Brubaker movie review: Mission Ed-Possible III

Do yourself a favor. If Ed Brubaker ever invites you to a movie, take a pass. Tell him you have a prior engagement, a dentist appointment, a haircut, you have to get your tires rotated, something like that. Trust me. You'll be glad you did. We went to see Mission Impossible III today (at Ed's behest.. I would never pick such a movie,) and while I can't exactly say it was a terrible experience, it was definitely interesting.


First of all, Ed insisted upon holding my hand the entire movie.

It wasn't a gay thing. It wasn't even sexual. Ed just says it helps him get into a movie, and get him psyched. And, boy, I have never seen anybody get that enthusiastic for a movie. During the previews I thought he was going to break every bone in my hand. They showed, like they do, about 20 minutes of movie previews and ads, and Ed got excited about every single one, even the ad about that boxy little Scion car, he would turn to me and say very loudly (he's also a movie loud-talker,) "THAT LOOKS REALLY GOOD."

When the interminable previews finally ended and the lights dimmed and Paramount logo flashed on screen, I thought Ed's eyes were going to bug out of his head. And he starting grinning like a 4-year-old hyperactive retard on a cocaine binge, and his face was a vision of delighted ecstasy.

Now, Ed's a pretty excitable guy, so I expected a degree of hooting and hollaring at the screen. At least he let go of my hand long enough to shake his fist in the air and shout "YOU LEAVE MY TOMKAT ALONE, CAPOTE! HE'LL GIVE YOU WHAT FOR!"


Ed and I also go back a ways, and I've regaled him about many of my exploits (and, in truth, I've even exaggerated upon some of them.) It's pretty clear that I'm something of a hero to Ed, because whenever there was an exciting action sequence, like when Tom Cruise was tied up on a gurney and then escaped and ambushed the four guards in the elevator, Ed would poke me hard in the shoulder and (loudly) exclaim, "DID YOU SEE THAT?!? JUST LIKE YOU, LAYMAN! JUST LIKE YOU!" He did that on the bridge scene when Tom Cruise was being shot at by rockets from a helicopter and was crawling under an overturned car to get a guns, first he screamed (at the top of his lungs) "LOOK OUT, TOMKAT!!!!!" and after Tom Cruise narrowly leaped out of the way he poked me in the shoulder (hard!) and shouted into my ear, "DID YOU SEE THAT?!? JUST LIKE YOU, LAYMAN! JUST LIKE YOU!" He must of did that 20 times through the course of the movie.

And probably needless to say, Ed got very emotional at all the parts he was supposed to. If you do end up seeing a movie with Ed, bring a towel --or a bucket!-- 'cause that guy sobs like he is one of the Ingalls girls. Heaven forbid we went to a romantic comedy instead of an action movie... I would have needed a rain slicker!


Ed also gets excited about what I thought were the weirdest things. There was one scene were Tom was in Shanghai, leaping from the roof of one skyscraper to another, shooting a bunch of bad guys, falling a ways, crashing through a window, leaping out the window, opening a parachute, crashing through another window and then having his chute pull him back by the wind, where he kept falling and was saved at the last minute when his chute hit a pole, and he almost splattered against the ground, and then his fall was broken, and then it looked like a giant tanker truck speeding down the road was going to smash him like a bug. The tanker truck, which had a bunch of Chinese writing on the side, slammed on the brakes, and swerved, Tom Cruise dodged it by jumping under it, as it skidded sideways down the street. In these sort of action movies you always expect when you see a tanker about to crash that is full of gas, so there can be some inevitable explosion, but there wasn't, and Ed leaped out of his chair and outstretched his arms to the sky and bellowed in an enraged voice, "THAT TANKER WAS FULL OF MILK!!!!!!!"


Fortunately, there was only about six other people in the theater, and one was talking on a cell phone, or something, so it was not too embarrassing. Ed clapped, though, nonstop, though the entire credits, and his eyes were misty with tears and he was panting and huffing and kept muttering something, under his breath, rhetorically, about "how grrrrreat was the Tomkat."