Sunday, August 19, 2018

Impossible

I'm going on record:  watching a facial haired Henry Cavill was the single best thing about Mission: Impossible XVII - Fallout.

Women and gay men swooned, straight men are uncomfortably sexually confused. .....and rightfully so.

Also on record: I've never seen a full Mission: Impossible movie, and never seen any of those parts at a theater. And I think they really call the series Mission: Very Very Very Probable. Our friends David & James asked us to go. David, the former head of the Cleveland International Film Festival, always trips me up with this kind of request, though his husband loves the big box office popcorn fare.  Oddly, this movie has a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Ms. Cruise, beginning to look every day her 56 years (even with professional make-up), runs, chases, rides, runs, flies, punches, runs, jumps, drives, kicks, slaps, runs, and acts like he likes woman.  He's an acting revelation.

I kind of take it back on the Cavill pronouncement. The lady who played Princess Margaret in the Crown is probably the best thing about the movie, but Henry is right up there - though he's not going to win any acting awards that are not Nickelodeon or MTV related.

Mission's plot is fair at best. Let's face it, these movies are all about the chases through narrow European streets.  It Bourne - but with more gay.



The unfortunate thing about these big box office movies is there isn't an iota of reality, or worse, originality.

That moment early on, when they had "two minutes umtil depressurization" and had to get into the suits that helped with that.  Forget the 45 second conversation about said suit (tick tick tick), but when you saw said suit, you'd know it would be like take 25 minutes to put it on.

Still the helicopter chase - oh yes, you read that correctly - literally and figuratively had me throwing my hands in the air in disbelief at the absurdity of the entire thing.  710 laughed at me, but I was laughing at David poised on the edge of his seat as he laughed at the screen the entire time.

I get why audiences like the adrenaline of such movies, but they are so formulatic, like when the needed device - whatever it may be - just out or reach and (not or) right on the edge of a cliff.  Although, it is nice to know with their multi-millions dollars worth of gadgets, their they too are as reliable as getting my XM radio to work if I go under a 20 foot wide bridge.  And there is a bathroom fight (see above) whose craftsmanship is spotty at best. Plaster, marble and metal are like onion skin paper to these dudes.

I suppose my biggest problem with this movie in particular is the 'ghost' aspect. Whomever is in the intelligence / spy group are described as 'ghosts', but folks with whom they are somewhat kind of associated can not only track them, and easily, but are often there waiting for them. 

Oh, and they still use the small reel-to-reel tape thing to convey the job, because it's 1966.

M:I wasn't one of those movies we could dissect over dinner afterwards, as much as it was to laugh about it.



...and technically I'm done with out movie goal.  I can now rest on my laurels until 2019, but I won't.  More to see.



2018 Movie Count / Goal:  12 of 12


Song by: Sara Watkins

4 comments:

Raybeard said...

When I found that IMDb's ratings were, with near certainty, being spiked for certain 'popular' films by someone or some people, it was no surprise to come to a similar conclusion with Rotten Tomatoes (Why would they do it only on IMDb?). But as R.T. doesn't publish an analysis of ratings posted broken down over age group and sex, it is harder to make that assumption - though sometimes what they do maintain is the 'average' seems most unlikely.

Deedles said...

I enjoyed the first two, especially the second, as mindless entertainment. After that they became just mindless. Balder half has seen them all, but without me along. The same with his Bond addiction.

Bob said...

The ONLY reason I'd see this, and, let's be clear, I will NEVER see this, would be Henry Cavill.
I can't even look at Tommy Grrrrl.

JP said...

I’ve never seen a TC film Ive liked.
JP
Ps I’m not visiting so much as having problems with eyes. Got op scheduled in Oct so finding blog reading and written no difficult :(