Tag Archives: Nuclear Weapons

A House of Dynamite – Movie Review

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TL;DR – As divisive as it is fascinating, anchored on understandable tension, and character performances that rocked me at times.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Sun rising behind the Washington Monument.

A House of Dynamite Review Introduction –

We are getting to the pointy end of the year, and that means it is time to start catching up with a bunch of the films that I missed this year. This is made more apparent because I just spent a month away in Japan, and there are a bunch of films that I missed while I was away. The first cab off that rack is a political thriller that explores the calamity of nuclear weapons, which means that this is already 100% my jam.

So, to set the scene, it is just a typical day for people around the world, including those in the missile defence systems in Fort Greely, Alaska and those in the Situation Room in Washington DC. But tensions have slowly been growing around the world, and when you have a fuel around, all it takes is one match for it all to explode, which is when a ballistic launch is detected over the Pacific Ocean, heading right to the USA. A nuclear event that everyone has feared is now a reality.   

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Oppenheimer – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A visual spectacle and a masterclass in dissecting a complicated life.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Warning – Contains a scene that may cause distress.

Exploding Flames.

Oppenheimer Review –

Every now and again, my old life and new life collide in interesting ways. All those years of teaching and exploring Arms Control and Disarmament finally became relevant in my current career. The story of the Manhattan Project is fascinating, as was the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose scope I doubt even three hours can completely cover. But given my general love of Christopher Nolan’s work [see Inception and Dunkirk], I knew I could not miss this one.

So to set the scene, the world is at war as Germany marches across Europe and Japan across the Pacific. This is already a dangerous predicament, but the world of theoretical physics has been running leaps and bounds forward, and everyone can see the endpoint, a bomb, a bomb of devastating potential. What happens if the Nazis get a bomb that can destroy cities? As the world scrambles, only one person in America can lead the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). However, his past might contain more problems than the government can handle.

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True Lies (1994) – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – While some parts of this have aged as well as blue cheese in the sun, you can’t help but feel the pull and allure of a story swinging for the fences at every opportunity. 

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film

True Lies Review –

When getting ready for my 2022 best of lists, I discovered that I had revied 99 films this year. Which made me wonder, what could be the lucky number 100? Just as I pondered that, True Lies finally made its way onto streaming. I have not seen this in years, but while I loved it when I was younger, the years are rarely kind to films like this. But given the year that James Cameron has had with Avatar, it was all the better time to jump back to one of his classics.  

So to set the scene, an exclusive party is taking part on a snowy cold night at Lake Chapeau, Switzerland, at a heavily guarded chalet. But not all the guests are coming in the front door. Some are cutting through the gates to the lake under the ice. Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) works for a secret US counterterrorism unit called Omega Sector and is investigating the billionaire art dealer Jamal Khaled (Marshall Manesh) as a possible front for laundering money to Islamic Terrorists. But no one outside of the agency and his team, Albert “Gib” Gibson (Tom Arnold) and Faisil (Grant Heslov), not even Harry’s wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku), knows what he does. One tango later, Harry must make a less-than-quiet exit from the party. But while his work and home life are separate entities, they are about to come crashing together.   

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Interceptor – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A one-dimensional film that gives the narrative nowhere to hide, thus revealing its flaws at every stage.   

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this video.

A terrorist stares through a window in a door.

Interceptor Review –

There are some films that you know were filmed in Australia without checking. It can be the supporting cast being filled with characters actors you have grown up with, or it could just be the specific energy the film gives off. Today, we look at just such a film, also one that might just have a significantly higher opinion on the ability to shoot down nuclear weapons than what is born out in reality.  

So to set the scene, we open with a military base under attack, a substantial military base because Fort Greely in Alaska is one of only two places where America can launch interceptors to shoot down nuclear weapon attacks from Russia. On the only other INTERCEPTOR base, the floating SBX-1, Captain JJ Collins (Elsa Pataky) is returning after a battle with the US Brass around sexual assault, which is when they discover that first that Greely has gone dark and then that Tavlinka, a nuclear facility in Russia, has been attacked and terrorists have stolen 16 nuclear weapons. Those weapons are now aimed at America, looking to take out 16 major cities like Los Angeles and Boston. JJ and the base commander Colonel Marshal  (Rhys Muldoon), began preparations to lock down the base when they discovered the hard way they had been infiltrated by the terrorist as well. Now JJ has to fight for her life to stop America from being attacked.                           

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Movie Review – Mission: Impossible – Fallout

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TL;DR – Heart pounding, electric, bombastic, edge of seat, high octane, adrenaline rush, these are all things I would use to describe Fallout.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Hunt jumps out of a plane, he jumps out of a lot of things. Image Credit: Paramount Pictures/Bad Robot

Review –

When I think back to 1996 when the first Mission: Impossible film came out all those years ago I can remember it being enthralling and as it was one of the first big action films I ever saw in the cinemas that opening mission still holds a special place in my personal cinematic history. However, I didn’t think I would still be talking about these films over twenty years later, I mean there were a lot of great action films in the 1990s but few if any have had the same persistence as Mission: Impossible. Now to be fair, not every film in the series has been a gem, and I even stopped watching after a while, but people told me I should catch the last entry into the franchise with Rogue Nation (see review) and I really enjoyed it. Well, jump forward to 2018 and the director/writer of that last film Christopher McQuarrie is back for a second jump into this world of spies. With this in mind, I had high hopes that they could continue the good work here, and I am so happy to say that they did.

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Map-It: Team America: World Police

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TL;DR – Today we chart out just where Kim Jong-Il was going to blow up in Team America: World Police

Team America World Police
Ever since I was a young child I have always been fascinated with maps, how they show and hide the world around us, how we determine all our lives based on where a line was drawn, sometimes by someone long dead, indeed it was this love of maps that lead me to studying International Relations. So it’s one of those things for me that when someone puts up a map of the world with markers on in movies/TV or Video Games almost all the time it is cartography gibberish. So today we start a new series called Map-It where we plot out those maps from Movies/TV and video games to see exactly where they were pointing at. So let’s dive in and look at our first example Team America World Police, and I should mention there are obviously spoilers for the move ahead.

Why Team America: World Police, well besides being a good example, it was also released around the time I was studying International Relations and it has a very interesting take on world politics that led to numerous discussions with my peers, so it has a special place in my heart, even if it does make me feel old. Now, of course, you are going to say this is a film where all the actors are puppets, Kim Jong-Il is a secret alien cockroach, they slice Helen Hunt in half with a katana, please can you really take this movie seriously? No of course not, but just because it is a silly movie does not mean it gets a pass when it comes to maps.

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