Mission: Impossible Fallout (15.)
Directed By Christopher McQuarrie.
Starring Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, Alec Baldwin, Wes Bentley. 147 mins.
Mission Imp 6 is very silly, but grudgingly so. It knows it's at a party and it's trying to join in but it can't really bring itself to let its hair down. Cruise is saving the world jumping, shooting, diving and driving around Paris, St Paul's Cathedral and over the Blackfriar's Bridge; saving it from the evil schemes of an international anarchist collective; a quaintly 19th century choice of baddie, mixing in a touch of Joseph Conrad to what is basically a Roger Moore era Bond film.
Cruise is 56 now, and has been throwing himself into these films for over twenty years now. At his age Moore was nearing the end of his time as Bond, making Octopussy, which had to laugh it up because its leading man was too old to be taken seriously as an action hero. That's not the case with Cruise, who is still doing his own stunts and stilted running, but, just like a Moore Bond, his film is just a series of action sequences in major international landmarks loosely strung together. At one point the villain slips into the Tate Modern through a secret side entrance and takes a lift to the top of the tower to be picked up by a passing helicopter. But everything is shot with a grim intensity, the camera fizzing in at low altitude over tarmac to meet the action. The plot is a series of reversals and ta-dahs that are really just linked absurdities but the film acts like there's meaning to it. It all seems to feel like it was Bourne for better things.
This is the first Mission Imp film to be a direct sequel to the previous one. Before each one had looked to put as much distance as possible between it and its predecessor, less a movie franchise but a series of reboots, or a series of farts that they were seeking to avoid the blame for. This doesn't just pick up the story threads and characters from Rogue Nation but is also rounding up loose ends from the previous instalments, or at least since the 3rd one. Michelle Monaghan reappears as his wife from the J.J Abrams third film but the emotional baggage is a drag on these films. Let us have fun, but don't ask us to care.
Fallout's biggest plus is correcting a failing of previous M:I films: it remembers to leave the best bit to last. Because it's the end I can't say too much about it but the finale is spectacular, mostly because it was shot on Imax camera, which means you will have to shell out that bit extra to see it on the big screen because it really looks remarkable projected on the biggest Imax screen. The real Imax shots, when it takes over all the screen and makes it seem like you are looking in through a window at the action, really delivers the “immersive” cinema experience 3D was supposed to offer. The crisp, lifelike sharpness of the image does rather show up how average much of what precedes it was.
The action movie has always been about replacing chaos with order, consolidating all the world's ills into a single figure or organisation that was behind it all, hidden in a secret lair, that could then be defeated by a single force for good. At the end, it is not uncommon for the hero to be indulged with a little celebration. There are hints that this could be Cruise's last mission, and the film has the same air as Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, a final round-up for the old gang. And the films are worthy of celebration but at the end, there is a little eulogy for all Ethan Hunt has done to keep the world safe, a solemn thanksgiving, and you ask yourself, "he does know this isn't real, doesn't he?"
Directed By Christopher McQuarrie.
Starring Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, Alec Baldwin, Wes Bentley. 147 mins.
Mission Imp 6 is very silly, but grudgingly so. It knows it's at a party and it's trying to join in but it can't really bring itself to let its hair down. Cruise is saving the world jumping, shooting, diving and driving around Paris, St Paul's Cathedral and over the Blackfriar's Bridge; saving it from the evil schemes of an international anarchist collective; a quaintly 19th century choice of baddie, mixing in a touch of Joseph Conrad to what is basically a Roger Moore era Bond film.
Cruise is 56 now, and has been throwing himself into these films for over twenty years now. At his age Moore was nearing the end of his time as Bond, making Octopussy, which had to laugh it up because its leading man was too old to be taken seriously as an action hero. That's not the case with Cruise, who is still doing his own stunts and stilted running, but, just like a Moore Bond, his film is just a series of action sequences in major international landmarks loosely strung together. At one point the villain slips into the Tate Modern through a secret side entrance and takes a lift to the top of the tower to be picked up by a passing helicopter. But everything is shot with a grim intensity, the camera fizzing in at low altitude over tarmac to meet the action. The plot is a series of reversals and ta-dahs that are really just linked absurdities but the film acts like there's meaning to it. It all seems to feel like it was Bourne for better things.
This is the first Mission Imp film to be a direct sequel to the previous one. Before each one had looked to put as much distance as possible between it and its predecessor, less a movie franchise but a series of reboots, or a series of farts that they were seeking to avoid the blame for. This doesn't just pick up the story threads and characters from Rogue Nation but is also rounding up loose ends from the previous instalments, or at least since the 3rd one. Michelle Monaghan reappears as his wife from the J.J Abrams third film but the emotional baggage is a drag on these films. Let us have fun, but don't ask us to care.
Fallout's biggest plus is correcting a failing of previous M:I films: it remembers to leave the best bit to last. Because it's the end I can't say too much about it but the finale is spectacular, mostly because it was shot on Imax camera, which means you will have to shell out that bit extra to see it on the big screen because it really looks remarkable projected on the biggest Imax screen. The real Imax shots, when it takes over all the screen and makes it seem like you are looking in through a window at the action, really delivers the “immersive” cinema experience 3D was supposed to offer. The crisp, lifelike sharpness of the image does rather show up how average much of what precedes it was.
The action movie has always been about replacing chaos with order, consolidating all the world's ills into a single figure or organisation that was behind it all, hidden in a secret lair, that could then be defeated by a single force for good. At the end, it is not uncommon for the hero to be indulged with a little celebration. There are hints that this could be Cruise's last mission, and the film has the same air as Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, a final round-up for the old gang. And the films are worthy of celebration but at the end, there is a little eulogy for all Ethan Hunt has done to keep the world safe, a solemn thanksgiving, and you ask yourself, "he does know this isn't real, doesn't he?"
