Tag: Jens Hulten

I have to type it out at least once, so here I go.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared (whew) is a movie actually recommended to me sometime last summer. Except it was a foreign flick and I had no way of watching it. But it has a lot of acclaim over in Sweden, and I like Sweden so I hoped I would like it too.

Hell, it is Sweden’s third highest grossing film of all time. Right after The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. I have no idea how much money The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest made, but I assume they all hated it as much as I did and it wasn’t actually third before this.

Seemingly out of nowhere though, this movie was nominated for an Academy award. No, not for foreign film, and not for cinematography. It was nominated for Best Makeup! It is competing against Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant. Technically I shouldn’t be surprised because those two films were nominated for everything, I just expected a bit more diversity.

Oh well, let’s see what this very specific movie title is about!

Look! There he goes! Disappearing out of a window! Now you know!

Allan Karlsson (Robert Gustafsson) is old. He is about to turn 100, and thus, our man with the plan. Well, plan isn’t true either. His plan is to get away.

You see, Allan is cooked up in a nursing home, because he was found unsafe to be living by himself after he used dynamite to blow up his chicken coop to get a fox. So he jumps out of his window and goes to a nearby bus station, with only a bit of loose change.

However, some angry skin head (Simon Säppenen) comes in and tells Allan to hold on to his bag while he hits the toilet, because the suitcase won’t fit in the room. Just as he does, the bus arrives to take Allan to the middle of nowhere. So Allan takes the suitcase with him.

And what happens is a brief adventure, where Allan runs into a very diverse group of people, some violence, and of course man hunt to find him from the local authorities and a biker gang. At the same time, we learn about what Allan did throughout his long life in a series of anecdotes. Anecdotes!

Also starring David Wiberg, Iwar Wiklander, Jens Hultén, and Mia Skäringer.

What a ragtag group of so-and-sos.

Let me save time. Did you like Forrest Gump? This is the Swedish Forrest Gump. Sure, he isn’t mentally slow, he just lacks a lot of formal schooling. But he goes around the world, joins the military, and becomes a big player in a lot of events over the last 100 years. He meets Stalin! He helps with the Manhattan project! And more!

The good news is that the stories of his past are only 35-40% of the film. The rest is of him being 100 and doing his little adventure thing. The cast of characters are diverse, the situations are funny, and I didn’t know how it will end.

It was nominated for best make up because our main actor, Gustafsson, is not actually 100 years old, but they made him look super old for the film. He is only 50 ish, and plays Allan through all parts of his life outside of being a little kid. So it is pretty good. I just wish, again, the category was a bit more diverse. The other two films will win enough awards. So I hope this one pulls off the upset.

A pretty good movie, probably a really good book. And hey, Sweden everyone. Sweden.

There isn’t much new to say about the Mission: Impossible series that I didn’t already say in my Ghost Protocol review weeks ago. I watched the other four movies in the series, some were good, some were bad. More importantly, the last one was good, so the series is on an upswing and I can be excited!

Tom Cruise puts out exciting movies. He can be a bit crazy, but by damn does the man know how to entertain an audience.

Part of me secretly hopes that this time, in Rogue Nation, the mission actually ends up being impossible and they lose. That would be a nice plot twist and a fantastic way to end the franchise. A bit of a downer, but man, what IDGAF attitude they would have!

Your mission should you choose to accept it: Die in the movie and NOT return for a sequel.

Remember the Syndicate? Of course you don’t! They were mentioned at the end of the last movie but vaguely and that they were bad people. Turns out they are very, very bad people. So bad that Ethan Hunt (Cruise) got captured by them relatively early on in the movie, with innocent people being killed. He doesn’t know a lot about them, they are a very secret organization, led by some guy (Sean Harris) that he of course knows next to nothing about.

All he knows is that he only is able to escape thanks to the help of a woman (Rebecca Ferguson). But just like previous films, due to all of the chaos of events going around the IMF, they officially get disbanded. The head of the CIA (Alec Baldwin) has brought all usable resources into his division, including Benji (Simon Pegg) and Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Luther (Ving Rhames) figured he’d rather retire than work for the CIA.

And now Ethan is on his own, being hunted by the CIA and the Syndicate, the latter of which no organization actually believes exists. A typical Tuesday for him I’d imagine.

Also featuring Jens Hultén as henchman who speaks and Saif Al-Warith as henchman who doesn’t speak, but has a nice beard.

If you look closely, you will notice reversed gender roles!

M:I 5, if I can call it that, was an action movie done right. We don’t have lamely on a mission killing an entire island worth of henchmen, or people running around just yelling shitty puns. No, the action scenes in this film have depth. It helps that a lot of the stunts are done by Cruise himself, which just adds to his action star credibility. The plane scene is the famous stunt scene, which is funny in context of the film based on how little it matters. The underwater scene was one of the best scenes, as well as the motorcycle/car chase.

For the plot, it has the normal twists and turns that the franchise tends to offer, but I think it falls apart a bit near the end. Things get almost too convoluted. Thankfully it doesn’t completely ruin the film which spends the rest of the time before it building up your good graces with cool scene after cool scene.

Ferguson plays the best Mission: Impossible lady star of the five films. She is a kick ass, bad ass woman, who has her own motives for doing everything. She isn’t just a lame plot device for Hunt, like a Bond girl.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is definitely one of the best action movies of the year at this point, and probably one of the better non Superhero action movies from the last few years. Go and see and be entertained.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.