..." so maybe this reviewer does have a sense of humour after all.
We've been waiting for Pete Bradshaw to get back into full-on grump mood for a while now and with his one star review of M:I III in today's Guardian it looks like the wait is over.
Here's how he opens:
Tom Cruise only has to appear on screen nowadays and I need one of those adult pacifiers that was reportedly used on the pregnant Katie Holmes in childbirth.
According to Pete, The Cruise might actually be getting younger, and in one scene where TC is disguised as a priest, "in his pert cassock and missal he looks about 15." Eww.
So what about the film itself? It's a "very tired experience" says Bradders, "there are hardly any laptops", Cruise's face is "pulchritudinous", and....oh, ok so Pete just takes the piss. But it's a good read and it's not like anyone's going to the pictures when the weather's this good and there's a giant elephant in town so who the hell cares?!
Ahem...sorry. next up: Confetti...an improvised British rom-com. Shit.
The film doesn't actually do all that badly in the broadsheets, with Bradshaw awarding it three stars mainly because "it's a good cast" and "there are some broad laughs to be had". But when a critic calls a film "entertaining" you know he just means "meh".
It's a similar story over in Times where Wendy Ide gives out another three stars and manages to use the phrases "a very British comedy of discomfort", "mockumentary" and "Martin Freeman" without mentioning The Office.
She also warns viewers to watch out for the "unabashed sentimentality that sweeps us off our feet at the end." We think that's a bad thing.
Confetti gets its worst review in the Independent where Robert Hanks gives it two stars, complaining that it's a "shambolic" comedy which "feels like a television idea that hasn't really got the muscle to pull it on to the big screen."
We're assuming that the title of Three actually refers to the trio of shiny spherical objects on display throughout the movie (Billy Zane's head being the third one), but unfortunately the cast's protuberances have failed to win over the broadsheet reviewers (although the mauling is not as bad as you might imagine).
There's only one single star review and that comes from Rob Hanks in the Independent. He calls this "unholy amalgam of Lord of the Flies, The Blue Lagoon and The Admirable Crichton," risible, but most of the time he says "it's just dull".
Apparently the Times give Three two stars but the link for the review leads to last week's 16 Blocks. Maybe they got Bruce's big shiny pate mixed up with something else.
The big surprise comes courtesy of Andrew Pulver in the Guardian who gives Brook and Zane two stars, that's one more than Bradders gave a film with Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman in it!
"Brook isn't terrible, exactly;" says Pulver, which has to be the most back-handed compliment ever typed, "she's just burned to a crisp, acting-wise, by Zane, whose desperate mugging can't conceal a terror that he's been hijacked into a career-derailing project to help his partner's career."
Two stars? Really Andy? Two?
Pulver goes on to say that the acting isn't the only obstacle: "Writer-director Raffill doesn't help matters by resorting to ludicrous voodoo cutaways when he can't think of any other method of moving the story along."
Still sticking with those two stars Andrew?
Oh wait...
If watching Kelly Brook prance around in a bikini for an hour and a half is your idea of fun, then this film has been machine-tooled to separate you from your money.
Ok, we get the two stars thing now.
And so on to this week's film news, rumours and gossip.
That Jimi Hendrix biopic we mentioned recently... not going to get made. Apparently the filmmakers had no "rights to the legendary guitarist's music or likeness." Things you really do need if you're making a biopic.
And talking of biogrpahies (kind of) it looks like Guy Pearce might be all set to portray Houdini alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones as a, erm...passionate psychic.
Neve Campbell is leaving behind the bloody awful Resurrection Blues to go join Dicky Attenborough’s giggle-enducing project 'Closing The Ring'.
Someone's apparently talking about making a live-action movie of the Jetsons!
But more exciting than all that is this description of Michelle Gondry's latest endeavour:
Jack Black is set to star in Michel Gondry's eccentric comedy "Be Kind Rewind," playing a junkyard worker whose brain is magnetized, destroying every tape in his friend's video store and forcing the pair to remake the lost films.
Trailer of the week - has to be the new Supes of course!
