By Marshall Cearfoss
Staff Writer
First, I must note that the title of this film has BOTH a colon AND a hyphen. That’s two punctuation marks too many for a movie title.
With that out of the way, now let’s talk about the premise… Or at least what I could understand from it.
The gist of the film is that the I.M.F. is now being dissolved by the government (dang it, government. You know how to ruin every film.) because they don’t believe that the Syndicate, the enemy spy agency, even exists.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Mission: Impossible storyline, the I.M.F. (‘Impossible Missions Force.’ Which is a much shorter acronym than ‘Please Believe Us, The Enemy Force Exists, I Swear To God.’ [P.B.U.T.E.F.E.I.S.T.G.]) is a secret branch of the CIA (I think) and they’re normally sent on the missions that those F.B.I. simpletons can’t complete. Well, their main enemy, the Syndicate, has done a very good job of hiding itself from the rest of the government, making the I.M.F. look like nothing more than the boy who cried wolf (a very large, Russian organization of a wolf).
Because of the “I have to see it to believe it” attitude of the government, they choose to eliminate the I.M.F. (the ONE time cutting government spending is a bad thing)
Well, Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise who, no matter what you say, is now all old-guy-ish to me. HE’S FREAKING 53.) is still determined to kill what’s left of the Syndicate. So, he begins his battle, as the skinny little version of Rambo that he is, along side his comrades Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and their former boss, William Brandt (Jeremy Renner).
“What’s the most confusing part of the film?” you might ask.
“The illogical cast itself, of course,” I would reply, as I opened another Snickers.
WHY did the cast coordinator think it would be a good idea for two completely different characters to be played by actors who look almost identical. I’m talking, of course, about Atlee (Simon McBurney) – a somewhat goodish, badish, stupidish character – and Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) – a really, really, really bad as hell character. –
By the way, if you watch this film, you can’t deny that Solomon Lane constantly looks like he has some dirty joke in his mind that he’s trying to keep in. Deny that.
In the words of Shia, “Do it. DO IT!!!”
Anyway, now for my opinion, which will be brief.
To be honest, it was alright.
Of course, there was an abundance of unrealistic moments. (It wouldn’t be a Mission: Impossible without them, duh.) There were so many things that should have rendered Ethan either dead or at least permanently paralyzed even before the opening credits.
Speaking of the opening credits, they looked like some poorly edited commercial for the movie or something. They even had some shots which kinda spoiled certain parts of the film.
Now for the humor… FINALLY humor that actually impressed me. One thing I focus on a lot is the quality of humor in a film. There was a bit of humor here and there, and it was executed fairly well, for the most part. This year has been rough as far as comedy goes (namely, Pixels, Ant-Man, and everything else), so it’s such a relief to see jokes that actually had some thought behind them.
It was a pretty good film in most other respects, also. There were some scenes that could have been more realistic and the plot summary could have been a little less confusing. But other than that, it was good.
If you’re a Mission: Impossible fan, or even someone who has never seen a M:I before, it’s a good action film with decent humor.
As always, I’d like to thank Times Square Cinema for making this review possible.
