A Saturday Movie Marathon in California

I took advantage of my day off from my supermarket duties to watch not one, but two, current summer movies at a theater near my place in El Sobrante.

Good thing the price of admission in the morning is just close to six dollars so you save money and get to watch two good movies whose reviews have been nothing short of amazing.

Let's now review the two movies I watched:

Mission Impossible Fallout is the sixth film in the franchise starring Tom Cruise as IMF agent Ethan Hunt -- a character created specifically for the movies and was not existent in the original TV series that came out in the 60s starring the late Peter Graves.

In this installment, agent Hunt and his two partners (Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames) are sent by the CIA to stop the sale of plutonium which, in the wrong hands, can be used for nuclear weapons that can destroy the world. Two women in Hunt's life (Rebecca Ferguson and Michelle Monaghan) aid him in his mission although it's clear that our hero is trying to balance his personal life with his duty to save the world.

Hunt is initially aided in his mission by a CIA agent August Walker (Superman's Henry Cavill), who, judging by his mustache, would eventually turn out to be the bad guy as he is helping an old enemy of Hunt, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) in using the plutonium to create the nuclear bombs. This leads to a climactic helicopter battle in the mountains of New Zealand which stand in for the Pakistani border in Kashmir.

The film's highlight is Cruise's dangerous stunt in a building in France where he injured his ankle and you can still see him running even though he is in pain. The film's director did the right thing in keeping this in the final cut.

Noticeably absent in this film is Jeremy Renner who plays one of Cruise's fellow agents. Renner begged off from doing this movie because of his commitments to Marvel's Avengers where he plays the hero Hawkeye. Renner will surely be back if there is another MI sequel.

Also in the next sequel, expect Angela Bassett to play a bigger role compared to this current movie. Bassett has played strong characters like the mother of Black Panther and singer Tina Turner and has been one of the more underrated African-American character actresses in the US.

You will surely like this movie if you are a fan of action films. And Tom Cruise has proven himself to be bankable in the Mission Impossible series even at the age of 56. The fact that he does his own stunts makes this a believable action movie. I give it a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5.

If you are a kid at heart, then Christopher Robin is the movie for you. Produced by Walt Disney, this film stars Ewan McGregor as the titular character, a grown up version of the boy in the Winnie the Pooh animated movies. In this one, Robin works as a salesman for luggage in London whose company is facing closure so he has to work even on weekends to help create ideas to save his employees. As a result, his family life gets compromised with his wife (Agent Carter's Hayley Atwell) and daughter (Bronte Carmichael) forced to live without him in the countryside for the weekend.

Robin's life changes when he gets to meet his old friends Winnie the Pooh and his fellow animals who in this movie look like life-sized teddy bears. Jim Cummings leads the voice cast as Pooh and you can see that the voices don't change over time thanks to their incredible voices.

Eventually, Robin realizes that being with friends and family is perhaps the best thing to look back on when one gets pressured and stressed because of work. This is the lesson all of us can learn from watching this movie which is quite short at an hour and 47 minutes but the pacing is so fast that you can't help but laugh when the animals get involved in a lot of funny stunts especially during the climax on the streets of London.

McGregor gives a fine performance as Christopher Robin and he's even funnier than what he did in Beauty and the Beast (another Disney movie that I truly enjoyed) where he sang Be Our Guest as Lumiere. Hayley Atwell's role as the wife fits perfectly with the London setting and you can't help but see a little bit of Agent Peggy Carter in the way she looks and dresses because her Marvel character is set during the 40s just like in Christopher Robin. And watch out for Bronte Carmichael who can be a potential child actress who will go very far in Hollywood.

Disney's live action movies have done well at the box office and this early, I'm excited for Dumbo, Lion King, Aladdin and Mulan -- all of which will come out in the next two years. Dumbo will have a totally different story as seen through the eyes of the humans who will take care of that lovable elephant (Colin Farrell and Danny de Vito) and save him from an exploitative circus owner (Michael Keaton in another kontrabida role like what he did in Spiderman).

Aladdin and Lion King will tell the same story as in the animated movies although the former will add some new characters. Will Smith plays the genie while Naomi Scott (Power Rangers) will try to fill in the big shoes of Lea Salonga in the song numbers. Lion King features animals in CGI that will be voiced by Donald Glover and Beyonce who will help Sir Elton John in writing some new songs in the soundtrack.

As for Mulan, Chinese actress Liu Yifei will play the character but whether she will sing a la Lea Salonga still remains to be seen.

Going back to Christopher Robin, go see this with your kids who may not know who Winnie the Pooh is. I also give it a 4.5 rating.