Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

     After one of her IMF agents is killed, Jane Carter calls on Ethan Hunt to help her and her tech savvy teammate to break into the Moscow Kremlin and locate files on "Cobalt", the criminal who her agent was trying to gain information on. In the middle of the mission, the Russians are alerted about Ethan and his team. After his teammates escape, a bomb destroys the Kremlin, and Ethan is arrested by a Russian agent, who believes he had something to do with the attack. Once Ethan escapes, he meets with the IMF secretary and intelligence analyst Brandt, where he learns of the plan for his crew to take the blame for the attacks. The government will then allow them to "escape" from custody and track down Cobalt. Suddenly, the vehicle they are meeting in is under attack and the IMF secretary is shot and killed. Ethan and Brandt escape, and Brandt later informs Ethan that Cobalt is a man named Kurt Hendricks, and he is planning to start a nuclear war. Hendricks blew up the Kremlin to obtain a Russian nuclear launch control device but still needs the activation codes from the assassin who killed Jane's agent. The team gets to the spot of the exchange before the meeting time and sets up two separate exchanges using advanced high-tech gadgets, so that they can get the activation codes without Hendricks or the assassin knowing that something is wrong. Everything goes smoothly, until the assassin identifies Brandt as an agent. After an intense battle Jane kills the assassin, and Ethan chases after Hendricks and the codes. Ethan and the team learn of a satellite Hendricks is planning to use to launch the missile. Hendricks sends the signal to launch the missile at San Francisco, then puts a virus in the server's system so that it can not be overridden. While the rest of his crew tries to get the servers back online, Ethan chases after Hendricks and the launch device. After fighting over the device, Hendricks jumps to his death with the device to make sure it launches. Benji and the rest of the team finally get the broadcast signal back online so it is up to Ethan to get to the launch device and deactivate it. After severely injuring himself from driving a car off the ledge down to where Hendricks had fallen, Ethan crawls to the launch device and deactivates it at the last second. The Russian agents get to the scene and see what Ethan has done, proving the IMF's innocence.
     This film was very entertaining and well put-together. All of the special effects and stunts, whether it was crawling up the side of the tallest building in Dubai or the huge explosions throughout the movie, were flawless and made you feel as if it was happening for real. The camera work throughout the stunts and explosion was also exceptional. Each stunt was shown from many different angles, revealing the true greatness of each stunt to the audience. The fight scenes also kept the audience engaged with quick cuts, and close-up action. And the classic Mission Impossible score has always been one of my personal favorites.

The Longest Yard (2005)

     Paul Crewe is an NFL quarterback who is known for "shaving points" in an important game. One night after drinking and an argument with his girlfriend, he locks her in the closet and decides to take her sports car out for a joy ride, bringing along more beers for the drive. After a long police chase and a lot of destruction, Crewe is arrested and sentenced to a federal prison in Texas. The Warden of the prison blackmails Crewe by giving him an ultimatum: Either he helps the prison guards' football team or he gets framed for an extra five years in prison. Crewe agrees to help, and he is asked to get a team of inmates together for the guards to play as a warm-up game. Two fellow inmates agree to help crew assemble the team. Nate, who is an old, former college star, agrees to coach the team. The other is Caretaker, who knows basically all of the inmates and would help recruit players. At first, the team is very sloppy and unorganized and Crewe realizes he will need more talent if they hope to have any chance against the guards. After he proves his worth to the extremely athletic prisoners at the basketball courts, they eventually come around and decide to join the team. The guards, seeing that the prisoners are improving, and actually may stand a chance now, try to kill the prisoners' morale by having their inside informer rig Caretaker's cell with a bomb. The bomb takes Caretaker's life and devastates the prisoners. But instead of killing their morale, it actually boosts it and gives them an even bigger motive to beat the guards in the game. The prisoners decide to start playing dirty as well and sabotage some of the guards' equipment and belongings before the big game. Once the game begins, the guards quickly get off to a large lead, because most of the inmates' only concern is to attack their least favorite guards. Crewe quickly rallies his men and makes the game close by halftime. During the break, the warden informs Crewe that if he doesn't throw the game, he will pin Caretaker's murder on Crewe, leaving him in jail for basically the rest of his life. At first, Crewe begins throwing the game, but realizes that he'd rather win with his teammates and remain in jail than live with himself after throwing another big game. He explains to his teammates why he was throwing the game earlier, and they eventually come around, rally together, and win the game.

     The production crew did a great job with this film. I especially enjoyed the in-game action scenes throughout the movie. The shaky, handheld cam style made the audience feel as if they were on the field as well. The car chase scene at the beginning also was done very well, with quick cuts and various angles of the chase. This kept the level of intensity even throughout the entire scene, keeping the audience engaged. The use of sound gave a new meaning to each scene, such as when it went silent as all of the inmates ran up to Caretaker's burning cell. The score of the film, as in any good sports movie, matched the mood of each scene, heightening the emotion of the moment.

     

Jaws

     In the film Jaws, Chief Brody wants to close down the beaches following a death that was caused from what his medical examiner, Hooper, tells him was a shark attack. The mayor of the town is very reluctant to do this, seeing how it is summer and the beaches are there largest and most profitable attraction. He tells Brody until he has proof, the beaches will stay open. As more and more people go missing, Chief Brody continues to plea with the mayor to close the beaches. When the shark strikes again and kills a young boy, his mother puts out a reward for whoever kills the shark. This causes plenty of fisherman and amateur shark hunters to go out looking for the shark, but with no success. A professional shark hunter named Quint offers to kill the shark for $10,000. As more tourists are arriving for July 4th weekend, Brody convinces the mayor to hire Quint. Brody, Hooper, and Quint set out to kill the shark, which proves to be no easy task. After a long, bloody battle that claims Quint's life and their boat, Chief Brody, who was on the sinking boat's mast, shoots a scuba tank that he had placed in the shark's mouth using a rifle, blowing the shark to pieces. Hooper, who Brody believed to be dead, emerges from his hiding spot in the ocean after the explosion, and the two men swim back to shore using barrels they found in the remains of the boat.
     Spielberg did an excellent job with the camera work in this film. He was a young pioneer in the film world at this time, doing things that had never been seen before such as the infamous "dolly zoom". His filming technique of the big, obviously fake shark made it look real enough in the movie to evoke fear from the audience. The score instantly brought tension and fear to whatever scene it was added to. As soon as you hear the music, you know exactly what it means. Spielberg's brilliant directing, along with the classic "Jaws" score, made this film an instant classic, frequently referred to as one of, if not the greatest film of all time.

The Princess Bride (1987)

      The Princess Bride has a unique twist in which the story takes place in two different times and locations. The first location is with a Grandfather reading his sickly grandson a story to cheer him up and make him feel better. The second location is the fantasy world of Florin, which is the setting of the book the grandfather is reading. The movie switches between the two locations throughout the movie, but mostly in the beginning when the impatient grandson frequently interrupts his grandfather with cries of disgust and boredom. As the story intensifies, the grandson becomes more and more engulfed by the reading. The story starts off with Princess Buttercup falling in love with her farm boy, Wesley. As they both fall for each other Wesley goes off to try and search for riches so they can marry, and never returns. Buttercup is told that he was attacked by the relentless Dread Pirate Roberts and is devastated. She then reluctantly agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck. When Buttercup is kidnapped by three dimwitted criminals, a masked man in black uses his wits to defeat each of these three criminals and saves Buttercup. It is later revealed that the man in black is Wesley, who was the new Dread Pirate Roberts. Humperdinck recaptures Buttercup and devises a plan to secretly kill her. When Wesley finds out about the marriage and Humperdinck's plan to kill Buttercup, he works with 2 of the criminals to save her, defeating Humperdinck and saving the day.
      The director of the film, Rob Reiner, did a great job with the performances of the actors, and expressing his meaning of the film: love conquers all. The use of dialogue in this film to help drive the plot was an interesting technique that worked well for the film. For example, Wesley revealed his identity by saying the phrase "As you wish," which he had repeated several times in the beginning of the film as a response to Buttercup's commands on the farm. The camera work in this film helped establish the fantasy environment by panning over the large, beautiful landscapes of "Florin" in the beginning of the film. The obvious differences in setting between the real world and Florin made it easy to identify which world we were in at any given time. The editing of the fight scenes in this film also added to the intensity of the moment with sharp, quick cuts in the action that never ruined the fights' continuity. The clever and humorous dialogue kept the audience interested in the movie throughout the whole film.