By Marshall Cearfoss

News Editor

Perhaps some of you have read my review of this year’s iteration of Mission: Impossible. Well, in the beginning of that review, I expressed my dislike towards it having two punctuation marks in the title. Oddly, punctuation is a big deal to me. You should have seen how I nearly flipped a table when they told me I couldn’t use Oxford commas in the newspaper. But I digress- So, anyway, this title, having five punctuation marks, (although somewhat relevant to the plot of the film) makes me to regret every decision leading up to when I took English 1301.

I shall preface with the fact that this will be one of my milder, objective reviews. So, if you’re looking for the opinionated hatred and spite that writhes within me when I see a bad movie, I must revert you to my Forgettable (although incorrectly called “Fantastic”) Four review.

Firstly, let’s talk about plot.

Without spoiling it, pretty much all I can tell you is that it’s the courageous spy adventures of Solo (Henry Cavill), Illya (Armie Hammer), Gaby (Alicia Vikander), and Waverly (Hugh Grant). Although, if you blink too many times in the film, you’ll miss Hugh’s part in the film, despite the fact that he seemed oddly pivotal for the entire story. Also appearing in this movie of stereotypes are the villains, Victoria (Elizabeth Debicki) and Uncle Rudi (Sylvester Groth).

To shove the plot in a nutshell, it felt like the screenwriters took the story lines from any given number of spy movies, threw them all into a blender on ‘pulse’ mode for roughly eight hours, filtered out all of the cool spy gadgets, tossed in the most attractive B-list actors, called it a day, then ordered mojitos for the entire cast. I was just confused, frankly. Granted, I believe that a vast portion of the movie was intended for that exact purpose… But it wasn’t in the good way.

“Good” movie confusion can be found in “The Prestige”, “Fight Club” and “Memento.”

“Bad” confusion can be found in movies such as “Inception” or the most recent “Fast and Furious” (whichever one they’re on now… It’s like, their seventeenth movie, right?). When confusion in a movie never actually finishes with closure, it qualifies as “bad.”

Next, let’s talk about the acting and humor and whatnot.

I was actually genuinely impressed by the quality of the acting. Most movies nowadays seem to have a rule against believable acting (again, I recommend my Fantastic Failure [Four] review), well thankfully this movie discarded that rule. Henry Cavill was fantastic at his role of the sarcastic, know-it-all spy agent who doesn’t like following orders. Although, I really wish I could have seen this movie with Simon Pegg or Benedict Cumberbatch cast as that character. Also, the humor was ACTUALLY GOOD. Instead of a swath of sex or fart jokes, there was actually a lot of well-placed humor without it hijacking the script.

So, to summarize my thoughts, I feel like the plot could have been less schizophrenic, but other than that, it was a very good summer flick. Even if you don’t fully understand the plot-line, I would recommend this film for people of all ages.

I’d like to thank Times Square Cinema for making this review possible.

If you go watch it, tell the employee in the ticket booth that you’re a secret agent. Then walk away.