Mission: Impossible

I think that gets at why these down't do much for me unless they're imbued with a little something extra (like the wit in the Burj Khalifa sequence) - the daredevil thrills don't do much for me on their own and I start to feel like I'm watching a very expensive Scientology ad.

I hope Tom Cruise has it written in his will that if he dies doing a stunt in one of these movies that they’re obligated to release it including the shot where he bites it

and that Ferguson takes over as Ethan Hunt in the following shot

is tom cruise a scientologist

must write that into my next message board post review of an action movie he is in

the bit where he wins because of xenu now makes more sense

as the Letterboxd review so eloquently puts it, Cruise and Hunt are inseparable and I don't think it's nuts to be persistently reminded of his Scientology exploits when considering his single-minded dedication to proving himself as the ultimate movie star!

this would not be the case if the movies weren't so obviously paper-thin beyond serving as a vehicle for Cruise/Hunt's awesomeness, but they are. and that's fine for most people, with variable degrees of success for me personally. I'm earnestly glad ppl have a franchise they can get behind and I begrudge no one's enjoyment!

ok, granting that

whats different about the beliefs of every movie hero as proxy?

that cruise's beliefs are scientology as opposed to apple pie/individualism/liberal humanism?

dunno what makes cruise an exception, any star that plays the hero should be held to the same standard by yr argument.

and tbh even if you do that, eh you shouldnt. its just movies.

I am all for Tom Cruise playing paper-thin bizarre everyman wish-fulfillment characters. Someone could probably do a thesis on how none of his action characters have an internal life, it’s completely externalized. The MI movies seem like the plot elements trying to give the character backstory seem like they’re in a constant state of course correction post-Abrams chapter: he can’t be anything other than the spy/cipher

The science fiction roles he’s taken are amazing examples: in Oblivion he’s literally a clone with a programmed mission, but breaking free from that means finding a way to live this all-american dream of collecting detritus of the american past and living in a cabin with a beautiful woman. Edge of Tomorrow? He’s a virtual blank slate and the movie is about programming him, via time travel, to become a hero.

And “Ethan” is probably the most distinct he gets. His name is just “Jack” in several films now

well hes never played an interesting character, i mean he has been the template for jock assholes who need to get drunk and cry in the alley behind the bar 2/3 of the way through the story before they man up and win the day by just doing what they did in the olening sequence but *really meaning it*

wait did i segue into that routine about tom cruise

Edge of Tomorrow is def the ultimate Cruise role, we take pleasure in his repeated obliteration while he builds a hero narrative over countless existences

Xp sorry man, I was sitting there with the stick holding up the box and put the bait out, didn’t think you’d walk in

Wish he'd do more roles like Tropic Thunder

MI:F had amazing action scenes and I could barely care about anything in between

i hated hated hated his attempt at ironic self-deflation in tropic thunder, mostly because he was really bad at it and everyone kept on about it

mcconaghey the hero of that movie if theres a poking-fun-at-self turn worth saving in it

tom cruise is very good at his job im glad he found work again after the couch thing

Slant came up with a good title for this film in a headline: Tryhard

yeah I don’t get the Tropic Thunder/Cruise praise at all. In it for about two minutes and the entire joke is he’s a fat, belligerent movie producer who treats people like shit

now that I typed that last part I’m cringing over here

and steve jobs

just saw a tweet mentioning that Tom Cruise’s skincare routine is a lot more pertinent than his Scientology connect and I’m close to agreeing, because wtf man

this was good

the in-between bits were a little draggy.

cavill is an excellent untrustworthy heavy. sometimes though when he talks it's as if he's painstakingly taught himself to say the lines phonetically.

i don't think we get a full cruise-grin once, which i was a bit sad about.

my son exclaimed halfway through: "he's REALLY good at steering!"

ferguson's moves at the extremely lightly explained parisian "event" where ethan's supposed to impersonate lark were badass and whoever said upthread that she should take over from cruise once he bites it in a stunt is otm. and she's amazingly beautiful of course but i don't hold that against her. neither, it seems, does hunt's wife.

q: what does ilsa whisper in julia's ear in the last scene at the hospital??

"Deus ex machina"

Loved this btw

good review th, otm re cavill

ferguson is so cool and gorgeous and kickass

i think they were just sharing a generic girls' moment

lookit, i gotta ask....didnt the wife die before? i mean I know we got the backstory and also i didnt care but i was a bit eh hows that work u died

Her death was faked iirc

Fooled Renner even

got me too obv

i missed renner!

in Ghost Protocol, Renner's big secret is that he was on a protection detail shadowing Hunt + wife in Croatia when she was killed by some Serbians that Ethan subsequently takes out and is chucked in Russian prison for

only he reveals at the end that it was all a ruse so she could live her life in peace and then he goes off to creepily spy on her

wait which he

Sorry, Ethan. Renner has been consumed with guilt throughout the film and when he eventually manages to confess his culpability, Ethan's just like, "did you actually see a body?" *grin*

the same line a guilty murderer uses tbf

remember when an Alec Baldwin bit part/cameo was a cool thing for a movie to have? It actually kinda felt that way again. Maybe it was the sharp haircut.

it was the six gun draw

I really did enjoy Baldwin, and I’m a noted hater of late

Nick Pinkerton finds these films "consistent"

If Hunt is in many respects the perfect Tom Cruise role, it is due to the sense of monomaniacal absorption in the job that is built into these films, in which – excepting Woo’s endearing but slightly off-brand second movie – spy games are an around-the-clock occupation that leaves little time for cocktails and bounding between boudoirs.

This suits an actor who can and will do most everything for a scene – including hold his breath for six minutes underwater – but for the life of him cannot project a naturally laid-back air, much as the relentless pitch of the movies seems to be in synch with our uptight, always-on-the-clock age. (In capturing something uniquely contemporary, these frantic films are only outdone as a franchise by the Resident Evil series and its vision of a corporate-sponsored apocalypse.)

“Running in movies since 1981,” reads the bio, possibly intern-penned, for Cruise’s otherwise quite humourless Twitter account – but this gets at something essential about the actor’s scrambling screen presence, which combines Apollonian grace under pressure with hell-bent-for-leather sprinter speed.

http://bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/tom-cruise-mission-impossible-franchise

Stanley Kubrick was a genius because he was able to make Tom Cruise look truly stressed by not allowing him to run at any point during the filming of Eyes Wide Shut

that sure is some thoughts about tom cruise

Sorry "Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny," the actual most ridiculous line in the Mission: Impossible series is II's "We just rolled up a snowball and tossed it into hell. Now lets see what chance it has."

— Matt Prigge (@mattprigge) July 30, 2018

I liked this a LOT more than the previous, probably because it took more tonal risks (both way more ridiculous and a little more grave). This is the first time I've had a use for Cavill.

I can't rule out that my lowered expectations or the 5$ price tag were factors in said enjoyment

"We just rolled up a snowball and tossed it into hell. Now lets see what chance it has."

2’s dialogue is almost all incredible garbage

i watched all of these for the first time recently and without a doubt 2 is the worst movie i have seen in at least 20 years

idg what's wrong with the snowball line. "Let's see what happens" may have worked better from a logical standpoint than "let's see what chance it has" but it gets the point across

Re watching MI3 - JJ has a knack for the big climactic beats (incl Russell's tender farewell "thank you") and a love for the gadgets (the auto retracting tactical gear!) but yeah too much of it is strictly functional.

It reminded me of every most JJ movie in that it has good individual scenes but builds up to stuff that doesn’t pay off. The “anti-god”’discussion early on and PSH’s scenes suggests something more ominous than the perfunctory gun battle that forms the climax. I do like the scene w Cruise telling his fiancé what IMF stands for and her reaction. There’s a good ridiculous long take of his continuous running.

De Palma’s holds up so much better than I remembered. Lots of plays on illusion and perception throughout. I recalled the train thing at the end as a 90’s too cgi set piece but the sense of speed is really potent and transcends in a way lots of blockbuster set pieces don’t.

The first JJ Star Trek still probably his best executed movie and even that's just...fine

Agreed. Definitely the best thing he’s done imo.

i think its good, not fine, but yeah agreed on him otherwise

depalmas mi is vvg, the vibe is pretty unique, the lower-key stunts and chases are in the (here it comes again) ronin vein and everything else is like a better bond

whats different about the beliefs of every movie hero as proxy?

that cruise's beliefs are scientology as opposed to apple pie/individualism/liberal humanism?

― dele alli my bookmarks (darraghmac)

eg using actual slave labour to build his (let's say) 12th and 13th homes IRL makes it a little hard to buy him as a paragon of decency in movies imo