Film Reviews: August 9, 2015

Here us a recap of the films reviewed on today's show:

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is a competent action picture and it makes for a fun two hours. It isn’t as good as the best installments of the series and an awful lot from the earlier movies is repeated here. For the next adventure, Tom Cruise and company should challenge themselves to come up with a newer and fresher Mission: Impossible concept.

The dramatic content of Southpaw is much more impressive than the boxing. The actors are very good, especially Jake Gyllenhaal, but the movie suffers from a lot of basic storytelling mistakes.

The Vacation remake is not very funny and it pales in comparison to the original film. The cast is quite good and they could have been marshalled into a better movie but the film wastes them on a bland and uninspired script.

Within the filmography of Adam Sandler Pixels is a competent movie and it recalls some of his earlier family-friendly successes like Click. But the movie has been made in such a way that it short circuits its appeal and Pixels suffers from some of the predictable flaws of virtually every Happy Madison production.

Atari: Game Over is a fun look at the history of a groundbreaking company and an examination of the allure of nostalgia. It is a lightweight movie but it’s very satisfying.

You can find full text of every review in the Sounds of Cinema Review Archive.