August 2, 2018

Mission Impossible: Fallout

In my mind Baldwin is playing Jack Ryan.
Another satisfying action thriller. Twisty plot, world-class stunts, great spectacle, and tremendous location shooting (Paris, London, Kashmir).

There were one too many moving plot pieces to keep track of, but it's easy to lie back let the river rush over you.

So many modern movies shoot in inexpensive locations that they look like "generic Europe" or "generic America" or "generic woods" so it's a real treat to watch an action movie that's set in Paris and London that really looks like Paris and London. The only other franchise with the budget to do this anymore is the James Bond movies.

I always want to see something new in the movies; the scene where Ethan Hunt, escaping French police, rides his motorcycle around the Arc de Triomphe roundabout...against the flow of traffic (clockwise)...and then passes the police he's evading going the proper direction? I got a good laugh out of that. I also appreciate a chase where the vehicles show the wear and tear of the chase- Hunt manages to keep a safe distance when racing on the motorcycle, but when he switches to a middle-aged BMW sedan, he can't go fast enough to evade anyone. Adam was frustrated that the French cops seemed to know where to find Hunt at all times - eventually he found himself in a circle with French cops approaching from 5 of the 6 possible directions? I like to see movies where the police pursuit is not totally incompetent, but this level of coordination was impressive.

Later in London, Ethan Hunt chases Henry Cavill on foot across town in a sequence almost parodying the patented Tom Cruise Run. Hunt keeps sprinting and sprinting and sprinting - believing any human can go full-tilt for so long is the true impossible mission.

Henry Cavill is a great foil as Walker, a brute-force CIA spook dead set against Ethan Hunt. Just like in Terminator 2, when the two different physical types of Robert Patrick and Arnold Schwarzenegger made for a good dynamic in the fight scenes, Cavill's physicality is impressive and adds contrast to Cruise.

In the previous film, Alec Baldwin played the head of the CIA as Jack Ryan But Not Quite As Quick To Catch Up: "It would be possible to make his character as clever as Ethan Hunt, but always two steps behind. As it is, I was disappointed watching his character slowly connect the dots." In Fallout, he's now on Hunt's side, and by the way he looks great: whatever diet and exercise regimen Hilaria has put him on is working (perhaps he wants to live long enough to see his babies graduate from high school), and his all-natural silver fox hair cut is very flattering. They give him a few good lines and nice clever moment near the end.

Simon Pegg is the star of two of my favorite movies, so it saddens me to see him squandered in his hapless role in these films. In Rogue Nation Rebecca Ferguson was impressive as an almost co-lead, and she has a lot of agency and great moments in this movie...until she's the only agent to be captured, bound to a chair and gagged by the bad guy. Yes, she manages to rescue herself, but that moment of male domination felt regrettable and sexist.

I am a fan of the MI movies and I don't get why they don't have the cachet of the James Bond or Star Trek franchises. The six installments over the last 22 years have been consistently good, maybe better, on average, than the seven Bond movie that came out during the same timeframe.

I enjoyed Rogue Nation very much (nearly) three years ago. Fallout follows the consequences of the previous installment pretty closely, but I did not connect the dots that the imprisoned terrorist with the manky beard in Fallout is the same guy as the villain from Rogue Nation, but the movie is perfectly enjoyable without connecting those dots.

My Stub Hubby grade: A-minus (for overcomplicated plot, and maybe 10 minutes too exciting)

Somerville Theater Screen 5 with Adam and some NECCO wafers

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