Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023)

[SeanC]

Quote

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Esai Morales, Rob Delaney, Charles Parnell, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss, and Cary Elwes.

With the first two Christopher MacQuarrie-directed installments being two of the best action films of the 2010s, here's two more for you, as we maybe possibly look to wind down the Tom Cruise stunt show because even he can't keep this going indefinitely (but he can still ride a motorcycle off a cliff). In a classic sign of potential franchise wrap-up, they brought back the bureaucrat antagonist from the first movie.

[AimingforYoko]

Say what you will about the scientologist, he knows what he does well and does the hell out of it.

[Irlandesa]

I saw this trailer when it leaked this weekend and just watched it again.  That last shot gives me chills every time.

1 hour ago, AimingforYoko said:

Say what you will about the scientologist, he knows what he does well and does the hell out of it.

Yep.  It's insane to do his own stunts but there's nothing like the thrills it provides.

[cambridgeguy]

Why do I get the feeling Cruise picks the stunts he wants and the rest of the movie is written around them? 

[Shannon L.]

6 hours ago, AimingforYoko said:

Say what you will about the scientologist, he knows what he does well and does the hell out of it.

That's one reason I like a lot of his movies. The man really commits to a role.

[Irlandesa]

1 hour ago, cambridgeguy said:

Why do I get the feeling Cruise picks the stunts he wants and the rest of the movie is written around them? 

Ha.  It sounds like the movies are pure improvisation/written as they go.  There's an article about the filming of 7 where it was decided they'd do a submarine sequence midway through filming.

[SeanC]

5 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

Why do I get the feeling Cruise picks the stunts he wants and the rest of the movie is written around them? 

Because they do, actually. MacQuarrie has said in the past that they design the setpieces first because Cruise needs a lot more time to prepare for them than normal pre-production would allow for.

[AimingforYoko]

15 hours ago, SeanC said:

Because they do, actually. MacQuarrie has said in the past that they design the setpieces first because Cruise needs a lot more time to prepare for them than normal pre-production would allow for.

Nobody wants to be on the crew that killed Tom Cruise. 

[blackwing]

I knew it was a longshot, considering that his character presumably died in the last movie, but I was hoping they could find a way to bring back Henry Cavill.  I wouldn't even care if he came back as the "good twin"... I thought he was great in the last one.

[AimingforYoko]

New trailer:

 

[oliviabenson]

Saw it today! WoW definitely worth watching it. 

[Shannon L.]

I've enjoyed all of the Mission Impossible movies, except the second one, and as I said above, I really like Tom Cruise as an actor, but I didn't really care for this one.  It was too much.  It plot was convoluted, there was nothing exciting about the bad guys (the main bad guy was interesting, but still verged on a bit ridiculous) and by the time the twists started coming, even though I didn't predict them, they still didn't surprise me.  Some of the chases went on too long and I'm getting tired of fights on top of trains and the now obligatory dark club with people dancing to an electronic beat.

The good:  It was beautifully shot and the team added the humor, as always, when they were together.  I really love his team.  The fall from the jump was a amazing, but the beginning of it should have been left out of the promos altogether.  It would have been much more exciting if we hadn't already seen it 100 times.  The train going over was a really good, intense, scene as well.  I'll see part 2 because I have to see how it ends, but overall, it was just ok for me.  Ghost Protocol remains my favorite.

[oliviabenson]

Is the next one the last one in the franchise?

And spoiler: 

Spoiler

Ilsa dying was so sad! 

 

[baldryanr]

Marvel and DC could probably learn a few lessons from the MI movies.  Ethan Hunt is basically a superhero and Cruise plays it safe with the formula.  Sometimes fans just want comfort food, and watching Cruise pull off another ludicrous stunt while running around punching baddies, employing super spy tech, etc. fits the bill perfectly.  The supporting cast are fun while also being easily swapped out (except Luther, since he has too much history) if necessary.

 

[Lebanna]

Although I really liked Ilsa’s character in the previous movies, I started laughing so much when she pulled out that bloody great sword.
 

She had no way of knowing that her opponent exclusively fought with knives now and she was an excellent hand to hand fighter and sniper, so of course she brought a sword just so she could get killed as the actress is doing Dune now. 
 

Also, it was obvious Ilsa was dying once Ethan started saying in the club scene that he cared just as much about Grace as he did about Ilsa, even though he had met Grace, a rather similar character, about 24 hours before (if that). Nice one.

Anyway, I wanted to be sad but it was just so stupid.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Lebanna

[metaphor]

I found it poorly written. Rebecca Ferguson may be too busy to continue to appear in the franchise, but the way they wrote her out left much to be desired. It read like fridging, with the character dying to motivate Ethan after having such a minimal presence in the film. I found it so disturbing after the care put into developing Ilsa over the past two movies. It certainly affected my ability to enjoy the rest of the film for what it was. 

[BooBear]

7 hours ago, metaphor said:

I found it poorly written. Rebecca Ferguson may be too busy to continue to appear in the franchise, but the way they wrote her out left much to be desired. It read like fridging, with the character dying to motivate Ethan after having such a minimal presence in the film. I found it so disturbing after the care put into developing Ilsa over the past two movies. It certainly affected my ability to enjoy the rest of the film for what it was. 

Me too. I am sorry to say this one is a turd. I  just don't buy that Ilsa would be so easily disposed. It was laughable after several movies and even an early fake out of her death. 

There is so much that didn't make sense and made the movie too long. Such as...What was with that elaborate ruse so Ethan could talk to Kittridge at the start?  Why did the AI seem to want to fridge someone to hurt Ethan? That isn't like a computer to want to be vindictive. Not understanding why Gabriel would care either - they didn't build up enough to sell a long standing feud.  To go as far as to have an entire scene where the spell out that one of the damsels in distress would die because they meant something to Ethan (and why did Grace mean anything to Ethan at that point)?

And I am sorry but Esai Morales was just completely boring and not up to taking on Ethan, backed by an AI or not.  Also, Benji and Luthor seemed to get sidelined early on. 

I did enjoy Grace and Haley Atewell and the action scenes were great. But the actual script needed more refining. 

[SeanC]

9 minutes ago, BooBear said:

Such as...What was with that elaborate ruse so Ethan could talk to Kittridge at the start?

As Ethan said, he wanted to investigate what Kittridge and the rest of the intelligence bosses were talking about with respect to the key, as at that point he knew very little about what was going on.

9 minutes ago, BooBear said:

Why did the AI seem to want to fridge someone to hurt Ethan? That isn't like a computer to want to be vindictive.

Also explained (speculated, but it's logical enough) by Luther: the Entity wants to make sure that if Ethan defeats Gabriel, he will kill him, which will prevent Gabriel from potentially disclosing any of the secrets that he knows.

[BooBear]

54 minutes ago, SeanC said:

As Ethan said, he wanted to investigate what Kittridge and the rest of the intelligence bosses were talking about with respect to the key, as at that point he knew very little about what was going on.

Also explained (speculated, but it's logical enough) by Luther: the Entity wants to make sure that if Ethan defeats Gabriel, he will kill him, which will prevent Gabriel from potentially disclosing any of the secrets that he knows.

I must have missed all that but I still think it was completely lame. A case of dropping a line to explain an elaborate set piece. 

[krankydoodle]

This is one of my favorite movie series and I was even more excited after the glowing reviews started coming out, but I was disappointed. I don't understand what they were doing with Ilsa. Everything involving her seemed underdeveloped: she barely had any lines, I didn't buy that Grace seemed better able to hold off Gabriel, and the team's reaction to her death was strangely muted--even considering the threat they were facing. If working around Rebecca Ferguson's schedule was the issue, surely they could've come up with a better way to explain her limited presence. I enjoyed Hayley Atwell, but the way it feels like they just swapped her in has kind of soured me on her character.

I started to get worried about the movie during that government office scene at the beginning with the clunky exposition dump. And I'm usually able to shrug off issues with the plot because the other elements are so much fun, but there were a lot of things that bugged me in this one.

But whatever, I'll still see part 2. And there was some great stuff here like the sequence with the yellow Fiat in Rome, the return of Kittridge, and Shea Whigham doggedly tracking Ethan only to lose him every time.

[ursula]

I feel like they faked her death and we'll see her back in part 2. 

[krankydoodle]

I've heard people speculating about that and I don't think it would improve the movie much for me. If anything, I might be more annoyed if that's the way they go. I'll see part 2 regardless and hope it works better for me.

[oliviabenson]

Is the next movie the last one in the franchise?

[Chyromaniac]

3 hours ago, oliviabenson said:

Is the next movie the last one in the franchise?

I think that’s been the assumption- generally you only get the big two-parter story at the end of a franchise.  But, I also feel like I’ve seen Cruise say recently that he wants to keep going.  Maybe he just meant action movies in general?  I suppose we’ll have a better idea after Part 2.

12 hours ago, ursula said:

I feel like they faked her death and we'll see her back in part 2. 

Personally, they probably could have gotten away with that if they hadn’t already done it in this movie - having her come back after this would feel like a cop out.  Tbh, for me it pretty well gave away later on in the film that she would be the one to die.  Beyond that, I believe we see her open vacant eyes, which is as close to explicitly dead as movies get.

Otherwise, I do agree with the poster that said it felt like a waste of Ilsa as a character.  Overall I enjoyed the movie, but it is a bit long (especially knowing there’s a Part 2 coming), and I think one way they could have streamlined things would’ve been to simply leave her out.  I don’t think it adds much to the film for Gabriel to kill another woman Ethan cares about - and it feels a bit cheap that the guys basically just slot Grace into Ilsa’s place in the group.  “Whelp, I guess you’re our lady spy now…”  And, if she’s not around to get killed off here, perhaps Ilsa Faust could’ve been a character who they could have built some spin-offs around.  Oh well…

But as I mentioned before, this was a good film in general.  I think they did a great job in both setting up the next film, but also telling a complete story here too.  I think it helps that this franchise is only in movies- lots of times with book adaptations, when they split the last one in half, it feels like they just pick a dramatic moment somewhere in the middle to stop, whether it’s an actual ending point or not.  Here, the train sequence felt like the climax of everything Ethan was going through in this movie, and that Part 2 will take us on a different journey.

Finally, just wanted to say that the car chase in Rome was excellent- as someone who’s driven in Italy, it felt very authentic… And, the train sequence overall just blew away the one from Indy 5.  It’s amazing the difference it makes to have something like that in daylight, and not trying to obscure de-agin effects.

[supposebly]

8 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

“Whelp, I guess you’re our lady spy now…”

Isn't that what these movies do? For most of them, spies got replaced without much comment.

I have to admit, they are a guilty pleasure for me. Guilty for all kinds of reasons. I haven't seen it yet and won't go to the theater for it but eventually, I will watch it. They are the only action movies I enjoy. I'm so sick of all the CG and superhero franchises. 

[Lebanna]

1 hour ago, supposebly said:

Isn't that what these movies do? For most of them, spies got replaced without much comment.

Weirdly, considering how clear they made it in MI:1 the extent to which they were prepared to take a massive shit on the original series, this is actually accurate to what the series did. 

‘Oh, we’ve got a new eccentric mask maker/muscle man/woman spy this episode/season.’ And then just carry on as if nothing had changed at all.

It was kind of explained in that sometimes at the start after the mission tape would fizzle out, you saw Jim picking out the crew with laminated photos for each mission and sometimes he’d pick out someone else instead of who you expected, and that was it.

[BooBear]

19 hours ago, Lebanna said:

It was kind of explained in that sometimes at the start after the mission tape would fizzle out, you saw Jim picking out the crew with laminated photos for each mission and sometimes he’d pick out someone else instead of who you expected, and that was it.

I had thought that MI took a lot of flack for this disposable woman / damsel early on and the movies worked to change that... with Ilsa. This is what helped MI to go from a franchise on the way out - to a solid performer.  

So to have this kind of disposable woman (for Ethan's feelings)  all over again is very disappointing.  Beyond that it is just laughable that Grace, who has no spy / IMF training can just step in. Sure she might have good instincts but she would have to be trained - right? I mean Ilsa is MI6. 

I also feel like if they didn't want Ilsa around she easily could have been left out of the movie. Like Jeremy Renner's character.  

[tv echo]

Box Office: ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Falls Short of Expectations With $56 Million Debut, Collects $80 Million Over Five Days
By Rebecca Rubin    July 16, 2023
https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/mission-impossible-7-box-office-opening-weekend-falls-short-1235671300/ 

Quote

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” topped domestic box office charts while falling short of initial expectations. Tom Cruise’s latest blockbuster collected $56.2 million between Friday and Sunday, a lackluster start for a movie that cost nearly $300 million before marketing.

Heading into the weekend, Paramount and Skydance’s action-adventure was hoping to establish a new franchise record with $60 million or more. Instead, ticket sales landed behind 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” ($61 million) and 2000’s “Mission: Impossible II” ($57.8 million), which remain as the top openings in the 27-year-old series.

Comparisons aren’t exact because “Dead Reckoning Part One” opened on Wednesday rather than Friday. The seventh installment has generated an estimated $80 million in its first five days of release, which is more than “Fallout” ($77.5 million) and “Mission: Impossible II” ($78.8 million) earned in their first five days in theaters. With a stellar 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and a glowing “A” CinemaScore, though, “Dead Reckoning” is likely to remain a force at the box office throughout the summer.
*  *  *
“This [domestic] opening is roughly average for an action thriller at this point in its series,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “The foreign markets are where action movies excel and the overseas openings are strong.”

Uncharted 2 Director Calls Out Mission Impossible 7 for Copying Game
By Klein Felt  July 17, 2023
https://thedirect.com/article/uncharted-2-mission-impossible-7-copying-game 

Quote

Straley took to Twitter, posting a few images comparing Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt hanging from the train car seen in the film to Uncharted's Nathan Drake doing the same. The Uncharted co-director accompanied the pictures with the caption, "the sincerest form of flattery" with an assumed wink and a nod. 
*  *  *
This is not the first time the two franchises have been tied up together. Mission Impossible (MI) 5, 6, and 7 director Christopher McQuarrie previously said (via Eurogamer) the Uncharted games were an inspiration for the modern MI films.

While promoting 2015's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, the director cited Uncharted 3 as a primary influence for the plane scene in which Tom Cruise hung from the outside of a jet that opens that film. 
*  *  *
Why not riff on such a sequence? The Uncharted 2 train setpiece became iconic after that game's release in 2009. So, the Mission Impossible 7 team could have done a lot worse when it came to inspiration when they were developing their new film.

Edited July 18, 2023 by tv echo

[Lebanna]

9 hours ago, BooBear said:

I had thought that MI took a lot of flack for this disposable woman / damsel early on and the movies worked to change that... with Ilsa. This is what helped MI to go from a franchise on the way out - to a solid performer.  

So to have this kind of disposable woman (for Ethan's feelings)  all over again is very disappointing.  Beyond that it is just laughable that Grace, who has no spy / IMF training can just step in. Sure she might have good instincts but she would have to be trained - right? I mean Ilsa is MI6. 

I don’t think this was particularly a problem for the show, as I don’t think you could ever argue that the female characters were ever a male character’s main motivation on the team, at least not any more than their other teammates were, nor do I remember any romantic relationships between team members, as was implied (although never really explicitly shown) between Ethan and Ilsa. I know that the actors playing Rollin and Cinnamon were married, but I don’t actually remember the characters being together in the show. 
 

And female team members didn’t tend to die, they just disappeared every few seasons, just like all the guys, except Jim and Barney, did. As team leader, Jim never seemed to have romances with anyone on the team at all. And Cinnamon, at least, stuck around for several years and was supposed to be an independently wealthy fashion model in her spare time.

I kind of hate to think that this film might have been more problematic towards female characters than a show from the 1960s, but…

[dovegrey]

On 7/18/2023 at 8:06 AM, BooBear said:

I had thought that MI took a lot of flack for this disposable woman / damsel early on and the movies worked to change that... with Ilsa. This is what helped MI to go from a franchise on the way out - to a solid performer.  

So to have this kind of disposable woman (for Ethan's feelings)  all over again is very disappointing.  Beyond that it is just laughable that Grace, who has no spy / IMF training can just step in. Sure she might have good instincts but she would have to be trained - right? I mean Ilsa is MI6. 

I also feel like if they didn't want Ilsa around she easily could have been left out of the movie. Like Jeremy Renner's character.  

Agreed. And I just have to vent.

Until Ilsa, it was problematic that two men ended up being permanent, reliable, and unquestioned members of Ethan's team, while every "good guy" woman lead until Ilsa vanished without so much as a mention (except Julia, who at least got Fallout). It was nice that the franchise corrected that. And now Ilsa has been inexplicably disposed of as a character, to make room for a different woman to fill the only "good guy" woman slot the franchise allows. Really? Even in the theater, I really struggled to get past this element as it became more and more obvious what was happening. I'm not even a huge M:I fan, watch each new movie once, and have probably forgotten/conflated what's happened in most of the films, but Ilsa-->Grace was glaringly problematic. Ilsa's only role in this movie was to get fridged. TWICE. 💩 She didn't need to be in the movie.

Although still problematic, it would have made more sense if Gabriel had kidnapped Julia and killed her in front of Ethan or left her for Ethan to find; then I would have bought the whole motivation factor and the "no matter how much you want to, you can't kill Gabriel" struggle. For not being a huge fan, I remember really feeling Ethan's terror in MI:3 and Fallout when it came to protecting Julia as well as his regret that he naively exposed her to his world. Still problematic but at least thematically coherent and consistent with prior films.

But I enjoyed the overall movie and the overall plot, except for Grace intentionally messing everything up and running away constantly (that happened at least two too many times), and I enjoyed most of the stunts. The train derailment scene was really cool. The motorcycle/mountain scene, unfortunately, fell completely flat, because we'd already seen it 100 times in every promo and TV spot. And then they topped it off with Ethan conveniently crashing into the exact right train cabin at the exact right time and hitting the exact right person; that was well-filmed but lazy writing.

[BooBear]

On 7/19/2023 at 2:47 PM, dovegrey said:

Really? Even in the theater, I really struggled to get past this element as it became more and more obvious what was happening. I'm not even a huge M:I fan, watch each new movie once, and have probably forgotten/conflated what's happened in most of the films, but Ilsa-->Grace was glaringly problematic. 

Seems like Box office isn't doing too well. I am not an MI fan but I gave this franchise another shot specifically because Ilsa had done a lot to make me trust that there was something in it for me. I think Ilsa had done a lot to bring women into the franchise. But I think when women saw this plot line they were like, ok done with this.  The creators of this franchise still don't get it. 

In they days since I have found so many problems with this movie it isn't funny.  I don't like their explanation of the IMF and the "choice" - essentially the trope of having criminals join just didn't rub me the right way and was ripped off from La Femme Nikita. 

This is a good video.

 

[supposebly]

People watch this for more than the insane stunts? The scripts and plots and characters have always been, say we say, pedestrian fluff, old-fashioned, and one-dimensional place holders, there to hang off things, fly, fall, joke, serving as decoration around Tom Cruise running and doing his best to eventually die or get injured permanently while jumping off something while making these.

A bit like cartoons but with real people.

I never thought of these of more than devices to move the action forward. Every attempt that possibly could have been interpreted as adding a layer, just elicited an eyeroll or laughter for me.

I like the above posted video but it feels someone is taking them way more seriously than they have any right to be.

Like James Bond movies, I rarely remember what happens. The McGuffin that's the list, the key, the key to the list, the list for the key, the codes for the key or the list, whatever.

I'll probably see it eventually when it streams but I never expect anything else in those. In the end these are very traditional simple action movies with a white male hero who vaguely has the typical characteristics, bending "the rules", protective with women, and always right in the end.

[tv echo]

This movie fell to 4th place with a 64.3% drop from its first weekend...
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/2023W29/?ref_=bo_wey_table_4 

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE RESULTS: BARBIE AND OPPENHEIMER POST HISTORIC NUMBERS
by Erik Childress | July 23, 2023
https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/weekend-box-office-results-barbie-and-oppenheimer-post-historic-numbers/ 

Quote

Last week’s victor, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, fell all the way back to fourth. The Barbenheimer tag team was too much for Reckoning (including the relinquishing of large-format screens to Nolan) as it became the first film in the franchise since John Woo’s second chapter to fall more than 50% in its second weekend. In fact, its 64% drop is by far the highest in the franchise, which we suspected last week, given the historical unicorn implications of this weekend. $19.5 million for Dead Reckoning brings the film to $118.7 million in 12 days, which is third behind the previous film, Fallout, which had $134.9 million in the same stretch, and Woo’s M:I II with $130.7 million. This is also now the lowest second weekend of the franchise, even lower than the original 1996 film ($21.6 million). That could level out a bit more in weekend three, but as it now appears to be looking more at $180-190 million than over $200 million, Paramount may have miscalculated its release strategy and maybe should have pushed its new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie out of the opening August slot and given it to Cruise and Co. Worldwide the film is over $370 million, the ninth highest of the year to date.

Edited July 24, 2023 by tv echo

[RunningMarket]

On 7/19/2023 at 11:47 AM, dovegrey said:

Agreed. And I just have to vent.

Until Ilsa, it was problematic that two men ended up being permanent, reliable, and unquestioned members of Ethan's team, while every "good guy" woman lead until Ilsa vanished without so much as a mention (except Julia, who at least got Fallout). It was nice that the franchise corrected that. And now Ilsa has been inexplicably disposed of as a character, to make room for a different woman to fill the only "good guy" woman slot the franchise allows. Really? Even in the theater, I really struggled to get past this element as it became more and more obvious what was happening. I'm not even a huge M:I fan, watch each new movie once, and have probably forgotten/conflated what's happened in most of the films, but Ilsa-->Grace was glaringly problematic. Ilsa's only role in this movie was to get fridged. TWICE. 💩 She didn't need to be in the movie.

Although still problematic, it would have made more sense if Gabriel had kidnapped Julia and killed her in front of Ethan or left her for Ethan to find; then I would have bought the whole motivation factor and the "no matter how much you want to, you can't kill Gabriel" struggle. For not being a huge fan, I remember really feeling Ethan's terror in MI:3 and Fallout when it came to protecting Julia as well as his regret that he naively exposed her to his world. Still problematic but at least thematically coherent and consistent with prior films.

But I enjoyed the overall movie and the overall plot, except for Grace intentionally messing everything up and running away constantly (that happened at least two too many times), and I enjoyed most of the stunts. The train derailment scene was really cool. The motorcycle/mountain scene, unfortunately, fell completely flat, because we'd already seen it 100 times in every promo and TV spot. And then they topped it off with Ethan conveniently crashing into the exact right train cabin at the exact right time and hitting the exact right person; that was well-filmed but lazy writing.

This was (with some modifications, ex: Julia doesn't die) part of the plot of MI:III.

I didn't love this one nearly as much as I love the others in the franchise. I found Grace annoying, frankly. I agree with @dovegrey on the second bolded point. Why was Ethan so desperate to save a woman who keeps leaving him in peril?

There also is no context to Gabriel and their history with Ethan, minus a random flashback that has never been part of any of the movies.

But the stunts were cool.

[slowpoked]

I saw it and while the stunts were visually impressive, I think Tom Cruise got too indulgent in this movie. Cut maybe 10-15 mins each of the car chase scene and the train scene, and this whole story could have been finished in one movie. 

[millennium]

On 7/22/2023 at 2:39 PM, supposebly said:

People watch this for more than the insane stunts? The scripts and plots and characters have always been, say we say, pedestrian fluff, old-fashioned, and one-dimensional place holders, there to hang off things, fly, fall, joke, serving as decoration around Tom Cruise running and doing his best to eventually die or get injured permanently while jumping off something while making these.

A bit like cartoons but with real people.

I never thought of these of more than devices to move the action forward. Every attempt that possibly could have been interpreted as adding a layer, just elicited an eyeroll or laughter for me.

I like the above posted video but it feels someone is taking them way more seriously than they have any right to be.

Like James Bond movies, I rarely remember what happens. The McGuffin that's the list, the key, the key to the list, the list for the key, the codes for the key or the list, whatever.

I'll probably see it eventually when it streams but I never expect anything else in those. In the end these are very traditional simple action movies with a white male hero who vaguely has the typical characteristics, bending "the rules", protective with women, and always right in the end.

ITA.  I haven't seen the previous movies in the series.   I just felt like seeing a movie that let me forget about things for a few hours.  Heard this one had Tom Cruise and a ton of action, and it wasn't Barbie or Oppenheimer.  Sold.

I thought it was okay.   James Bond if he were an American.  I admire that Cruise isn't letting his age dictate what he can or can't do and that his appetite for life remains undiminished.  I didn't even hate Simon Pegg in this.  Or that the villain is Ultron.

I'll happily see Part Two.

[BetterButter]

 

[paramitch]

I was frustrated and a little confused by the writing choices in this. It's a handsomely produced movie as always and the performances were great. The stunts were of course fantastic.

But oh, man, they really let the characters down! 

One of the things I've enjoyed about the progression of the series -- especially through the last 3 films -- was its increased and consistent focus on the characters and team. We had Ethan actually get a close genuine romance with Julia in MI:3 (who was awesome), and the movie showed how much he still cared for her in Ghost Protocol and Fallout too (knowing the relationship was over) while he also grew closer to Ilsa, who was seriously his female counterpart in so many ways. The end of Fallout was a nice way to show that Julia had finally moved on permanently -- and really heavily implied that Ethan/Ilsa would finally take the leap on a relationship together, and I was all for it.

But the story structure here was just so weird. The first third (after the super-weird "La Femme Nikita" retcon), we get the traditional team stuff, we get poor sweet Benji admitting he loves his friends more than anything else while melting down over the bomb/cypher, and Ethan as always does his best to save Ilsa at the last minute while also navigating Grace being an increasingly tiresome triple-crosser. 

I thought Benji's cypher/questionnaire was going to be the theme/subtext of the entire thing -- that it was a wonderful potential way to get to the hearts of these tough agents and reveal their hearts.

And it kind of did that until the midpoint. In the middle section, the movie doubles down on Ilsa/Ethan, we get the hints of romance and the absolutely lovely sequence in Venice -- then suddenly the Gabriel standoff where Ethan looks all tortured at the idea of choosing between Grace and Ilsa (and later they are put on weirdly equal footing again when Ethan flashes to glimpses of each of them plus the girl from the prologue).

Anyway, then it all goes off the rails. Poor Ilsa gets fridged (and I agree with everyone who found it weird and awkward and not believable) and literally dies for her replacement female (Grace, who GOT HER KILLED). And Ethan and the team barely blink over Ilsa's loss and are instantly indoctrinating Grace into the team for her big mission.

And then there's this instant weird overly intense pseudo-romance energy between Ethan and Grace for the rest of the movie, and I honestly just resented it. It felt forced and disrespectful. I mean, Jesus, Ilsa's body isn't even cold.

For me, the odd thing is, aside from the first movie (ugh), I would say that romance has been very well handled across the series. I always believed Ethan's connections with his romance -- with Thandwe Newton in 2, with Julia in 3, the slight "almost-romance" (both of them grieving) with Paula Patton, and then his connection with Ilsa in Rogue Nation and Fallout (and again, without abandoning his bittersweet feelings for Julia, which I thought was such a nice touch). I've always felt like while the romantic aspect was usually not front and center in the series, it has been nicely handled overall, and there have been some nice moments as Ethan and his friends and flirtations managed the nihilism, shifting loyalties, and tensions of their work.

I think the bummer is, this movie sort of started off pretty heavily implying that Ethan and Ilsa's three-movie slow burn would sort of be a focus or culmination here. We sort of got that -- it was implied that they were an actual item here, and the lovely little moment of intimacy in Venice implied that further. But Ethan's reaction to her death and afterward was such a misfire from Cruise -- I just didn't feel much from Ethan about the moment.

And while I love Hayley Atwell, and she did a great job here overall, especially with a physically demanding role -- I just really did not like Grace. Her entire storyline just consisted of her being kind of an asshole, double-/triple-crossing Ethan over and over again (even when it became increasingly clear that she was hindering him in a "Save the World" situation). And then of course pretty directly resulting in Ilsa's death.

So by the time we got the big train situation -- her reversal was too unbelievable to me. Suddenly she's remorseful and begging for support? Why should they trust her for a single moment? Despite the incredibly cool stunts and action sequences with the train at the end, I didn't feel any tension because I didn't care if Grace died or not (sorry, I know that's cold) -- and I knew that Ethan wouldn't.

This was a big letdown for me. I thought Cruise brought his usual dynamism and energy, the stunts were amazing, and I loved the team at the beginning, but by the halfway point I was kind of over it all.

On 7/13/2023 at 5:50 AM, Lebanna said:

Also, it was obvious Ilsa was dying once Ethan started saying in the club scene that he cared just as much about Grace as he did about Ilsa, even though he had met Grace, a rather similar character, about 24 hours before (if that). Nice one.

Anyway, I wanted to be sad but it was just so stupid.

Bingo. It was so insulting to Ilsa. Especially given that Grace had put HERSELF in this situation over and over again and double-crossed him every single time and actively put his life in danger because nobody mattered to her but herself. Why should Ethan care so much for her? Ugh.

On 7/13/2023 at 6:42 AM, metaphor said:

I found it poorly written. Rebecca Ferguson may be too busy to continue to appear in the franchise, but the way they wrote her out left much to be desired. It read like fridging, with the character dying to motivate Ethan after having such a minimal presence in the film. I found it so disturbing after the care put into developing Ilsa over the past two movies. It certainly affected my ability to enjoy the rest of the film for what it was. 

This is perfectly said, and exactly, exactly how I felt.

On 7/13/2023 at 2:00 PM, BooBear said:

And I am sorry but Esai Morales was just completely boring and not up to taking on Ethan, backed by an AI or not.  Also, Benji and Luthor seemed to get sidelined early on. 

I thought Morales was okay, I just thought his character was a smirky, shallow trope.

And I was so disappointed that after that wonderfully tense, suspenseful early sequence with the whole team working together, and those moments of real fear and emotion from Benji -- and then they were gone for most of the movie!

On 7/18/2023 at 5:06 AM, BooBear said:

So to have this kind of disposable woman (for Ethan's feelings)  all over again is very disappointing.  Beyond that it is just laughable that Grace, who has no spy / IMF training can just step in. Sure she might have good instincts but she would have to be trained - right? I mean Ilsa is MI6. 

I also feel like if they didn't want Ilsa around she easily could have been left out of the movie. Like Jeremy Renner's character.  

This exactly! The instant hiring of Grace -- who is woefully unqualified in every single way -- and who also showed that she is utterly untrustworthy, not a team player, and cannot be depended on -- was laughable to me. And insulting to Ilsa, whether they meant it to read that way or not. It could have been so much better written and finessed, in which Grace proved herself over time (and over the two movies) instead of immediately being brought into the fold here.

On 7/19/2023 at 11:47 AM, dovegrey said:

Until Ilsa, it was problematic that two men ended up being permanent, reliable, and unquestioned members of Ethan's team, while every "good guy" woman lead until Ilsa vanished without so much as a mention (except Julia, who at least got Fallout). It was nice that the franchise corrected that. And now Ilsa has been inexplicably disposed of as a character, to make room for a different woman to fill the only "good guy" woman slot the franchise allows. Really? Even in the theater, I really struggled to get past this element as it became more and more obvious what was happening. I'm not even a huge M:I fan, watch each new movie once, and have probably forgotten/conflated what's happened in most of the films, but Ilsa-->Grace was glaringly problematic. Ilsa's only role in this movie was to get fridged. TWICE. 💩 She didn't need to be in the movie.

Although still problematic, it would have made more sense if Gabriel had kidnapped Julia and killed her in front of Ethan or left her for Ethan to find; then I would have bought the whole motivation factor and the "no matter how much you want to, you can't kill Gabriel" struggle. For not being a huge fan, I remember really feeling Ethan's terror in MI:3 and Fallout when it came to protecting Julia as well as his regret that he naively exposed her to his world. Still problematic but at least thematically coherent and consistent with prior films.

I so agree with you on Julia! And I would add that Julia's appearance in Ghost Protocol as well, also strengthened that sense of continuity and her meaning to Ethan (his "mourning" her for most of the early part of that also contributed to a sense of her importance) and tying MI3 and Fallout nicely. And I agree -- it absolutely should have been Julia Gabriel killed, not some woman Ethan was involved with that we don't know. It's a cheap device and means nothing.

On 7/22/2023 at 6:23 AM, BooBear said:

I don't like their explanation of the IMF and the "choice" - essentially the trope of having criminals join just didn't rub me the right way and was ripped off from La Femme Nikita. 

This was so silly and sloppy to me! Just ridiculous. These are some of the most skilled and preternaturally trained agents on the planet, not wayward crime children assembling under Fagin. And the way Grace was instantly inserted into the team just felt so unbelievable and disrespectful. Much less her 'hiring moment' at the end. 

On 7/22/2023 at 11:39 AM, supposebly said:

People watch this for more than the insane stunts? The scripts and plots and characters have always been, say we say, pedestrian fluff, old-fashioned, and one-dimensional place holders, there to hang off things, fly, fall, joke, serving as decoration around Tom Cruise running and doing his best to eventually die or get injured permanently while jumping off something while making these.

Like James Bond movies, I rarely remember what happens. The McGuffin that's the list, the key, the key to the list, the list for the key, the codes for the key or the list, whatever.

I'll probably see it eventually when it streams but I never expect anything else in those. In the end these are very traditional simple action movies with a white male hero who vaguely has the typical characteristics, bending "the rules", protective with women, and always right in the end.

To each their own, but as a woman, I actually like the MI movies AND the James Bond movies to be great big fun candybar movies that diversify the cast beyond the "white male hero" and that ALSO treat the female characters like actual smart, complex people and not cardboard cutouts who need protecting. Bonus points if the women are badasses.

Especially when both series have already demonstrated that they can do this (i.e., Casino Royale and Skyfall; MI3, Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, Fallout, etc.)

On 7/24/2023 at 10:39 AM, RunningMarket said:

I found Grace annoying, frankly. I agree with @dovegrey on the second bolded point. Why was Ethan so desperate to save a woman who keeps leaving him in peril?

THIS! It drove me bonkers! I kept wondering if scenes had been cut out to explain this because Grace was such a repeatedly self-centered jerk who was also completely willing to kill/endanger Ethan over and over again (even when he had repeatedly saved her), I couldn't figure out why he was so weirdly intense about saving her. 

[Palimelon]

I hated that they killed of Ilsa.

It was nice to finally have a female agent (or even character, Julia aside) show up in more than one movie. And for this franchise, she was well written, a skilled woman was also flawed. I liked the relationship between her and Ethan and how it progressed between Rogue Nation and Fallout, and was actually looking forward to a potential romance between them.

Honestly, if they had to kill someone off, they should have killed off Luther. I like the character, but him being there from the first movie would have given killing off one of the main characters the impact needed for raising the stakes for Ethan while keeping Ilsa alive. I get the actress wasn't available to film as much as they like, but they could at least have had her doing side missions for Ethan that tied into the larger narrative, without having to kill her.

Other than that it was a decent if convoluted movie. My favorites in the series are still the first one, Rogue Nation, and Fallout. I'd put this one in the mid rank, along with part 2 and Ghost Protocol. I hated the third one.

Edited September 15 by Palimelon