aka THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING TOM CRUISE. like Nietzsche playing Gears of War. a surprisingly blunt (heh) exploration of eternal recurrence by combat. dug it most as it threatened to become an unapologetic allegory for marriage, but if the movie is a video game – and it really, really is so far as the mechanics are concerned – then it's one with all the cheat codes turned on. ruins the fun during the final boss. Doug Liman's best film by... i can't even measure how far.

Tom Cruise is obviously terrific, the enduring screen icon confronting the divide between his mortality and the eternity for which he'll remain alive in the movies (interesting to consider how he got to this film, having not died on screen once over the course of 22 years after TAPS, and since COLLATERAL seemingly obsessed with the particulars of his own expiration).

i think there's something to how the mimics look like flailing neurons, but their ultimate effect is... less than ideal.