Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Mission Impossible – Fallout is the sixth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise and my personal favorite. It’s a great blend of action and story, though the villain is kinda recycled, it doesn’t seem lazy, and a new villain is also introduced though, the twist wasn’t very surprising and pretty expected. This film feels very fresh and new, the action scenes weren’t boring at all and were easy to follow, not too much shaky cam or anything like that. Tom cruise, of course, returns to the franchise as Ethan Hunt and though he is getting old, he doesn’t disappoint with action. Henry Cavill plays the part of August Walker, and he has a great American accent as well as a great mustache. Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg return again but don’t make much of an impact on the film as many people would’ve hoped, though they are pretty much just there for humor. The humor in the film isn’t as present as other Mission: Impossible films but when there is humor, it fits very well and doesn’t feel awkward. My biggest critic of the film was that the CGI was pretty obvious at some parts, but that was only for small action parts, whenever a wide angle is shown, or a close up, perspective, whatever, it looks good. The shots of the inside of a tumbling helicopter were great, pretty much everything about the helicopter scene was great. Just like the fifth film in the franchise, this movie is surprising, and in an understandable way, like Ethan Hunt is one of the top MIF agents in the world, it makes sense that he would do something no one would have thought of but himself. This film is fantastic.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Many franchises get worse as sequels are added, but I’m very excited to see what the next Mission: Impossible has in store. Tom Cruise, the American Bruce Lee, returns again as Ethan Hunt.  Tom Cruise may be getting old but he’s just as capable at doing stunts as ever, he proves this in the movie’s first scene, even before the title card reassures which movie you’re watching, Tom Cruise is hanging of the side of an airplane as it takes off, to reassure which movie you’re watching for you. It would be hard to follow the action of the fourth film but the fifth manages just fine, and even exceeds the action. With every Mission: Impossible movie, there is unbelievable luck with characters but with this installment, it feels more realistic,  as far as realistic goes with these movies, but it doesn’t take all of the fun away. There was one scene though that was extremely lucky for the main characters in which their car got into a terrible accident and they walked away with minor injuries. This movie has many smart actions by the characters that no one was expecting, and a lot of this film is actions that weren’t expected and it never gets dull, repeatative, or predictable, which can be very hard with a series like this, just when you think everything has been done, Ethan Hunt pulls another trick from up his sleeve. The problem with these movies are the villains, they want something bad to happen but then Ethan Hunt comes in and saves the day, which can be annoying for some but I’m fine with it, as long as each movie introduces cool new characters, or gadgets, or whatever. This movie is good.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

This is the fourth movie of the Mission: Impossible series and it definitely doesn’t disappoint, some people even go as far as to say it’s the best of them all so far, which I would understand. This movie goes from the serious, dark matter of the third movie, right back to the all-fun style of the others. Though, Tom Cruise is getting pretty old, he doesn’t hold back on the stunts in this film, he literally climbs the real Burj Khalifa from very high up. The filming crew actually had to remove 20 something windows just to shoot this scene, yet, in the movie, only two of the windows are used. also the movie introduces cool new abilities that Ethan Hunt has, as well as cleverly using old ones. The Dubai setting is used very well and doesn’t just seem like another location, this setting feels like the things that happen there only happen there and nowhere else. In this film, the stakes were the highest of all the Mission: Impossible films so far, all of human civilization is at risk, which obviously makes the film pretty tense, the cold war was revived and the two sides are actually doing something. Unlike the other films, Ving Rhames doesn’t make an appearance as Luther until  the very end when all of the main characters have a nice get together, which is a bit cheesy. With all of these films there definitely are parts which seem pretty impossible, but I guess it has the name Mission: Impossible for a reason., but this one had more sense to it, not as much dumb luck as previous installments. This movie is great.

Mission: Impossible III

The third installment into the Mission: Impossible movie franchise is this 2006 action packed, interesting, and most importantly, entertaining movie. J.J. Abrams directed this one and it’s not hard to tell, there are a ton of lens flares that can be distracting but don’t take too much away from the movie. This is the first Mission: Impossible movie that delves into Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) personal life, and it does it in a way that it doesn’t feel forced or  like it only did that to be different from the others. The villain, Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is actually one that intimidates the audience and his way of getting information from Ethan about his personal life is done cleverly. It really feels like there is a relationship between Ethan and his wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) and you don’t want anything bad to happen to that relationship, you are genuinely concerned for it. As with the first film, there is an unpredictability of what’s going to happen and what the end result of the movie will be. As with the first two films, there is a lot of unbelievable luck, but of course, that is to be expected with these type of movies. This feature was a lot darker than the other ones, both cinematographic-wise and plot-wise, but it didn’t take away the feeling of these feelings as being just a fun movie. Ving Rhames returns as Luther, but, other than him and Ethan, there aren’t many returning characters, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Many of the new characters are performed well and provide something meaningful to the plot. This film is good.

Mission: Impossible II

Mission: Impossible II, is from the year 2000 and it definitely shows. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, Thandie Newton is Nyah, and Dougray Scott is Sean Ambrose, just to name a few good performances in this film. Hans Zimmer does a pretty good job with music but, other than his music, the tunes are just very dull and repeatative and sometimes annoying. Scenes are so incredibly in the style of the nineties that today some of it is almost unbearable. The action and spy scenes were good but pretty much everything outside of that was poorly executed and just went on for too long. After just a small dialogue scene, the viewer is begging for something to happen. The characters sometimes made stupid decisions but they became important plot points which in return, made the viewer feel clever for noticing their mistakes. There is a scene that does this well and sets it up by making the most important part of a sentence interrupted and said by another character. Many of the action scenes were extremely over dramatized showing five different shots of the same stunt simultaneously.  It’s only really in the second half of the movie  that it starts picking up, and of course, it wouldn’t be a Mission: Impossible movie if it didn’t allow the main characters to have tremendous luck. This movie isn’t much of a comedy but it does have quite a few good lines that would make you at least smile. Also the relationship between Ethan and Nyah is developed well enough to see a connection between them. This movie is alright.

Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible is the first movie of a big series of movies based off of the T.V. show of the same name from the 1960s to 70s and the movie keeps the unforgettable theme of the show reinvented by Danny Elfman. The movie is about a secret agent named Ethan Hunt played by Tom Cruise, whose IMF (Impossible Mission Force) squad has just been wiped out and he wants to know who did it and why they did it. It’s quite like a heist movie but instead of stealing for their own personal gain, it’s for the better of everyone. A lot of the film is pretty cool and makes you feel pretty cool just for watching it all happen. It’s also awesome that Tom Cruise performs all of his own stunts to provide a realism to it quite like The Dark Knight using a very minimal amount of CGI. The movie did have a lot of scenes that were genuinely tense and stressed the viewer with not knowing what the result of many actions scenes would be. There was a scene in particular, with a helicopter and a train, and the CGI just looked terrible as well as the big light on the helicopter trailing behind the train. In that scene Ethan has some incredible, unrealistic luck that sort of takes you out of the movie. The movie makes up for that scene with the scene of Ethan infiltrating the headquarters of the CIA assisted by Luther (Ving Rhames), Krieger (Jean Reno) and Claire (Emmanuelle BĂ©art). This scene makes the movie feel really like a classic heist movie in which you root for the “bad guys”, it’s also very tense and the result of the scene isn’t ever obvious. This film isn’t my favorite action movie but it would be understandable if it was someone else’s. This movie is good.