Bovie Movie

Director Oliver Stone continued his Vietnam trilogy with this biographical drama, a masterpiece of film-making that occupies a much broader canvas than its predecessor, Platoon. It stars Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, the all-American boy who enlists in the marines because he loves his country. The Stars and Stripes flies proudly in his home town. Then he is hideously wounded, endures the rat-infested hell of a veterans’ hospital and comes home to find the Stars and Stripes being burned in the streets. He drops out and goes to Mexico, then returns to America to conduct an antiwar campaign from his wheelchair. The story is based on the autobiography of Kovic and Stone himself did two tours of duty in Vietnam, and the movie fairly reeks of their experience and regret. Stone had won the director’s Oscar for Platoon and he won it again for his powerful work here. Sadly, Cruise had to settle for a nomination, but his transformation from golden boy to ravaged and embittered paraplegic is utterly convincing. 

Director John Woo brings Hong Kong-style martial arts action to this comic book-flavored sequel that eschews the complicated plot and political maneuverings of its predecessor in favor of pure, adrenaline-charged thrills. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, an operative for the top-secret government agency IMF (Impossible Missions Force). Fellow agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) has gone rogue, stealing a sample of a deadly synthetic virus named Chimera that could rapidly wipe out the world’s population. Ambrose’s plan is to sell Chimera to the highest bidder in exchange for shares of stock in the winner’s company. Summoned by the new IMF chief (Anthony Hopkins in an uncredited cameo role), Ethan is assigned to recruit the help of Ambrose’s former lover Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), a gorgeous woman who left Ambrose broken-hearted and who may be able to quickly regain his confidence. Once he meets and spends a night with Nyah, however, Ethan is smitten, and now must both capture Ambrose and keep Nyah alive as she infiltrates a nest of vipers. Sophisticated disguises, gun battles, and high-speed chases are the order of the day, very much in the James Bond mold. Mission: Impossible 2 is based on a story by Star Trek: The Next Generation writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, with a script polish by Robert Towne.

After he is framed for the death of several colleagues and falsely branded a traitor, a secret agent embarks on a daring scheme to clear his name in this spy adventure. Though it drew its name from the familiar television series, director Brian DePalma’s big-budget adaptation shares little more with the original show than the occasional self-destructing message and the name of team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight). The film focuses not on Phelps but his prot?g?, Ethan Hunt (a reserved Tom Cruise), who becomes a fugitive after taking the blame for a botched operation. He responds by banding together with a group of fellow renegades, and he is soon maneuvering his way through a twisted series of double crosses that mainly serve as excuses for spectacular high-tech action sequences. Much of the activity revolves around a missing computer disk, with the film’s most famous scene depicting Hunt’s delicate efforts to retrieve the disk from a secure, well-alarmed room in CIA headquarters.

Quentin Tarantino’s vigorous assertion in Sleep with Me that this is the ultimate gay fantasy movie rather pulls the carpet from under the feet of those attempting to appraise this slavish tribute to flash fly boys and their hi-tech toys. There is no denying the quality and entertainment value of the flying sequences, which effortlessly blend mile-high footage with state-of-the-art modelwork, but the rivalry between Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, and Cruise’s tempestuous affair with Kelly McGillis, are pure bunk. Yet, with the shameful exception of McGillis, all emerged with reputations enhanced, particularly director Tony Scott, who takes all the credit for preventing this mindless macho daydream from nose-diving. 

John Travolta hoped to star in it to shatter his Grease image, and Elton John was even asked to turn it into a Broadway musical, but when this highly anticipated movie version of Anne Rice’s cult novel finally came to the screen it was a decidedly anaemic affair. All sumptuously dressed up with nowhere really interesting to go, director Neil Jordan’s lavish adaptation is a stylised horror tale that lacks the emotional depth and jet-black darkness of the doom-laden tome. Too many other similar ideas have since come down the undead path, seriously undermining this stark vision of the hellish torture of being cursed to live for ever. Still, Tom Cruise is fine as the vampire Lestat, whose close relationship with handsome Brad Pitt forms an erotic twist on the Dracula legend. Kirsten Dunst impresses as the child adopted by the pair, but it’s Antonio Banderas who gives the most full-blooded performance as the bisexual Armand. This is a beautifully mounted production that’s low on divine decadence and Rice’s celebrated charnel house morbidity, but high on glossy Grand Guignol and evocative elegance. 

Hollywood’s image of the “noble savage” is applied to the 19th-century Japanese samurai in this sweeping action drama from director Edward Zwick. Reminiscent of Zwick’s Glory and Legends of the Fall, it charts a poignant personal odyssey prompted by the clash of old and new cultures. Tom Cruise plays a disillusioned US captain hired by the young Japanese emperor to train the country’s first modern conscript army. After leading an inadequate campaign against the samurai warriors, the military man is captured by these alleged national enemies who teach him to reassess his beliefs and values. An epic movie in every way, the beautifully shot tale pours with emotion, from its strong storyline and robust performances to its spine-tingling and bloody battle sequences. Though the film suffers from being overly idealistic and occasionally stereotypical, its heart is in the right place, while the attention to detail and extensive use of subtitled language adds extra authenticity. Cruise handles his role well, but it’s Ken Watanabe’s dignified turn as samurai leader Katsumoto that captivates. 

Having turned fighter pilots and pool players into sex objects in Top Gun and The Color of Money, Tom Cruise attempted to do the same service for, er, bartenders in this romantic comedy. You’d better believe it. Cruise learns all about the meaning of life by mixing drinks, under the tutelage of Martini-mentor Bryan Brown. Admittedly, Cruise’s technique is pretty impressive; he juggles with bottles, jiggles his behind and makes his female customers drunk with desire. But then along comes Elisabeth Shue, who makes him reassess his lifestyle. Cue lots of serious dialogue. Perhaps the best one can say for this bland concoction mixed by agents and the studio executives is that every bartender in Hollywood wants to be Tom Cruise and that suffices as an ironic subtext. Fans of Paul Verhoeven’s pitiful Showgirls might like to check out Gina Gershon with her clothes on. 

This masterfully sleek vision of the future from director Steven Spielberg is an awesome mix of sensationally skewed science fiction, twisty Hitchcock-style thrills, stunning blue-grey tinged photography and outstanding design, featuring a fantastic array of cool equipment, gadgets and RoboCop-type applications. Set in 2054, when police can use precognitive mutants to detect homicides before they’re even committed, the plot sees top “Pre-cop” Tom Cruise identified as a future killer and forced to go on the run to discover why he’s been set up and by whom. Well-judged commercial action requirements dovetail flawlessly with ingenious sophistication as Spielberg hurtles with artful swiftness through one spectacularly mounted suspense sequence after another — none better than the snooping robot spiders scuttling through a tenement slum to identify Cruise via his coded eyeballs. Adroitly realised by Spielberg to amaze and rivet in turn, this is what sci-fi cinema should always be about but rarely is — mind-boggling images and a literate, witty script skilfully working together in perfect harmony to create a world of unnerving wonder. It?s absolutely terrific stuff — Blade Runner finally has a serious rival as the best Philip K Dick screen adaptation. 

Tom Cruise puts away his trademark toothsome grin to play Vincent, a cold-blooded hitman, in this edgy thriller from director Michael Mann. After hijacking a taxi and its driver, Vincent embarks on a series of ruthlessly efficient assassinations across night-time LA while the hapless cabbie (Jamie Foxx) tries to work out ways to escape. Meantime, LA cops and the FBI are closing in. Cruise, sporting steel-grey hair, is well cast against type and is surprisingly effective as the killer, but it’s Michael Mann’s astonishing style that really marks the film out. Shot on a mixture of film and digital video, the night-time lights of LA look alternately moody, surreal and dangerous. In fact, if the film has a problem, it’s that the style occasionally becomes oppressive and threatens to overwhelm the serviceable but slender plot. 

Full of trademark themes and characteristic compositions, Stanley Kubrick’s final film is also his most fascinatingly flawed. With its style often resembling 1970s European art house movies, it lacks the morbidity to pass as a Buñuelian satire, and is too stately and serious to succeed as a commercial enterprise. Tom Cruise — as the doctor recklessly seeking a means of avenging his wife’s fantasised infidelity — is far too controlled for his character’s fraught nocturnal adventures to be plausible. Nicole Kidman, as his wife, is less visible, but simmers with potential erotic danger. Despite expectations, this is a disappointingly conservative conclusion to a career spent pushing back cinematic boundaries. Perhaps, after so long without directing a movie, Kubrick cared too much.