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Mission Impossible : Fall out
Let me catch my breathe before explaining the plot summary. A rogue group of international terrorists decide to release a nuclear bomb that wipes out some of the most densely populated countries in the world. The mission is to stop them while bringing the culprits to justice.An old enemy rises in the process.
A funny thing happened in January this year. I was made aware that Tom Cruise broke his ankle while doing stunts. Then I was told that its during shooting of mission impossible movie. Then it donned on me "ooh this is a marketing strategy". As release date approached sure enough the promotion revved up about the movie and the main selling point is Tom Cruise doing his stunts in fights , helicopters and jumps. Not one mention about the plot or acting. Of course no one comes to these movies for plots. But my point behind bringing all this stuff up is to highlight a new kind of marketing strategy for movies. You see, mission impossible is not a superhero franchise. Tom cruise is not as attractive or as much of a box office draw as he once was. Once upon a time even when he puts out movies like few good men or last samurai type ambitious movies, people would flock to the movies. Now he needs to rely on international audience who are loyal for most part. But even then, a movie with close to 200 million budget needs to rely partially on domestic audience.
One of the few kinds of movies that make money apart from franchise movies are prestige ambitious epics. There is no specific genre to them. They can be action movies or thriller or historical epics. But these kind of movies once in a few years or sometimes in the same year make between 300-600 million dollars.Examples are the Martian , the Revenant, Wolf of Wall Street, gravity,great Gastby, Dunkirk etc. The sales pitch for those movies often involves some kind of track record. If you like the movies from this actor or this genre or this director then come check this movie out. This is very hard to build or even next to impossible. Because you need at least 3 or 4 films under your belt that audience like and then you can use this sales pitch.A director who is in the process of achieving that status is Denis Villeneuve.With this movie's sales pitch more so that before it became obvious that tom cruise is pitching this movie more as an intense adrenaline filled theatrical experience as opposed to a fun action movie. Basically he is pitching this movie as a Nolan-Esque cerebral movies like Interstellar or inception with spy aspect played up. Because the film makers are too smart to realize that inception had dreams , interstellar has space travel and this movie should have spy aspect high lighted to distinguish itself. One disadvantage this movie have is that it can never be the ambitious never-before-seen experience most of the above movies were . We have seen even in the same franchise these kind of stunts. But Tom Cruise is trying to let audience know that he is giving what they are expecting from a tom cruise movie by leaps and bounds.
Coming back to the movie. The stunts in the movie are exceptional as usual. But most importantly the close ranges in which the camera was placed during action scenes highlights the craft and skill it took to pull those off. The Halo jump was shot up close because when the real actor is doing the stunt then why not make sure audience knows its him and sees it. Same with helicopter scenes. The movie had action set pieces at 3 main locations. One in France which has halo jump and building jumps ans street chases. The other two are in a snowy mountains and in a men's bathroom. The fights are bare knuckle and the stunts are realistic. One of the interesting aspects of the movie is its use of suspension of disbelief. Thats long been a staple in this franchise. People already have their guards down when it comes to mission impossible movies in terms of suspension of disbelief. One of which is "Tom Cruise never gets hurt no matter the fall or accident". In this movie at the end they address that to certain extent. But in almost all action scenes in the movie there is certain artificiality in the set up of those scenes. In a weird way it feels like the filmmakers started working on this movie with action set pieces and then came up with the script to connect those set pieces. They decided they needed a dark knight-esque action scene in the streets of Paris as opposed to Chicago in the dark knight and a helicopter chase in the snowy mountains. The women are all so ******* beautiful even a female cop who has a brief moment with tom cruise and not to be weird but she looks like a cop from a porn movie.So, there is certain amount of artificiality to all of this. It does play with multiple layered identity reveals and mask usage and all that.That is the third best aspect of the movie after set pieces. But the main twist falls flat and can be seen miles ahead.
The most impressive aspect of the movie that is very unique to this franchise is its cinematic representation of the "impossible". You see, in the spy genre that is mostly dominated by this and bond franchise there are some commonly used tropes namely seduction of women/beautiful women , exotic locations and lead character staying cool. They changed it up a little bit with Daniel Craig in bond franchise to give emotional depth. But his facial features , eye color and hair color sort of made his character hard to connect for audience. But Tom Cruise is a star for reason. His dark hair and looks make him attractive universally. So audience can empathize with his characters. From 4th movie in this franchise I started seeing scenes where Tom Cruise is relentless in getting some McGuffin and he acts like a guy who is just as confused and unsure of himself as the audience member but still tries his best to get it. Dialogues like "I don't know how to do it but I will figure it out" are indication of the vulnerable side of the spy that only Tom Cruise can bring out. There is a scene in this movie towards the end where the relentlessness of tom cruise's character in pursuit of something despite hurting himself and barely outdoing his opponent is the essence of this franchise. Tom cruise can sell the vulnerable side of bond more honestly than Daniel Craig.On another note the links with some characters from previous movies are brought up in this movie and the emotional weight of those scenes is missing. They tried to make this mission much more than it is by tying it up with other things from other movies and those elements felt out of place, But I was impressed with the movies decision to doubling down on the confusing plot of this franchise. Even the from first the movie with exception of 2 this franchise has been criticized for having over convoluted plots but I think its the decision of tom cruise to keep it as a signature element of this franchise despite criticism. Its almost like a heightened version of spy genre with double agents and stuff. The team members exist to brag about Tom cruise's character and are basically a representatives of audience in the movie.
So I would recommend this movie for set pieces and action and most importantly instant gratification of spy elements. You just have to enjoy a scene for what it is and then forget about it because next scene will be something similar. You can't try and connect the last scene with this scene and then the whole movie because its not meant for that kind of viewing. Thats breaks the logic of the movie. As much as I wanna say this is a dumb inconsequential action movie, this movie does have some very unique and awesome scenes and scenarios. It does suffer a little from action overload. There is just a little too much of action for me.
Let me catch my breathe before explaining the plot summary. A rogue group of international terrorists decide to release a nuclear bomb that wipes out some of the most densely populated countries in the world. The mission is to stop them while bringing the culprits to justice.An old enemy rises in the process.
A funny thing happened in January this year. I was made aware that Tom Cruise broke his ankle while doing stunts. Then I was told that its during shooting of mission impossible movie. Then it donned on me "ooh this is a marketing strategy". As release date approached sure enough the promotion revved up about the movie and the main selling point is Tom Cruise doing his stunts in fights , helicopters and jumps. Not one mention about the plot or acting. Of course no one comes to these movies for plots. But my point behind bringing all this stuff up is to highlight a new kind of marketing strategy for movies. You see, mission impossible is not a superhero franchise. Tom cruise is not as attractive or as much of a box office draw as he once was. Once upon a time even when he puts out movies like few good men or last samurai type ambitious movies, people would flock to the movies. Now he needs to rely on international audience who are loyal for most part. But even then, a movie with close to 200 million budget needs to rely partially on domestic audience.
One of the few kinds of movies that make money apart from franchise movies are prestige ambitious epics. There is no specific genre to them. They can be action movies or thriller or historical epics. But these kind of movies once in a few years or sometimes in the same year make between 300-600 million dollars.Examples are the Martian , the Revenant, Wolf of Wall Street, gravity,great Gastby, Dunkirk etc. The sales pitch for those movies often involves some kind of track record. If you like the movies from this actor or this genre or this director then come check this movie out. This is very hard to build or even next to impossible. Because you need at least 3 or 4 films under your belt that audience like and then you can use this sales pitch.A director who is in the process of achieving that status is Denis Villeneuve.With this movie's sales pitch more so that before it became obvious that tom cruise is pitching this movie more as an intense adrenaline filled theatrical experience as opposed to a fun action movie. Basically he is pitching this movie as a Nolan-Esque cerebral movies like Interstellar or inception with spy aspect played up. Because the film makers are too smart to realize that inception had dreams , interstellar has space travel and this movie should have spy aspect high lighted to distinguish itself. One disadvantage this movie have is that it can never be the ambitious never-before-seen experience most of the above movies were . We have seen even in the same franchise these kind of stunts. But Tom Cruise is trying to let audience know that he is giving what they are expecting from a tom cruise movie by leaps and bounds.
Coming back to the movie. The stunts in the movie are exceptional as usual. But most importantly the close ranges in which the camera was placed during action scenes highlights the craft and skill it took to pull those off. The Halo jump was shot up close because when the real actor is doing the stunt then why not make sure audience knows its him and sees it. Same with helicopter scenes. The movie had action set pieces at 3 main locations. One in France which has halo jump and building jumps ans street chases. The other two are in a snowy mountains and in a men's bathroom. The fights are bare knuckle and the stunts are realistic. One of the interesting aspects of the movie is its use of suspension of disbelief. Thats long been a staple in this franchise. People already have their guards down when it comes to mission impossible movies in terms of suspension of disbelief. One of which is "Tom Cruise never gets hurt no matter the fall or accident". In this movie at the end they address that to certain extent. But in almost all action scenes in the movie there is certain artificiality in the set up of those scenes. In a weird way it feels like the filmmakers started working on this movie with action set pieces and then came up with the script to connect those set pieces. They decided they needed a dark knight-esque action scene in the streets of Paris as opposed to Chicago in the dark knight and a helicopter chase in the snowy mountains. The women are all so ******* beautiful even a female cop who has a brief moment with tom cruise and not to be weird but she looks like a cop from a porn movie.So, there is certain amount of artificiality to all of this. It does play with multiple layered identity reveals and mask usage and all that.That is the third best aspect of the movie after set pieces. But the main twist falls flat and can be seen miles ahead.
The most impressive aspect of the movie that is very unique to this franchise is its cinematic representation of the "impossible". You see, in the spy genre that is mostly dominated by this and bond franchise there are some commonly used tropes namely seduction of women/beautiful women , exotic locations and lead character staying cool. They changed it up a little bit with Daniel Craig in bond franchise to give emotional depth. But his facial features , eye color and hair color sort of made his character hard to connect for audience. But Tom Cruise is a star for reason. His dark hair and looks make him attractive universally. So audience can empathize with his characters. From 4th movie in this franchise I started seeing scenes where Tom Cruise is relentless in getting some McGuffin and he acts like a guy who is just as confused and unsure of himself as the audience member but still tries his best to get it. Dialogues like "I don't know how to do it but I will figure it out" are indication of the vulnerable side of the spy that only Tom Cruise can bring out. There is a scene in this movie towards the end where the relentlessness of tom cruise's character in pursuit of something despite hurting himself and barely outdoing his opponent is the essence of this franchise. Tom cruise can sell the vulnerable side of bond more honestly than Daniel Craig.On another note the links with some characters from previous movies are brought up in this movie and the emotional weight of those scenes is missing. They tried to make this mission much more than it is by tying it up with other things from other movies and those elements felt out of place, But I was impressed with the movies decision to doubling down on the confusing plot of this franchise. Even the from first the movie with exception of 2 this franchise has been criticized for having over convoluted plots but I think its the decision of tom cruise to keep it as a signature element of this franchise despite criticism. Its almost like a heightened version of spy genre with double agents and stuff. The team members exist to brag about Tom cruise's character and are basically a representatives of audience in the movie.
So I would recommend this movie for set pieces and action and most importantly instant gratification of spy elements. You just have to enjoy a scene for what it is and then forget about it because next scene will be something similar. You can't try and connect the last scene with this scene and then the whole movie because its not meant for that kind of viewing. Thats breaks the logic of the movie. As much as I wanna say this is a dumb inconsequential action movie, this movie does have some very unique and awesome scenes and scenarios. It does suffer a little from action overload. There is just a little too much of action for me.