Summary
After an infiltration of the Kremlin goes south, the entire IMF is disavowed. Now, alone and cutoff, Ethan Hunt and team must track down the terrorist responsible and stop him from starting a nuclear war.
Much Love
As I watched this film today I tried to remember why this entry isn’t my favorite Mission Impossible movie. This movie has a ton of what I love about a M:I film.
First off, this movie has several of the most memorable set pieces in the series. You get the sandstorm chase, the eye tracking cloaking camera device in the Kremlin, and the scaling of the Burj Khalifa.
Everything about these scenes snaps. No everything goes perfect but the scenes flow up and down in tension. You constantly find yourself thinking you’ve seen the last twist of the scene only to have it spin you again.
The team in this film is probably my favorite of any of the films. Bringing Simon Pegg (“Mission Impossible: Fallout”) into less of a tertiary role into the main team was a great move. Add to that Jeremy Renner (“Arrival”) and Paula Patton (“Precious”) and you have a team that kicks butt believably, handles hiccups like a champ, and backs each other up at every turn with humorous gags and proper espionage driven suspicion.
I was enjoying this film immensely and was ready to start this review proclaiming that M:I 3 had been dethroned as my favorite Mission Impossible entry.
The Penny Drops
Once the sandstorm blew over, however, it all came rushing back. The reason this film ends up at 3 stars instead of 4. The third act of this film is just a boring mess.
First we have Ethan getting info from a character in the most boring way possible, just asking nicely. Next, we have Jane failing(?) to seduce a rich telecommunications company CEO at a party, till Ethan Hunt helps her in what can only be described as the most clumsy and laughably incompetent scene in the series. Eventually, all parties but Ethan end up in fist fights at the telecom station and Ethan plays grab the football with the main bad guy in a car park scene that feels more like the conveyer belt scene from Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones than a spy thriller.
The Bar
When you set the bar as high as this film does with it Burj Khalifa set piece you can’t set the final climax in a parking lot. I’m sorry, but it just won’t do. If you are going to go big in the second act you can do one of two things: go bigger in the third or get more personal and intimate in the third.
Unfortunately, in this film you never feel that personal sense of hatred for the villain or love for Hunt. In the end you are left waiting for him to grab the case and stop the warhead because you know he will and it doesn’t much matter how he does it, because you realize you saw the best this movie had to offer you 45 minutes ago.
Like the Mission: Impossible series? So do we! Check out our all of our reviews for Mission: Impossible, Mission: Impossible 2, Mission: Impossible 3, Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation, and Mission: Impossible: Fallout.
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