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There’s been major right wing groups buying tickets to give away for free as a way of supporting the film. Someone even showed up to a showing that was designated “sold out” despite the room being empty. So there’s some weird stuff going on with the distribution/sales on that film.
For the first time I thought McQ's plotting felt a little messy, and the film is a touch ragged around the edges. Main characters get given little to do and become sidelined, the plot goes for being convoluted over elegance, despite being just about a macguffin (which switches hands so often it's almost not worth trying to follow who has it), and there's an awful lot of talking. Scenes seem to drag a touch, with endless shots of Ethan reacting to everything in a very serious way.
I liked the idea of Grace's character, seeing someone be inducted into the IMF (in a way which actually ties in with the civilian makeup of it in the TV show) but.. I just didn't really like her. I don't know why, I didn't take to the character. Ilsa I instantly loved, Grace I'm not keen on. maybe it's her Brexity passport! :D
Speaking of characters which didn't quite land: the pair of US agents on the trail of Ethan- they just didn't seem to get the screentime they needed- I think they were going for a mismatch buddy cop thing or something, but it felt like they didn't know what they wanted to do with them.
Also, there's precious little in the way of heisting or Ethan drawing up clever plans; and that's the lifeblood of M:I to me. I like it when the plans go wrong and he has to improvise, that's the fun of the heist movie; but there are pretty much no big plans in this film, certainly nothing particularly clever. This one, funnily enough, is maybe the closest to being a Bond film since MI2.
It's certainly good, and has amazing action scenes full of tension (something Bond could definitely learn from) so I'm sure I'll love it more. I've heard a lot of huge reactions to the train bit, and the latter part of that is indeed terrific, but for my money doesn't have the nail-biting escalating tension of the climax to Fallout.
Balfe is also just noise to me, and actually manages something I didn't think was possible, but leans on the M:I theme too much. It pops up here in places it doesn't need to be, and I found myself actually getting tired of the constant bom-bom-bom ba bom-bom.
Also, the way that Ethan finds out something in the climax which we the audience knew right from before the titles... just doesn't feel right. He should be a step ahead of us in an M:i film, not the other way around. And it's not a big enough reveal for the climax of a film, because we already knew it.
Also: killing Ilsa. Just.. no. I think if someone had to die then I would have gone for Benji I'm afraid: he has an attachment for the audience and yet also feels a bit played out in this film. He doesn't really do anything we haven't seen before and it's in danger of being tired.
Also: Luther just sits the climax out? Eh?
It's good, I think I just wanted something as perfect as Fallout again, and it wasn't that.
Reading through the thread now;
Yes absolutely agree with this. I guess it's hard to judge everything when there's a Part 2 coming which may add more, but at this point I think you're completely right.
Something we never got in the Craig era, unfortunately. I miss a crazy henchwoman like Xenia in the newer Bond movies.
I estimated that Atwell would be 8 years younger than Ferguson (Grace definitely looked younger than Ilsa in this one) and therefore would be less fitting for Ethan. To my surprise I had to learn from google that Atwell is two years older :-?
I've not felt that way with this series because I've actually really been digging these plots, this latest one especially, but I have had this concern with the John Wick films - I still love it but I feel like the story and universe building and even characters are dropping off in quality and focus because they're exclusively prioritizing trying to stage really cool looking gunfights, shots and action sequences.
I kind of don't mind if they do particularly because up until now they've threaded it all together so satisfyingly. But to me this one really does feel like the talking scenes are just holding the action scenes together- I haven't really felt it before, but this time I did. And honestly, the lack of a big main heist is a bit of a disappointment for me. I like my M:I films to have a bit of cleverness about them.
They even drew attention in this one to one of the scenes in Fallout which really shouldn't have made it into the movie but was only there because they hadn't figured the plot out at the point they shot it: where the White Widow puts a price on Ilsa's head and Ethan promises to deliver her, when they're talking on the banks of the Seine. That scene goes absolutely nowhere in that film; I think they try to make up for that by mentioning it in this one, but it actually just reminds you of the slight raggedness of some of the plotting leading to dead ends.
I love that sequence, because it's an impossible mission. They're doing a heist, as a team.
In this one the closest we get is.. maybe the
And also, at least in Ghost Protocol there was a running theme of the team's equipment being unreliable ("the only thing which functioned properly on this mission was the team"), so the mask machine breaking down is part of a theme. In Fallout, Ethan can't make a mask of Lark's representative because Walker smashes him in the face with it and breaks it. But in this one, Ethan can't wear a disguise because the mask machine just randomly stops working...? No rhyme or reason, it's just convenient to make sure he has to jump off a cliff (could they not have had the Entity interfere with it in some way?). The satisfying, jigsaw-pieces-falling-into-place plotting isn't there this time.
I enjoyed it twice as much as Indy 5. The latter was good but definitely less entertaining than MI7, imo. Better action, more fun, faster pace.
Honestly, my hopes for a Summer quality film are now with Nolan, one of the last true filmmakers.
Fortunately the action scenes are so well done (particularly the ending on the train) that it just about makes up for the occasional flaws throughout.
For me, the car chase and the train final sequence were the highlights of the film. But that's the point, they made the film, those two sets. And a film must have more to it than action sets. This one almost had more to it than its action sequences, but, IMO, it didn't deliver in cinematography and narrative, even though the
All and all, it really was fun and I was on the edge of my seat. It is relentless. But not a major work of action cinema like Fallout was. And it all was a bit too mechanical, devoid of sexiness and panache like, for example, Ghost Protocol was. That one was full of panache. So was Rogue Nation.
$235M global launch.
Don’t get me wrong, my friend, I love a dutch angle now and then, but someone is bound to count them in this film and produce a ridiculous number. They were simply too many.
Not me. I’m hoping it makes tons of money so that Cruise can keep making these and other movies. Like I said, I’m a fan. Even more so nowadays.
Film is pulling insane numbers and seeing people disingenuously frame it as a failure is honestly disheartening.
In today's climate, I'm not sure many films have a chance of topping that anymore.
Top Gun Maverick wiped the floor with Skyfall :D