Pun Salad

I took in my first summer blockbuster in an uncrowded theater with multiple leaks in its roof. Fortunately there were only a few quiet scenes in the movie where you could hear the drips into the dozen-odd buckets placed around the auditorium.

This is a big dumb fun movie, with a lot of PG-13 loud action. Especially memorable is a rush hour from hell crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Some guy named Tom Cruise is the main hero here, and he's OK. Philip Seymour Hoffman is appropriately menacing as the bad guy. Simon Pegg, fondly remembered from Shaun of the Dead has a small role as an implausibly omniscient computer geek, similar to Chloe from 24.

The writer/director here is J. J. Abrams, also in line to write and direct the next Star Trek movie, so there are hopeful indications that it might not totally suck, although there's no indication that it will be remotely cerebral.