...You get in your hover car and drive to the cinema...
...You arrive and pay by blinking at a holographic attendant, due to the custom made 'Apple Pay' chip installed in your brain...
...After which you buy some sugar-free, salt-free, carbohydrate-free popcorn and settle into watch...
...Mission Impossible XII: (Generic Badass Sounding Subtitle)!
The film consists of launching a 67 year old Tom Cruise, strapped to a nuclear missile, into space, from where he proceeds to do a space walk in just his underwear, cheered on by a wheelchair-bound Simon Pegg offering either overly sarcastic or confused comments along the way!
Ok...
...This may not be MI:RN, but this is most likely where the MI series is heading if MI:RN is anything to go by!
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching it! I like the MI series, I've seen them all more than once, and probably will do so again!
However I think this film, has taught me the true meaning of what it is to like a bad film!
But let's start with the positives first! The positives being the ACTION! And there is a fair amount for an adrenaline-junkie to digest! The crowning pieces being the film's 'cold-open' which sees Cruise clinging to the outside of a flying plane, it is a sequence that is ultimately suited to even a Bond film opening, and has the appropriate level of humour to match! There is also a very beautifully shot sequence in the Vienna Opera House, that for the first time in 3 and a half MI films, I have genuinely felt tension for the characters and the outcome of the situation!
Yet, comrades, there are negatives! The plot is virtually non-existent, the acting is wooden, and the 'Big Bad' is so bland and boring that I've genuinely forgotten anything about him since I saw it a few days ago! And this all stems from the problem that the MI series has turned a corner with this film (and the last outing too), in which the action sequences have become more important than the plot. The character interaction and surrounding plot simply acts as a vehicle to ferry Cruise from one explosion to the next! And thus the films have lost any of the thrill, suspense and tension that made the first film such a brilliant, stand-out classic, and which the James Bond offerings have been dolling out reasonably well over the last 10 years. Ultimately the blame lies at Cruise's door, as due to his fading box office stardom (just look at the lack of success for some of his latest offerings, e.g. Oblivion, or the Edge of Tomorrow), his fate has become inextricably tied to the MI series, on which due to his stunt-prowess and producer status has become a means for him to showcase his considerable action-sequence talents, but not a lot else.
Ultimately, if you've seen all the MI series, you will probably watch this film, however if you don't, you aren't missing anything being added to the overall Ethan Hunt back-story, and to be honest, if you've never seen a MI film and you happen to stumble into a cinema screening with this on, you won't find it to hard to pick up an understanding of what is going on!
Sorry Tom, but thanks for helping me to understand what it means to genuinely like a bad film!
Rating: Chocolate Popcorn
NB. Note to self, when this film comes out on DVD, it would make for use in an excellent drinking game!
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