In practical terms, that means a hefty slice of what traditionally makes a M:I film fun to watch is now in the rear-view mirror. This still holds up as a stand-alone film (just), but it's a much narrower version of previous installments, like star Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie started believing their marketing and decided that so long as Cruise was in a couple of real-life death traps the rest of the film didn't matter.
So the first hour is mostly muddled recap with some half-hearted gestures towards franchise requirements: there's a torture scene, a mask reveal, and a lot of exposition which can be summed up as "an evil computer program called 'The Entity' wants to take over the world's nukes and kill everyone, some people want to help it, some want to harness it, and Ethan Hunt (Cruise) wants to shut it down".
As always, the way to do that requires a fair amount of globe trotting. What it doesn't involve this time is a whole lot of traditional action. There are a couple of fight scenes, plus a shootout or two - almost the only joke in the entire film comes in early, when an especially brutal fight is shown solely in the horrified expressions of Grace (Haley Atwell) and some nasty sound effects. But again, the big action beats (remember the car chase through Rome in the previous film?) are a thing of the past.
Pretty much everyone from the previous film returns (it's a part 2 after all), with evil assassin Gabriel (Esai Morales) now wanting to control The Entity, previously evil assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff) now helping the good guys, computer genius Luther (Ving Rhames) now confined to a sick bed and spare computer genius Benji (Simon Pegg) now looking pretty worn down. Possibly because there's multiple leaden speeches here about the power of choice and saving those we'll never meet and so on, like this was a series about teaching serious life lessons and not people constantly pulling off rubber masks.
Angela Bassett is back too, only now she's the President and gets some surprisingly tense scenes as it becomes increasingly clear that the only options left are either she nukes everyone else or The Entity nukes everyone. It's also a reminder that this is a franchise where a large amount of the tension often comes from scenes the star has nothing to do with - they're spy thrillers where Hunt's role is basically that of a human screwdriver, a tool used to defuse the bomb.
Defusing a bomb can be a lot of fun to watch though, and as benefits a film that is basically one big climax to a five-hour story, this features two big dialogue-free set-pieces that make this worth the price of admission on their own. In one Hunt has to navigate the insides of a wrecked sub; the second is a biplane chase that somehow involves Hunt crawling all over the outside of not one but two planes mid-flight.
The big selling point is supposedly "Cruise does all his own stunts!", and fair play, his stuntwork is extremely impressive. But it's telling that the sub sequence (which may involve Cruise inside what is basically a giant washing machine set on spin dry, but did not take place in an actual sunken sub) is just as thrilling as the plane chase, which does involve actual planes flying not-that-high above the real earth. Watching a 62 year-old multi-millionaire risk his life purely for our amusement is fun, but not as much fun as a well-crafted suspense sequence.
More than most Mission: Impossible films, which don't exactly have a reputation for smooth storytelling, this feels like a grab-bag of parts. The good parts are extremely good and build towards a thrilling climax that's a shot of pure adrenaline guarenteed to send you out the cinema on a high.
The bad parts? Well, if they ever make another one - and this most definitely does not shut the door on that possibility - maybe Hunt could stay out of those endless crumbling brick tunnels he's always running down.
- Anthony Morris
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