Posted on 08/02/2015 7:27:01 AM PDT by Perdogg
I know that there are a lot of Tom Cruise haters and yes, he is beginning to really show his age, however, if you can put these issues a side I think you would really enjoy this film.
The plot involves a group called "the Syndicate" led by a mysterious man named Solomon Lane and a subplot emerges involving the CIA whose director, played by Alec Baldwin, is trying to shut down the IMF. The cast includes Ving Rhames, Jeremey Renner,Simon Pegg, Sean Harris, and the very beautiful Rebecca Ferguson, Jingchu Zhang and Hermione Corfield.
There are the typical car and motorcycle chases, explosions, and the eventual attraction between Cruise and Ferguson. There is really very little new in this movie, but the scaled back story of this movie actually makes it work. The music from Joe Kraemer is good, though I am not sure why Michael Giacchino was not asked back. There are some creative firearms in this movie that would make "The Day of Jackal" proud.
This is definitely better than the last MI. I would recommend seeing this movie. I guess the summer release was to avoid the "Star Wars" movie.
I saw the ad for that; might be pretty good...
The rule of thumb is the youngest woman a man can date is 1/2 your age plus 7. So (1/2 X 53) + 7 = 33. She will be 32 in October.
Starts off well: the assignment message is a nice trick.
Hope Pegg has a good part, his character (he only has one LOL!) appeals to me.
Lots of fun. That motorcycle chase made me a bit queasy, though, lol.
I just got this thing about scrawny, short men. More scrawny. ewww. (shudder!) That and then that he gets all these roles where he’s some powerful, dangerous man. It just makes me laugh.
Has it been reviewed by AARP?
Understand. He’s today’s Alan Ladd size wise I guess.
MI2 was definitely the low point in the series. I attribute that to John Woo (the director) more than anyone else. His style might be good for a Hong-Kong type action film, but was just out of place in an MI movie.
If you liked the first MI and action films in general, I recommend giving the rest of series a try.
Heh heh, I thought you meant the British intel agency when I saw MI5!
It wasn’t until I googled the movie that I realized you were talking of Mission Impossible!
Ed
Ok, ok, so I stuck my foot in my mouth. I loved Alan Ladd. ha!
Also, don’t forget Audie Murphy....he was a giant in a small-framed body. At 5’5” he was 2 inches shorter than Cruz, but towered above them all.
This by no means should be taken I actually ‘like’ Tom Cruz. His politics and whole mindset sucks, frankly. But there have been some good movies he’s starred in.
You’re right, good movies. But the difference between Audie Murphy and Tom Cruise is that Audie was actually a brave hero. Most were, back in those days. Tommy boy is just a scrawny little faker.
Enjoyed the whole movie.
Not a big fan of extended action and fight scenes but there was enough wit and intelligence to satisfy me.
?!?
Nice screen name. Great book and movie.
I thought it was the best action/spy movie in the last 10 years, since Casino Royale. Definitely better than all the previous Mission: Impossibles. It had a really retro style to it without a lot of crazy camera angles, fast editing, extreme violence or characters acting all cool and stone-faced. Cruise and the others poked fun at themselves, much like the Indiana Jones series did. The use of exotic locations and focus on drawn-out sequences of suspense was reminiscent of Hitchcock classics like North by Northwest. The stunts are also apparently done for real in most cases by the real actors themselves, most notably Cruise hanging off the side of the airplane at the beginning. This was done in the classic Bond tradition of cooking up great stunt sequences and writing a movie around them, but the writing didn’t take any shortcuts.
It was written for an adult, intelligence audience. They gave you all the information you needed to understand the plot but they didn’t repeat it fifty times for dumbed-down members of the audience. They went through the key details there pretty quick so you get rewarded for paying attention. The characters themselves are written as extremely intelligent, so it becomes difficult to predict how they are going to double-cross and outsmart each other, making it very interesting to watch. It never feels like the movie’s cheating or taking shortcuts. Everything that happens stays true to its own logic and they’re careful to cover up potential plot holes with lines of dialogue that explain why things have to happen the way they do. The story is smart enough to make the most key action scenes more complex than simply ending when one character out-shoots and out-punches the other one.
The actors did an exceptionally good job. Even Alec Baldwin works in the movie because he plays a basically unlikable character who is stubbornly difficult to reason with. Cruise is intense where appropriate and gets in the kind of lighthearted comedic moments like Harrison Ford used to do in Indiana Jones. Simon Pegg is effective as the everyman sidekick character who provides comic relief without being over-the-top about it. The villain gives an understated, quieter, colder performance without any distracting flamboyance. And Rebecca Ferguson is a luminous discovery, a classical European beauty with a confident intensity in her eyes that makes her believable as a super-spy.
Every Mission: Impossible sequel has changed directors from the previous one and also cast a different female lead. The studio appears to recognize what they had with this one and are breaking that tradition by bringing back both the same director and female lead for the next movie in the series.
Truth be told, Rebecca Ferguson was the real reason I watched the White Queen. :)
Why was I pinged to this?
Granted I was just a teen when the first one came out 6000 years ago, but it completely confused me with those masks. I haven’t seen any of the sequels.
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