Cinematic Throwbacks: May 1986/1996/2006/2016

1986:

I'm not sure there is another film quite as quintessentially 80s as Top Gun.

This film made a superstar, launched a major directing career, and added to one of the great producer runs of all time.

I personally was very late in ever getting around to watching Top Gun. By the time I did, probably a good decade after it came out, I largely knew the movie through its brilliant parody Hot Shots. I mean, I still can't watch Top Gun without chuckling at some of the moments directly spoofed. 

Tom Cruise had already had a couple of notable movies, but this was his first blockbuster smash, that cemented him as a major movie star. He's certainly given better performances, but he's so effortlessly good here as the cocky flyboy that it stuck as his screen persona for a long time.

Tony Scott was almost a total unknown as a director, having made only 1 film to that point, but he was a perfect choice by producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Scott's style was perfect for the commercial senses of S&B, who had a couple hits under their belt, and would remain elite hitmakers for years to come.

Top Gun doesn't really have a plot, more a bunch of incidents. Cruise and his buddy (Anthony Edwards, not the Wolf) try to beat the other pilots at the titular flight school. There's the love interest (Kelly McGillis), the adversary (Val Kilmer), the gruff captains.

The whole movie seems to take place at perfect sunset. The soundtrack is an 80s classic (Take My Breath Away is a 10/10). It's as much a product of its time as a film can be. 

I still prefer it to the sequel, which takes things a lot more seriously and doesn't lean into the cheese. Sometimes, it's okay to be what you are. 

1996:

Alright, here we go! The movie summer of 1996.

I don't know if 1996 was the best movie summer of the decade (there are a few other contenders), but it had the best hit rate for the big movies.

The summer season kicked off early with Twister, arriving 2 weeks before the traditional Memorial Day weekend kickoff. I was super excited for this. It was Jan De Bont's follow-up to Speed. It has one of those classic teaser trailers, with the tire flying through the windshield. It was about tornadoes, a subject that has interested me since I was a kid.

Watching this opening night was a great experience. I dare say it had some of that summer movie magic, as one of the last fx heavy blockbusters to truly show us something new.

The movie got ridiculed for the story it uses around the big fx sequences, and yeah, it's a little cheesy. The divorced couple (Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt) falling back in love, at the expense of his new fiance (poor Jami Gertz). The eeeeevil storm chasers (led by Cary Elwes) all dressed in black. It's fine. It never bothered me. The chemistry between Paxton and Hunt is snappy and fun, and the camaraderie with the crew (including a nutty Philip Seymour Hoffman) is enjoyable.

The tornado sequences are each distinct and cool, the best being the one that rips through a drive-in theater screening of The Shining. I just really respond to the midwestern vibe of the movie, the way it just evokes summer.

Twister was a massive hit, and deservedly so. It's just a fun movie, with some neat science and fun set pieces and charming actors. 

Before this franchise became a nearly 30 year long opus, it was just the latest in the 90s trend of big screen adaptations of old TV shows. Mission Impossible made more sense than most, with its naturally cinematic features like cool spy stuff and gadgets.

The original carried no big backstory. It was all new. It has a dandy of an opening act, as Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt sees his whole team die during a botched mission (including poor Emilio Estevez). Hunt is suspected of being the one who sabotaged the mission, and he goes on the run.

Act two is him putting together his own team (including Ving Rhames and Jean Reno in his 1st big role after Leon) to try a heist at the CIA. And then act 3 is where we get all the twists and doublecrosses and whatnot. 

I've seen this movie a bunch of times over the years, and I still don't quite get a lot of the plot. I still don't really know who Vanessa Redgrave's character is, or why Hunt's mentor Jim Phelps (the TV show's lead, here played by Jon Voight) goes bad. It's always held the movie back some.

But as this franchise has gone on, I appreciate the more grounded and realistic approach this one has. It's the only one of these that isn't a full-blown action movie, more of a spy thriller. 

Brian DePalma's slick direction keeps this thing moving over the confusing stuff. And the set pieces really click, including the incredible CIA heist sequence, which was a fantastic in-theater watch. How often is a big movie's centerpiece scene built around being quiet?

Well, we know the rest. The film was a big hit and spawned a franchise that has kept Cruise as a frontline movie star for decades. He hasn't always been able to rely on his name alone to bring in audiences. We may even see this franchise again in a few paragraphs.

2006:

The superhero franchise that really activated the 2000s comic book boom hit its first bump with its 3rd entry...but not for me.

The Last Stand was my most anticipated movie of the summer of 2006. I went to the midnight show. And I came out throughly satisfied with what I saw.

But apparently, I was in the minority, because TLS was not received well. To this day, it is considered a bad movie, and I just do not agree. 

The movie had a messy production. Bryan Singer left to go make Superman Returns (see you next month). Matthew Vaughn, later of Kick Ass fame, was brought on, but then he too left, and the job ultimately went to Brett Ratner, who at the time was mostly known for the Rush Hour movies (and today is mostly reviled as a piece of shit). Plus, the writers were numerous, and the studio wanted different things. It's kind of amazing that the film did come out the other end so good.

TLS, which was sort of marketed as the final X-Men film, has two major storylines. One involves a goverment-made "cure" for mutation itself, and different characters battling over their response to it. 

And there is also the return of Famke Janssen's Jean Grey, who died at the end of X2 but here returns as her Phoenix persona.

The Phoenix story gets the short end of the stick here for sure, and she gets very little to do in the 2nd half of the movie. But the climax with her going full destruction remains very cool. 

The cure storyline is more effective, and gives more characters things to do, as Magneto amasses an army of mutants to fight back, and Rogue decides whether or not to take the cure.

The only thing that bugged me initially and still does is some of the writing for Xavier, making him kind of a dick for certain scenes. And the way they kill off Cyclops is pretty lame. 

TLS really delivers with the action, though, and the cast of new mutants is a real highlight. Kelsey Grammer was an inspired choice for Beast, and TAFKA Ellen Page was a great Kitty Pryde. And of course, you have all the big returning stars in Hugh Jackman, Halle Berrry, Ian McKellen, and Patrick Stewart putting in great work.

This movie was another big hit for the franchise despite the mixed reaction. But they kind of never got over this, using Days Of Future Past to sort of retcon this movie, and then trying to do the Phoenix saga again (in a single film) in Dark Phoenix, and by then the franchise was not only toast but owned by another studio anyway. 

Welcome back to the Mission Impossible franchise, now a decade old, and arriving at a strange time in Tom Cruise's career. 

This was his 1st movie since the couch jumping incident, and his reputation was at its weirdest point. I never thought it was that bad. If I got mid-2000s Katie Holmes, I'd have jumped on couches, chairs, beds, all of it.

But he needed a hit, and the 3rd MI film provided it. The franchise continued its then approach of each film matching its director's style. This time, it was JJ Abrams, doing his 1st film after having lots of success in TV. And the film felt like Alias mixed with Lost. He brought along his unexplained mysteries, as the film's macguffin the "rabbit's foot" is never explained (it finally was in The Final Reckoning). 

Once again, Ethan Hunt has to go rogue to get the job done. His team includes the debut of Simon Pegg's Benji, as well as franchise one shots Keri Russell and Maggie Q. Laurence Fishburne and Billy Crudup are Ethan's bosses, one of whom is probably a bad guy. Michelle Monaghan oozes loveliness as Ethan's girlfriend. And Philip Seymour Hoffman brings a welcome wink-less menace to his main bad guy role.

Abrams brings a real cheekiness to some of the action. And it's very visceral, including a dynamite bridge shootout, and a whole lot of running even by Cruise's standards.

I think this is generally regarded as one of the weaker Mission Impossible movies, but it's a good franchise with a high hit rate, so that's still pretty good. 

2016:

Prime MCU was a magical time to be alive. I think the franchise is still going strong, but I think its absolute peak run began 10 years ago with Captain America: Civil War.

Civil War is my favorite MCU film that doesn't have the word Avengers in the title, although this is basically an Avengers film given just how many characters are packed into this thing.

While the scale of this becomes huge, it is a true sequel to The Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers IS the lead, and his actions drive the story the whole way through.

The film adapts the Civil War storyline from the comics, where after another incident involving an Avengers team, the UN creates the Sokovia Accords, designed to place the Avengers under control of those nations. This divides the team, boiling down to Team Cap (who thinks the accords are bad and would lead to more problems) and Team Iron Man (who believes the Avengers can't just act independently). 

And Team Cap is the right side, and is pretty conclusively proven so throughout the events of the film (and even MORE right in later films).

The antagonist (more than an outright villain) is Baron Zemo (Daniel Bruhl), who frames Bucky for a bombing for reasons that evolve during the film. Zemo is one of the MCU's most compelling adversaries, doing bad things for understandable reasons.

Civil War is a monumental film in the franchise. It marked the debut of Black Panther, a role the great Chadwick Boseman owned from the start. And just 2 years after the character's last non-MCU appearance, here is Spiderman joining the mothership with Tom Holland taking over. 

Pretty much every existing Avengers character featured into this, save for Thor and Hulk. The Russos did a fantastic job of giving everybody a few cool moments. The whole cast is excellent, with Elizabeth Olsen a particular standout as usual. 

Robert Downey Jr. gives his best Tony performance to date, bringing in all the usual quips but adding a ton of real gravitas, especially to the scenes at the end. 

The back and forth over the central plot is extremely well written, culminating in that absolutely incredible airport battle royale between the divided Avengers. This has been topped by the climax of Endgame, but at the time, this was hands down the best action sequence in the MCU. Great drama, and just plain cool. We get all these fun combos of characters going after each other. It's funny, too, as Spiderman is just excited to be there. 

The film isn't over, though. The climax, where Tony finds out Bucky killed his parents during his Winter Soldier days, is a dramatic high point in the franchise. 

Maybe this storyline should have had more consequences. Nobody dies. Only Rhoadey nearly does. But the split of the team and where this film leaves everybody leads right into Infinity War, and ultimately the failure to prevent the snap.

This was the start of phase 3, and I think this was when the MCU was just untouchable. 

Welcome back to the X-Men franchise.

Arriving just weeks after Civil War, the latest X-Men film was definitely in the shadow of the MCU. We didn't know yet that the property would soon be owned by Disney, but they had a lot to live up to. 

This movie arrived 2 years after franchise high point Days Of Future Past, and months after breakout Deadpool, but Apocalypse just didn't connect as much. It did fine, but it wasn't a smash.

Apocalypse is the villain, an ancient all-powerful mutant, awakened after centuries of being buried. Oscar Isaac is kind of wasted in the role that pretty much any actor could have played.

The movie is fully about the reboot cast from First Class, and this one adds in younger versions of Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Nightcrawler, while bringing back Xavier, Magneto, Mystique, Beast, and Quicksilver, who gets another great sequence.

This is a 2nd tier X-Men film, but it's good. Apocalypse is almost too overly powerful to work in a movie, but the way he is defeated is cool. The Magneto stuff here is great. All the action is good.

Jennifer Lawrence is visibly bored, and the dreadfully dull Sophie Turner was a major miscast as Jean, but the cast is generally strong. We even get an admittedly gratuitous Wolverine cameo.

Other non-deep dive flicks....

1986:

-Cobra: Stallone doing his action tough guy thing. 

-Short Circuit: The movie with the goofy little robot..

1996:

-Barb Wire: I saw this in theaters, and as a 17 year old boy, I appreciated parts of Pamela Anderson's stab at big screen stardom.

-The Craft: Semi-big deal at the time as Neve Campbell's big movie debut pre-Scream, although she's not the lead. Was never a huge fan of it, though.

-The Pallbearer: David Schwimmer's stab at movie stardom. 

-The Great White Hype: This should have been so much better. A great cast in a boxing satire written by Ron Shelton, but it just never took off. 

-Original Gangstas: A bunch of old blaxsploitation stars team up to clean up the neighborhood. 

-Heaven's Prisoners: Sultry thriller with that one Teri Hatcher scene that 17 year old me also appreciated. 

-Flipper: A very forgotten TV adaptation. It had one of the worst trailers ever. 

-The Arrival: Kind of neat little Charlie Sheen alien thriller that went under the radar. 

-Eddie: Whoopi Goldberg becomes the coach of the Knicks. Sure.

-Spy Hard: A decent spy spoof starring Leslie Nielsen, although you could kind of see the genre losing steam. Great Weird Al title song. 

-Dragonheart: Big fx adventure with Sean Connery as the voice of a dragon. 

-Welcome To The Dollhouse: Acclaimed indie about a bullied middle school girl. I hated it. 

2006:

-Poseidon: Wolfgang Petersen's remake was a big bomb, but I always enjoyed it. It's quick, the cast is good, and it has a couple of very effective and memorable scenes. 

-An Inconvenient Truth: The award winning documentary where Al Gore talks about climate change. Nothing has changed. 

-The DaVinci Code: Tom Hanks and Ron Howard teamed up for this very successful, very boring adaptation of some popular books. 

-Just My Luck: A very bad Lindsay Lohan comedy. 

2016:

-The Nice Guys: Shane Black cashed in on his Iron Man 3 success to do this fun detective flick with very enjoyable banter between Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. 

-Neighbors 2: More or less just a copy of the first one, just with girls this time. But the girls included Chloe Moretz (when I was still all in), and I believe my first time seeing Beanie Feldstein. 

-Money Monster: A Jodie Foster directed drama with George Clooney and Julia Roberts that was more interested in being preachy than being a good movie. 

-Alice Through The Looking Glass: Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland was bad enough. Then they had to go and make a sequel. 

Coming in June...

The great summer of 96 continues as The Rock, The Cable Guy, Eraser and The Nutty Professor all hit 30. And Ferris Bueller hits 40.