Mission: Impossible Film Series Thread

[Dolfan in NYC]

Going back through the thread I'll point out, for scientific purposes only, this is empirically the sexiest thing any man has ever done in any movie, ever:

--

Anyway, we're 54 reviews in, and Dead Reckoning  is currently sitting at 100%(!) on RT.  

(EDIT - 98% at 86 reviews)

 

 

[Craig H]

If I had three wishes, one of them would be to look like Henry Cavill, or Brad Pitt, but also have the build and looks to pull off cocking both of my arms like a shotgun.

Also feel like noting that my daughter thought that fight scene was really cool and was pretty happy to see Ilsa at the end of it.

[J.T.]

Cavill re-loading his fists for R2 with Fake John Lark is indeed one of the most badass things I've ever seen in a movie fight.

He totally improvised the whole thing.  At the end of the take, Cavill apologized profusely to Christopher McQuarrie for taking liberties with the choreography until the Editing Team went batshit over it and said it should be kept in the film. 

To this day, Henry says it was one of the most unprofessional thing he's ever done on set.  I have no idea why he has regrets and feels embarrassed.   People wish they had such iconic moments or bursts of inspiration on set  It sold the trailer for fuck's sake..

Edited July 6, 2023 by J.T.

[AxB]

Was Roman Reigns doing the "Loading my fist like a shotgun" thing before or after Henry Cavill's fist reload?

[The Natural]

2 minutes ago, AxB said:

Was Roman Reigns doing the "Loading my fist like a shotgun" thing before or after Henry Cavill's fist reload?

Before, I'm sure.

[Craig H]

Dead Reckoning fucking RULED. For it being the longest movie in the series, it flew by. It flew by like Endgame flew by. All of a sudden the realization hit me that, holy shit, we're probably in the ending stretch of this thing, I can't believe the movie went by that fast. I'm seeing it again next week and looking forward to it.

It's easily the funniest entry, it definitely has the best stunts, and I'd probably put Esai Morales' Gabriel on par with Solomon Lane. Great score as usual and great cinematography. 

And while there is a cliffhanger, it's a really, really, really soft cliffhanger. It's not like the end of some cliffhangers where you're wondering "WILL OUR HEROES LIVE?!?"

There's also no end credits scene. They've never done that before and they're not starting now. Part of me hoped that at the end of the credits we would get a teaser trailer for Dead Reckoning Part 2, but that would be so hard to keep secret for the movie. I can only think of one trailer that somehow was only in theaters and never made it to YouTube until weeks later and that was Happy Death Day 2 U of all movies.

[Craig H]

Oh, and a kinda spoiler for Dead Reckoning Part 2, and this is a casting spoiler (it's also a super, super, super MINOR spoiler, not even a big deal)

Spoiler

I was tickled to find out today that the guy that played William Donloe in the first movie would be reprising his role in part 2.

Oh, and MOTHERFUCKIN' NICK OFFERMAN is in part 2. Fuck yeah!

 

[J.T.]

Dead Reckoning Part One was kinda awesome.  Definitely on board for Part Two.

Spoiler

A somewhat implausible but genuinely intriguing plot.  This generation really does need their Skynet / Colossus / HAL 9000 / Ultron cautionary tale about the perils of unshackled AI.

It is also sad that you can clearly see the torch hand offs to the future IMF agents.

As much as I agree philosophically with Kittrage's cruel calculus, I hope someone shoots that mother fucker in the head.  Preferably Ethan Hunt.

Edited July 17, 2023 by J.T.

[EVA]

I, too, have started a rewatch of the MI movies. I watched 3 last night, and I gotta say…This is probably not only the most overrated MI movie but probably the worst.

Much like 2, 3 is just an action movie with light spy trappings, but Abrams doesn’t have an ounce of Woo’s style, so the action is just the sort of shaky cam, quick cut nightmare that was dominating cinemas in the mid-00’s. Like a lot of filmmakers, Abrams apparently watched BOURNE once and thought he could be Paul Greengrass. But, worse yet, he shot everything with a TV director’s eye, so everything feels small, crammed into a box. Tom Cruise running and jumping on film has never looked less cinematic.

And without great action…there isn’t a lot else for this film to hang it’s hat on. Sure, PSH is great, but he’s in like 10 minutes of the movie, and Owen Davian is one of the most generic bad guys ever committed to a script page. Truly a testament to PSH’s acting that anyone remembers that character at all. Also, his most iconic scene (the en media res opening—again, the whole thing is so TV) is totally undermined as schmuck bait when the film finally gets back around to it.

I really like Michelle Monaghan as an actor, but giving Ethan a dull wife was another anti-cinematic, TV choice that never felt right to me but felt even worse right after watching 2, in which Thandie Newton is an absolute fireball and the only woman to ever actually have romantic chemistry with Cruise in these films.

Also! Maggie Q and JRD probably rank only above the Aussie copter pilot from 2 as the most forgettable IMF team members.

Edited July 17, 2023 by EVA

[The Natural]

Dipshit here only realised the other day Ving Rhames played Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction (1994).

[Craig H]

I'm going to disagree on 3. 3 is basically your standard action movie as, yes, there isn't a whole lot of spy shit in it or M:I types of twists beyond Musgrave trying to make it look like Brassel was behind everything, but I still thought that action was pretty fucking good. As for how it was shot, Abrams was coming off of Alias at a time where fans of the series wanted an Alias movie. M:I was basically the Alias movie down to casting Simon Pegg in a role that was represented by Marshall in Alias.

M:I 3 gives you a lot. It gave us Simon Pegg who has been a staple of these movies since, I love the ongoing backstory between Ethan and Julia that starts in M:I and basically concludes in Fallout. I never thought Ethan and Julia were supposed to be a steamy onscreen couple, but rather a vehicle to give Ethan a very normal life and a regular person that he was in love with. It's what would happen if Superman decided to just be Clark Kent. Ultimately, he's going to get pulled back into being Superman again because it's just who he is. 3 is where I really thought we get the absolutely insane Ethan Hunt, more so than 1. Davian is great whenever he's on screen and is a better villain that the one from 2 that I can't even remember and the one from Ghost Protocol, that was just some old dad dude kicking the shit out of Ethan in a one on one fight.

3 isn't perfect, but I think it's way, way better than 2, which is pretty much unwatchable. It's fucking terrible. One of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever seen. I suppose it's good to watch if you're in the mood to watch something that's so bizarrely over the top when it comes to how it was filmed and edited.

The one thing from 3 that is really funny to me, but Ethan Hunt picks something like 5 or 6 different locks in the movie. My daughter watched it only the one time and when Ethan picks the lock on his handcuffs while he's inside M:I headquarters, my daughter goes, "wow, he's really good at picking locks" in a sarcastic way. I kinda thought, yeah, you're right, he does just pick a bunch of locks. Like he's a Fallout or Skyrim character and you put all of your points into abilities that made you great at picking locks.

-----------------------

Regarding Dead Reckoning Part 1, I think the only thing that sort of bugs me about it is that...

Spoiler

The plot with the Entity feels way too similar to the plot from Westworld with Rehoboam. In fact, "too similar" is being kind. The Entity is pretty much note for note the same thing as Rehoboam. The only difference is that Rehoboam is allowed to act on its own to save humanity by basically turning everyone on the planet into Hosts and in M:I, the Entity gains some kind of sentience and starts functioning on it's own, but governments and terrorists in the case of Gabriel want to solely control the Entity. I also don't believe it's ever explain just how Gabriel became so connected to the Entity. You get a glimpse of the machine he rests in that's probably feeding him the most important outcomes to influence on that day. So if you already have that kind of power, what's the point of getting the key?

Gabriel loses the key at the end of Dead Reckoning, but it seems like he's still in control of the AI or at least he's the one being fed data from it and no one else is. So what did he actually lose? If the key was the way to destroying the Entity then you'd think that in an act of self-preservation, it would try to keep the keys separate or just destroy them. Like it would have told Gabriel to just destroy or toss the key the moment he got it so no one could ever get to whatever is still active on the Sevastopol.

I might be overthinking it, but I'm seeing the movie again on Wednesday so that will allow me to catch anything I missed or overlooked.

Other than that quibble, it's still up there with Fallout for my favorite in the series. If it weren't for the shitty Jack Reacher movie, I'd say that the Cruise/McQ pairing was one of the best actor/director pairings in history. It's at least the best current example of a Manning/Dungy pairing. Leo/Scorsese is more like Brady/Belichick.

[AxB]

The thing about Mission Impossible films is, you've got Tom Cruise, who wants to do all of his own stunts and defy death for real on camera (or possibly die on camera, who can say). He climbs really high things with no safety harness! He rides motorbikes through oncoming traffic with no helmet! He clings on the side of an Aeroplane while it takes off!

And in Mission Impossible 3, JJ Abrams has him jump over a hole.

[EVA]

21 minutes ago, AxB said:

The thing about Mission Impossible films is, you've got Tom Cruise, who wants to do all of his own stunts and defy death for real on camera (or possibly die on camera, who can say). He climbs really high things with no safety harness! He rides motorbikes through oncoming traffic with no helmet! He clings on the side of an Aeroplane while it takes off!

And in Mission Impossible 3, JJ Abrams has him jump over a hole.

And shot from an angle that makes the image completely flat! Not an ounce of awe is inspired.

[Craig H]

I'm not saying you guys are wrong.

That's all I got.

[TheVileOne]

On 7/17/2023 at 4:17 AM, J.T. said:

Dead Reckoning Part One was kinda awesome.  Definitely on board for Part Two.

  Hide contents

A somewhat implausible but genuinely intriguing plot.  This generation really does need their Skynet / Colossus / HAL 9000 / Ultron cautionary tale about the perils of unshackled AI.

It is also sad that you can clearly see the torch hand offs to the future IMF agents.

As much as I agree philosophically with Kittrage's cruel calculus, I hope someone shoots that mother fucker in the head.  Preferably Ethan Hunt.

Spoiler

Kittridge is a curmudgeon and a scumbag, but he's not as big of a scumbag as Denlinger who basically created the predicament of the film.  

EDIT:

I personally didn't care for the AI angle. Topical and relevant? Yes, most definitely. However, it just didn't feel like a Mission: Impossible plot to me and felt more in the realm of sci-fi.

Secondly, the AI material was poorly established, and it felt derivative of both Terminator and Person of Interest. Morales seemed interesting, but they were clearly holding a lot back for Part 2. 

I enjoyed the movie a lot more on the second viewing. It's a great-looking movie. IMHO tremendously shot. Great action and stunts. Lorne Balfe's music is great. I think it could've been tightened up a lot more. It basically has like four prologues before the opening credits, and that's a lot. I kind of appreciate the DePalma film a lot more now, which is only 110 minutes or so. I think it's aged the best out of any of the films.

Edited July 18, 2023 by TheVileOne

[EVA]

Yeah, the DePalma film really knocked me out on rewatch.

One thing I had totally forgotten was that the first film established that the person Ethan was impersonating had to sorta look and sound like him, so Cruise got to have a lot of fun wearing prosthetics and doing silly voices. I liked how that setup the swerve at the end with the Phelps mask, but they stayed true to Ethan not being able to talk without giving it away.

I honestly prefer those rules over how the mask stuff evolved over the course of the series.

Edited July 18, 2023 by EVA

[Craig H]

They introduced the voice changing tape over the neck thing in 2. So 2 establishes that, Ethan as an expert climber, and an expert motorcycle rider.