Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible: Hooded Guy.

"No Plan. No Backup. No Choice."

Hey everyone welcome back to The Tagline! While i was snowed in (really I still am) I decided to watch Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (hereafter MI: 4) because I'd heard pretty positive things about it. I was surprised by that because the last Mission Impossible movie was not all that good. I mean, it was pretty decent actually, but I just don't find Philip Seymour Hoffman to be a very intimidating villain. Kind of a lippy douchebag maybe, but villain mastermind genius? ehhh that's kind of a stretch. MI: 4 once again stars Tom Cruise as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, this time accompanied by agents Carter (Paula Patton) and Dunn (Simon Pegg, as a newly promoted agent, is comic relief obviously) and also former field operative William Brandt (Jeremy Renner, who I'm beginning to think is a spy/assassin in real life) as they attempt to stop what I here am going to refer to as a nuclear terrorist, because that is the silliest way I could possibly put it. With the threat of nuclear war looming between the U.S. and Russia, thanks to said nuclear terrorist, the president initiates Ghost Protocol, disavowing all IMF agents and pinning the blame for the Kremlin being blown up on Hunt and his team. Instead, Ethan escapes with his team and agent Brandt, and attempt to thwart the plans of nuclear terrorist Hendricks (played by Michael Nyqvist, who played Mikael Blomkvist in the Swedish version of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and its sequels). Lacking their normal resources, and drawing upon a backup source of equipment that is frankly always blowing out at the worst possible moment, Hunt and his team are racing against the clock to stop nuclear war.

3rd Review: Skyfall

October 26th? Not in this country.

Hello guys, welcome to the weekend and The Tagline! This week I decided that rather than doing a top 5 list, I would do a third review, given that I just got out to see Skyfall, the new James bond film currently in theaters. No tagline for this one, Skyfall IS the tagline I guess. Skyfall is the third James Bond film starring Daniel Craig as Bond (the first two being Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace if you didn't see them) and these movies represent a kind of renaissance of the Bond brand. Casino Royale was a spectacular film, that gave the Bond franchise a new lease on life, by dropping the excessively lame punning, the goofy super weapons and silly gadgets, and replacing them with honest to god espionage. In doing so they also gave us a new Bond. Still charismatic, and sharply dressed (at times) but a real spy, a dangerous, possibly unstable individual who doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger, or do whatever it takes to get the job done. He spends a lot of time killing people, and getting beat up. Skyfall manages to raise the stakes again (and it really seems in the current movie climate that's always the name of the game) and pushes 007 to his limits.