I really like the last three Mission: Impossible movies. I also remember thinking that the first one was pretty cool, if perhaps a bit dated. I didn't really have much memory of two or three at all other than that they were forgettable and therefore disappointing in the context of the series as a whole. But, I now own all six of them. No doubt, seeing the new Top Gun and the new MI trailer made me more in a mood to watch them again.
As an aside, it's interesting to see the arc of Tom Cruise as a public figure. He was certainly a big movie star in the 80s and 90s, but he had to crawl out of a PR deficit of his own making, due to his crazy behavior, and allegations of even crazier behavior when his marriage fell apart. But, he seems to be persona grata again in the public eye. His weird Scientology beliefs, arrogance and crazy jumping on sofa behavior is forgiven, and he's now seen as "the last movie star" and is respected for his work ethic and professional excellence, if nothing else. And frankly, that little thank you thing he recorded for the front of Top Gun: Maverick was a nice touch. I don't forget things as quickly and easily as the average mob mentality Joe Blow, but even I'm willing to overlook his behavior as long as I don't see any more of it.
But that kind of gets to the gist of my post. The Mission: Impossible franchise can't really be compared to the Star Wars franchise, but certain parallels can be made about the movies and what they've done with them, as well as how they seem to be received and remembered today.
1) The first one is still a good movie. It's old enough now that the CGI looks a bit dated and fake, as we've gotten better at spotting it, and the scenes with him scrolling through Usenet and having some kind of AOL like interface on his emails, although the email addresses used aren't even valid email addresses are kind of funny, but if you overlook that, and the obvious note that trying to be cutting edge is obviously going to look dated a few years later, it's still a really good movie. While I'm not suggesting that it doesn't have some action set-pieces, because obviously it does, it's much more of a thriller and a mystery than an action movie, in a kind of old-school way. That's actually kind of missed; few movies have as much intelligence to their plot these days.
2) The second movie isn't very good. By this, I don't mean to imply that it isn't a good movie necessarily, but it isn't a good Mission: Impossible movie. While Tom Cruise is obviously the lead as Ethan Hunt, the series has still always been a bit of an ensemble affair, and the chemistry between the various team members is important. This movie doesn't have much of that at all. It also introduces Thandie Newton as a love interest, and she had no chemistry with Cruise, and wasn't very likeable either. And the plot is kind of weird. It's serviceable, but I find that the "recruit this girl so she can be a honey trap for her psycho ex-boyfriend, fall in love with her, but never really believe any of it because neither the plot, the dialogue, nor her acting ever make it convincing" was more uncomfortable to watch than anything else. The whole first half to two-thirds of the movie is more awkward than it is tense. And finally, while I don't necessarily have anything against the John Woo gun fu type of movie, it didn't fit this franchise, and frankly doesn't fit a Western audience all that well at all. I was rolling my eyes at the action set pieces more than I was enamored of them. If it had been Chow Yun Fat in the movie and it was filmed in Hong Kong and subbed into English, I'd probably have liked it better, although it's still not my cup of tea. And that even rubbed off on the characterizations. Ethan Hunt never felt like the same character even, and his motivations and decision-making judgement are super questionable in this movie. It feels like it was another script entirely that wasn't originally meant to belong to this franchise, but got quickly and awkwardly reworked by changing some names around and making sure that Luther was able to show up again.
3) The second movie was successful at the box office, but I think it also put a bad feeling in the mouth of the audience. While they saw it, they didn't really like it that much, and were more cagey about the sequel when it finally came out. Ironically, number three was a return to the original form in most respects. It feels much more like a Mission: Impossible movie. In fact, it probably feels too much like a Mission: Impossible movie. Although we wouldn't (yet) know it at the time, in retrospect after recently just watching it again, it's got the J. J. Abrams touch all over it. It was his first movie, although he'd already been a relatively big name after having the hit show Alias. His compatriots Orci and Kaufman wrote the script. These guys aren't necessarily talent-less, and some of their work is good. Here, they showcase what they're best at, though—remaking movies with the exact same plot beats as the originals that they're copying, and trying to do it as a bit of a soft-reboot. The a) Mission Impossible team that goes in on an action-heavy mission. b) At first it seems like it's going well, but it starts to go wrong, and it becomes apparent that someone within IMF has sold them out. c) Hunt and his team have to go rogue to prove their innocence by stealing the very thing that they're accused of stealing in the first place so that they catch the real thief. d) Have a crazy complex heist sequence thrown in where they steal it, e) find out that their direct supervisor is the actual villain—surprise, surprise! Or not, if you've seen the first one, and f) a finale where all the bad guys get their comeuppance, Hunt is vindicated, and his supervisors boss is happy to welcome him back into the fold.
They did add some more personal notes about Hunt himself, with his semi-retirement at the beginning and engagement. Sadly, most of his team from this movie doesn't carry forward (except Luthor, the only consistent one) because there wasn't really anything wrong with them other than that they were sadly underutilized and underdeveloped. Benji is introduced in this movie, but is surprisingly little utilized himself. And almost laughably, the MacGuffin that they're chasing the whole time isn't ever explained, even when—at the very end—Hunt asks the boss what it really was. He only says that he'd tell him if he stayed, but then he left on his honeymoon.
4) The movie series really kicked it into high gear with this one. It's still a smart mystery/thriller; in fact, it's the smartest since the first one, but it's also a really good action movie this time around too. It's also got a better ensemble cast with much better chemistry. Brad Bird directed it, his first live action (although he'd already been famous making Pixar films). The only odd thing about it, really, is that Tom Cruise's marriage seems to be over without much explanation, and we kinda sorta piece together that his wife had been killed by Serbian terrorists or something... except that that isn't what happened after all; IMF had taken advantage of the Serbian terrorist attack to sequester her in some kind of witness protection program or something. Because I hadn't seen the third one (until now) since it came out, I was always a little bit confused by what was supposed to have happened to her, especially given that she does make a cameo appearance at the end. Why don't they get back together once Hunt finds out that she's not dead after all? I dunno. It's a little weird. We're supposed to fill in the blanks ourselves. Honestly, I think it just works better for Hunt to not be married, but they didn't want to tarnish the character by having a failed marriage happen to him, so they just kind of handwaved away an explanation that... kinda works as long as you don't think too hard about it. Mostly it works, because a settled down family man doing this kind of action stuff doesn't really make that much sense, so we're willing to suspend our suspicion and accept it because that's kinda what we want anyway.
5) The story as an action/thriller/mystery continues to improve in the latter half of the series; 5 is better than 4, and 6 is better still. Another potential love interest is introduced, although they don't actually end up falling in any kind of love; they just play a coy will they won't they dance. But again, the chemistry between the characters and the smart, fast-paced, yet sufficiently thoughtful and sharp at the same time plot is the real strength of the series. I like how they introduce a SPECTRE or HYDRA like supervillain organization, and how both 4 and 5 make use of the classic Mission: Impossible TV trope of an elaborate disguise and set scene used to trick the bad guys into revealing everything. While both 2 and 3 had masks, they didn't really use this plot beat, which is a shame, because it's iconic to the series; I think literally every episode of the TV show did it. To be honest, the more I think about it, the more the plot beats are similar to 1 and 3, but somehow it doesn't feel nearly as much of a remake/soft reboot as 3 did. I guess that's because they mixed it up with sufficient other plot beats that it doesn't feel as repetitive.
6) Henry Cavill makes his debut in the series here (well, spoiler alert; turns out he's the bad guy and he dies at the end, so it's both his debut and his swan song at the same time.) He was actually a likeable character, had a fair bit of charisma, and chemistry with the rest of the cast, so that's kind of unfortunate. We continue in the vein of super-villainous conspiracies, which really raises the game, as well as having double-crossings, fairly smart plots, impressive use of characters, (and I suspect that the production crew for the upcoming ones are glad that they decided to kill off Alex Baldwin's character before Baldwin himself killed someone on set and became toxic). This is probably the best one so far, even if the action scene with the helicopter (they seem to really like crashing helicopters in this series) was wildly implausible. But it wasn't culturally implausible; the action scenes in 2 just felt... really Chinese, if that makes sense, and they kind of had a strange dissociative feel to them. Here that's not true. Yet again, Hunt and his team fall under suspicion by at least some rivals in the American intelligence committee, but again—they used that plot beat sufficiently differently that it didn't feel repetitive. Even though, by this point, certainly it is.
There's a weird segment where he runs into his wife again. Still played by the same woman, although she hasn't aged as well as Tom Cruise himself has, and I wouldn't have sworn it was the same actress if I hadn't looked it up to double check. By this time, the poorly explained separation is almost completely forgotten by the audience, other than that it happened and that they each thought the other was dead or something. It's obvious when they meet again that they still care a great deal for each other, which is kind of awkward given that she's remarried in the years since. Also, curiously, in 3 she's just a regular nurse at a hospital in what looks to be the DC metro area; now she's a hot-shot doctor off galivanting around to strange primitive countries. Hollywood loves to use the shorthand that taking care of your own people isn't nearly as virtuous as bringing some kind of vague humanitarian something or other to savage brown people in the Third World to signify that she's supposed to be a great person (although that trope falls pretty flat with me, as you can imagine) but its kind of forgivable here as it's a plot point that is sufficiently explained that it doesn't just feel like pandering emotionalism. Although, in actuality, it kind of is. I guess the writers couldn't up the stakes for Hunt without making it intensely personal, or something. In any case, that gives that whole affair some closure, so I expect it won't be mentioned again in the upcoming two movies.
The more I think about it, the weirder that whole situation is, and I don't understand why Hunt himself doesn't feel really pissed off and kind of used and exploited by the whole situation, but it doesn't really detract from the movies, because I think everyone kind of just knows in their gut that having him be single works better; married men running around constantly risking their lives seems irresponsible, or something. They had to find a graceful way to extricate them from the foolish decision to marry them in the third movie, without making him look unsympathetic or the whole thing feeling cheap, and I think they probably did about as well as they could have, all things considered.
Anyway, I like this series quite a bit. And it's fascinating to me that after a strong start, they had a misstep in the second one, a kinda sorta attempt to patch it over and pretend that it never happened in the third, and then a real explosion and order of magnitude more charismatic and polished fourth, fifth and sixth one. Perseverance, and a willingness to actually pay attention to what worked and why rather than arrogantly doubling down or blaming the audience for racism or whatever when they didn't like the second one as much, really turned the franchise back around and now its considerably stronger than when it started even. I've heard someone reference this series when talking about Star Wars; pointing out that the second one was the least liked, but its also not the one that bore the financial hit; that was transferred to the next one which people were less likely to be interested in after being disappointed in the second, and suggesting that Solo's flop is due to a similar phenomena. While not a great movie, Solo isn't really a bad one either, but it had to pay the price for the deep unpopularity of The Last Jedi. I'm not 100% sure that I buy this explanation, but it certainly sounds both reasonable and interesting.
And, of course, the salvation of the Star Wars franchise can be ascertained from a look at what Mission: Impossible did if they'd be willing to learn from the same lessons. Focus on high quality film-making. Write better stories. Double down on what works, not on what doesn't work. Have enough humility to recognize that pleasing your audience is the secret to your success, not feeling contempt for it and letting that contempt bleed through between every line of dialogue. I don't expect that they can do it, but it's a shame that they can't. Clearly some people in Hollywood can.
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