The Poppies of Terra #59 - Summer Spectacles

The summer is upon us, and with it, a whole cadre of big-budget extravaganzas vying for the top spots as the season’s blockbusters. Of the following six films, three of them have numbers in their titles, four are franchise continuations, and two are standalone vehicles. As these things go, that’s two more than we might have expected–but also, I should add that even these are only nominally original properties, since they’re closely modeled on proxy templates.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (dir. Christopher McQuarrie) is the eighth in the series, and unfortunately the fatigue shows. If the previous entry, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, was a step down in overall quality from the three action showstoppers immediately preceding it (Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Fallout), then this one is a leap off the ladder altogether. This interview with its helmer may provide some insight as to why: if the story didn’t, according to him, work nonlinearly, and it also didn’t work linearly, then we might venture a guess that the story simply doesn’t work. No amount of trying to paper over these structural cracks with portentous voiceover and dizzying flashbacks is going to remedy the issue. The Final Reckoning is cumbersome, aggressively reiterative, and bloated with incident while starved of plot. It contains several amazing action sequences, to be sure, but even there, fewer scenes manage to double as expressions of character than in previous franchise installments. The screenplay also tends to hamper the supporting cast’s efforts to individuate their characters by distributing mountains of exposition to everyone equally, as though it were union pay. Quasi-religious phrases like “the Lord of Lies,” quipped unironically by a deadpan Tom Cruise in reference to the story’s malevolent, yet ultimately bungling, AI, reveal a script in need of a few more passes. This glorious series has held me in its thrall for decades, and I wasn’t ready to reckon with such a disappointing finale.

When you think of Ballerina (dir. Len Wiseman [but also Chad Stahelski?]), you should think of fire. After the four enormously successful and exquisitely crafted John Wick flicks, and the solid miniseries The Continental, we here follow the blood-spattered exploits of Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas) in a contemporary revenge fantasia that harkens back to celebrated films like Le Samouraï (1967), La Femme Nikita (1990), Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2 (2003, 2004), and a touch of Hanna (2011), with Black Widow (2021) perhaps being a more recent point of comparison. de Armas proves more than up to the task, and while some viewers may feel that it takes the narrative a bit to warm up, its icy cold climactic showdown in the snow-clad mountain village of Hallstatt is well worth the wait. The veteran cast is committed all around, fight scenes throughout are staged with the precision and panache with which this series has become synonymous, Romain Lacourbas’s cinematography lends realism and elegance, and the music by Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard adds a second heartbeat to the pulse-pounding combat sequences. John Wick’s brief appearance is more than a cameo, serving a legitimate dramatic function that will make any fan smile. With a groove this good, the answer to Winston’s (Ian McShane) seemingly innocuous question “Do you like to dance?” proves a resounding “Yes.”  

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland are up to no good in 28 Years Later, for which we are all the better. Clearly not interested in repeating elements from the first two movies in the series, or expending a lot of energy on by now well-trodden zombie grounds, they instead take an apparently straightforward coming-of-age story, tilt it sideways, and infuse it with abstract reflections on history, nationalism, evolution, compassion and decadence. Boyle’s style is unrelentingly punk, experimental in a way that may alienate viewers expecting a more conventional approach. The film is both unnerving and moving; unlike the ravaged it depicts, it is in full possession of its faculties. Boyle and Garland are mature storytellers with a clear vision in mind, and in 28 Years Later they magic up several dream-like sequences sure to haunt long after the movie is over. While some folks in my audience were noticeably put off by the film’s ending, I dug the subversive droogs-ishness of it all. Exploring similar notions of fleeting human connections and the transformative potential of death in lives on ruin’s edge, this movie shakes hands thematically with The Life of Chuck. Also fair to say: the Young Fathers’ rendition of Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots”, and the way it’s featured, instantly achieves cult status. There’s no discharge in the war, but gladly the same cannot be said of artistic catharsis.

Pixar’s latest, Elio (dir. Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, and Adrian Molina), promises a family-friendly sense of wonder adventure, but starts to fumble early on and never clears the emotional launchpad. The opening scenes, in which the titular character wanders into an off-limits Voyager 1 exhibit, and we’re treated to some Carl Sagan voiceover, followed by a Talking Heads-accompanied montage showing Elio trying to get himself abducted, work well and promise a thoughtful, rousing and even poignant tale. Unfortunately, what follows is rote and unimaginative. Elio’s shenanigans with an extraterrestrial Communiverse are are as uninspired as that name suggests, and while the film is clothed in the vestments of science fiction, all of the ideas are bubble-deep. Solutions to problems prove pat; significant story elements, like self-aware clones, are glibly dismissed; and the narrative bends over backwards to coddle the audience instead of inspiring it. A generic, blobular Calarts animation style doesn’t help affairs. Despite borrowing generously from rich sources like E.T (1982), Explorers (1985), Flight of the Navigator (1986), The Iron Giant (1999), WALL-E (2008), and a number of others, Elio is never able to pay back its principal, let alone the interest.  

M3GAN 2.0 (dir. Gerard Johnstone) is a boisterous mess of a movie, a hodgepodge of tones and genres whose only genuine anxiety appears to be elicited by the prospect of wrapping up. The first installment in this series, M3GAN (2022), was a sardonic, well-behaved slasher in the app-ified Child’s Play-reboot mold, while the new sequel is mostly an action comedy with smatterings of goofy slapstick and plodding social commentary wedged in like extraneous, nonfunctional lines of code. With nods, among others, to The Addams Family (1964-66), Knight Rider (1982-86), Short Circuit (1986), RoboCop (1987), Eve of Destruction (1991), Ex Machina (2014), Upgrade (2018), Alita: Battle Angel (2019), AfrAId (2024), and Steven Segal’s filmography, the story seems mostly modeled on a queer-coded version of T2: Judgment Day (1991), with heavy dollops of sass to help pass the very long-feeling runtime. As tends to happen with sequels so busy moving the parts that they forget to attend to the engine, Megan herself is at times sidelined in her own movie because of the proliferated side characters, all of whom are living their best quirky lives. Timm Sharp, for example, playing army colonel Tim Sattler, seems to be cosplaying Paul Rudd in the recent A24 cringe comedy Friendship in a role that feels like it was written for Justin Long, while Aristotle Athari plays Christian halfway between robot and Jake Gyllenhaal. Despite all this, there’s some genuinely funny beats, a few nifty moments, and a surfeit of bouncy puppy-energy that makes it hard to be mad. Then again, lest we feel too forgiving: SOULM8TE, a spinoff, is already scheduled for a Jan 9th 2026 release.

Unlike in Orson Welles’ eccentric masterpiece, the F in F1 (dir. Joseph Kosinski) isn’t for fake, but more like fanfare. F1 is a slick, high-adrenaline ride, guzzling in familiar but effective story tropes like fuel and churning out a turbocharged pageantry of speed and sleek emotional dynamics. The first few shots, juxtaposing beautiful waves on a beach with vintage grainy Grand Prix footage of a race gone horribly wrong, set the pace and style, reminiscent of 90s Tony Scott, with plenty of kinetic cuts and sun-bleached palettes. Three of the leads–Brad Pitt, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem–have completed a number of circuits along both indie and commercial routes, and know exactly what to deliver. While Pitt may occasionally slightly drift into his trademark near-tics, all are brilliant performers at the top of their game; the younger Damson Idris is also very good, and fully commands his scenes. Stephen Mirrione and Patrick J. Smith deserve a shoutout for the film’s editing, which knows when to be snappy and when to be smooth and service moments of either awe or feeling. Unsurprisingly, Hans Zimmer pulls out all the stops. And of course the IMAX cameras mounted on actual F2 vehicles driven on real race tracks deliver hypnotic verisimilitude. But none of these miracles of technical execution would amount to much without a well-honed screenplay, one in which even though our destination may be long foreknown, the zigzags along the way still make the trip worth taking. I also appreciate a script willing to acknowledge that even the best have to work extremely hard to attain top-tier results, and take more than one tumble along the way. Bring popcorn; seatbelts optional.

As usual, then, during the season we have our share of winners and underperformers. The eighth Mission Impossible movie, along with the standalone Elio, repeat a well-known lesson: neither belonging to a beloved, behemoth franchise, nor being produced by a studio known for its originality and quality, are by themselves any guarantee of quality. A movie is a world unto itself. All that said, the summer rally is far from over, with several tentpole hopefuls slotted for the coming weeks. Let’s see what riches–or retreads–lie in store.