“MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE DEAD CALCULATION – PART 1”
Christopher McQuarrie; Cast: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Vanessa Kirby, Cary Elwes, Shea Whigham. USA, 2023, duration 163 minutes.
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must deal with an incredibly risky, planet-threatening new threat and hunt it down before it falls into the wrong hands. This is a very powerful and mysterious device, an artificial intelligence that can penetrate any computer system and use any tool for its own purposes. During a summit of intelligence chiefs from around the world, Ethan realizes that this new weapon is not only too powerful, but also uncontrollable and must be destroyed. Together with trusted Benjy and Luther, he develops a plan to capture the weapon’s access key, but this time the mission is really impossible, and the task will be beyond all imagination.
Filmed between Italy, Norway and the United Arab Emirates, The Wages of Death Part One is the seventh chapter in a saga that began in 1996 and the third chapter directed by Christopher McQuarrie (who also directed Tom Cruise in Operation Valkyrie and Jack Reacher ”), perhaps the only director at the moment who is able to build an entire narrative around Cruise’s physicality. The film, despite its considerable length (163 minutes!) is only the first part of Tom Cruise’s long farewell to his character Ethan Hunt. The action scenes are the fulcrum of the story and Ethan/Tom, as you know, wants to shoot them without stunt doubles, but he also knows that at 60 you no longer have the freshness and agility that you once had, and so these two “Mission Impossible” (the second part is scheduled for release in the spring of 2024) want to somehow represent the most amazing and grandiose step of Cruz’s farewell to his character. Incredibly adrenaline-pumping, thanks in part to the VFX team looking for effective analog solutions instead of resorting to CGI at every opportunity, Payback to the Death Part One captivates and stuns viewers with spectacular action scenes (chase between calli rather than a long scene on a train crossing the Austrian Alps), but it is also one of Cruise’s funniest, ironic and self-deprecating films (a sixteenth-century escape through the streets of Rome), unique among seven episodes, effectively blending action, tension and comedy . Blockbuster, of course, but excellent quality.
BAD CONSCIOUSNESS
Directed by Davide Minnella. A film worth watching with Francesco Shanna, Filippo Schicitano, Matilda Joli. Italy, 2023, duration 110 minutes.
While the screens of the few cinemas left open are filled with horror films – three new releases this week alone, splatter and gore – elements of great attraction in the summer … – peeks out among the cinematic offerings “Bad Conscience”, a beautiful comedy directed by Davide Minnella and written by Stefano Sardo of Braid (already a co-writer of The Perfect Dinner, Minnella’s first film), along with Jordana Marie and Teresa Gelli. Filippo is a young man close to marriage, he is not only a good lawyer, but also a good and generous person. But the reason for this perfection is given by the fact that Otto, or his conscience, controls his every move. One day, however, Otto arrives late at his workplace in the “Alternate World” and discovers that Filippo met Valentina during a bachelor party, a cheerful and delinquent girl who ends up upsetting and overpowering the calm lawyer, who sends her to an impending wedding and, not knowing it is also Otto’s career, his conscience acting in the “Other World”. All Otto is left with is to descend to Earth to bring his client back to reason before the “Higher Consciousness” realizes it and his role as Conscience/Guide is destroyed.
A romantic and suspenseful tale that revives the schemes and techniques of Italian comedy through a meaningful look at international cinema yesterday and today – from Frank Capra’s Life Is Beautiful to Pete Docter’s Inside Out – Minella’s film entertains and intrigues like a plot with hints of fable and fantasy – human a conscience presented as a vast office in which our respective conscience (with human features) helps us to always do the right thing – and for a decidedly partial cast – from Francesco Schanna to Filippo Schicitano to Matilde Joli – able to interpret the characters’ personalities in the best possible way and with the right tones. To see.