MISSION CREEP: ACCOMPLISHED
Hysterical overreach sets tone for latest impossible outing, Chris Lackner writes.
MOVIES
Big releases on July 27: Mission: Impossible — Fallout.
Big picture: Mission: Impossible — Fallout finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and fellow IMF lifers (Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) in damage-control mode after a mission ends in disaster. (Henry Cavill joins the cast — so here’s hoping for a Superman-versus-Ethan Hunt crossover twist.) As usual, expect Tom Cruise’s Hunt to do a lot of crazy things — like flying helicopters into trucks and driving motorcycles into sports scars.
Hunt is the kind of agent who makes even the simplest mission seem extra complicated, destructive and over the top. (Hunt passing the salt on a dinner table likely involves at least one grappling hook, four explosions, three fist fights and then flying a jet through the roof and embedding it into the table before coolly handing over the shaker. Don’t even THINK about asking him to pass the pepper.) Guns, caves, mountains, plutonium, government betrayal — this popcorn flick one has it all.
“What the hell is he doing?” one character asks. “I find it best not to look,” another responds. My sentiments exactly. Forecast: Cruise doesn’t have many franchises left to mine. Another MI sequel sure beats a Risky Business: Fallout — about a 50-year-old man-child who runs a brothel out of his parents’ house when they’re away for a weekend.
TV
Big event: Castle Rock (July 25, Space/CraveTV).
Big picture: No, not Casterly Rock. Sadly, his isn’t HBO’s first Game of Thrones spinoff about the Lannisters. But it is a promising horror series that brings together two creative minds: executive producer J.J. Abrams and author Stephen King. Based on the latter’s stories, this supernatural thrill ride starts with a strange young man appearing in a confined area of Shawshank prison — with no record of being incarcerated.
A death row attorney is lured to the familiar town of Castle Rock to investigate. As one observer intones: “people say every inch of this town is stained with someone’s sin.” (It makes for an awkward highway billboard.) Referencing everything from Cujo and Needful Things to It, the thrill ride deftly weaves together characters and themes from King ’s books into a new, original tale.
This 10-part series launches with a three-episode debut. The top-notch cast includes André Holland, Sissy Spacek and Bill Skarsgård.
Forecast: You’ll watch more than one episode, but you won’t watch more than one alone.
MUSIC
Big releases on July 27: Daughtry (Cage to Rattle); Kenny Chesney (Songs for the Saints).
Big release on July 27, 1983: Madonna (self-titled).
Big release on July 27, 1984: Metallica (Ride the Lightning).
Big picture: This week’s big releases are so mediocre that I recommend you go back in time by listening to better albums released on the same date in years past, or by hopping into a time machine (if you build one, please make sure there is room for 7.3 billion other people). Chris Daughtry continues to have a career postAmerican Idol. You have to give him that much, but you don’t have to listen to his band.
On the other hand, Kenny Chesney is beloved by some country fans, and this album is meant to do charitable things in raising money for disaster relief in the Virgin Islands; on the other hand, Chesney is a shameless cheese ball who has sapped country music of every ounce of outlaw edge.
But how could you choose either of the above albums over Madonna’s debut — singles Holiday, Physical Attraction and more — or one of Metallica’s most celebrated albums. For Whom the Bell Tolls and Fade to Black, anyone?
Forecast: You’re now wishing you knew a Doc Brown.