muratmihcioglu

When you see multiple A-listers in the cast directed by a notable indie, you naturally think it can't be too bad.

That's why I spent the first 10 minutes without hitting the speed on Netflix. First, I tried 1.25x. Then, 1.5, which is the maximum possible...

The final half hour, I hit the forward button many times, only to skip all the way till the ending. So, this movie owes me around 50 precious minutes of my life.

What WAS that?

Jim Jarmusch was 30 years late to the zombie party? Was he trying to do a breaking of the 4th wall, merely by mention of "the theme song" by the lead characters?

Give that budget and that cast to a 22 year old nerd and he/she will come up with much better a film. This looks like someone had to fill a slot for a release date, and found a dated script, proposed it to actors and filmmakers who owed money or favors to a studio head, only to create what was gonna be quirky filler material for the season.

I just really don't get it.

I know that there is always much more to movies than what the audience naively considers as the building blocks. Yeah, some movies are made only out of totally different necessities relating to the people involved. But such low levels of creativity, originality and integrity are utterly shocking. Especially when Bill Murray is the poster boy.

Avoid it. Nothing to see here.

From the hit TV series to DePalma's cinematic revival, and from there on to become the franchise it now is, Mission: Impossible sure has evolved, for bettter and for worse, depending on what angle you favor. Today, it is a showcase for Tom Cruise. The man just wants to play and this concept is his playground. And it's a pleasure to be entertained while those behind and in front of the camera make big money.

But, much as they try to come up with innovative techniques and storylines, in our age there is just too much competition on the fronts of what I call mechanical cinema.

Mechanical cinema is what is structured around carefully calculated sequences the premise of which is pretty close to that of a roller coaster ride. The only room for emotions is when they become functional to let you catch your breath or stop thinking about what is going on.

DePalma's very first movie adaptation of Mission: Impossible was nothing like that. It had some cool pillars of action but the characters and story mattered immensely. Tom Cruise's MI lacks that more and more as both the heroes and the antagonists function as chess pieces.

With this one, by introducing an enigmatic entity, an AI or something of that sorts, they once again make a move to break the pattern; trying to keep a safe distance from 007 kind of good spies / bad spies narrative. But I don't think the plot works as intended.

First of all, the "mission" is too ambiguous and too nonsensical, regardless of what angle you take to observe it. If there is some technology out there which can threaten the planet via immense computational power, what does it matter if a submarine hosting it has sank and there was a two-piece key there and blah blah blah... What matters is the software, which definitely was not created as the submarine was cruising. It's just absurd to treat a state-of-the-art technology as Noah's Ark. Whatever states or powers were behind it, they must be working on the 2.0 version right as Ethan Hunt and co. Are struggling to capture some key.

Also: Why haven't they actually spent more time on the design of that supposedly unique, two-piece key? Those pieces do not look or feel like they couldn't be easily reproduced by use of an ordinary 3D printer. A physical key, all right... But for what? Kind of a spectre? A tool that seems to belong with the Harry Potter or the LOTR franchise? Both visually and thematically, the "precioussss" one in this story just doesn't make sense. Dude, it's technology after all... Unless you're gonna end on a bold high note with the claim that it was indeed CAPTURED ALIEN TECHNOLOGY and not something that belonged with the current progress of earthly sciences, this alleged "uniqueness" and the threat rising from it fails to convince us about the emergency of the missin in question.

But, okay... What matters is what we will experience as the embarks on such a journey, right? Meh... Though I was entertained during most scenes, most notably the train collapse (which was not revolutionary considering many previous examples, like the impressive one in Wanted) I did not actually care deeply about supposedly emotional moments like which female companion of Ethan was gonna end up dead. Previous MI movies were better in making us invest in the depth of such characters. This time it looked John Wick-ish.

I appreciate Tom Cruise for trying to avoid CGI and doing his stunts himself. Yeah, it helps getting excited to know that some dude actually did risk his life via extreme sports in order to produce that footage. The circus aspect of cinema is valuable. Even though it is being done mainly to attract attention to the movie, an advertisement gimmick to go viral on social media, it does matter to me to know that THIS bit of make-believe has been crafted organically, at least in part.

But, again... The STORY has to make us invest deeply into such scenes. And the major stunt in this movie, Tom Cruise jumping from a cliff on a bike many times till they get the best shot, leaving dozens of bikes down under to rot in an otherwise natural preserve, FAILS on the level of being MEANINGFUL.

Because that particular bit of action serves no reasonable purpose!

Come to think of it: The mask-making machine is broke, so Ethan Hunt will not be able wear a mask to replace the henchman of the blonde powerful whatever woman nemesis. Had the mask-making machine been working fine, he was gonna get on board the train. Now, he can't.

WHAT?!?

There is no way you can convince me that there was credible reason to WHY he simply couldn't be on board that train BEFORE it departed. This character can do pull several tricks even on the fly, without blinking an eye, instinctively. If putting on a fake beard was not gonna suffice to trick the face recognition system at the station, he could sneak in inside a crate or something, without even revealing himself as a passenger or railway staff member.

They felt like using that particular stunt, but miserably failed to embed it into the story.

Such a scene could have worked wonders if that sky-dive and landing really made sense as part of the endeavor and really resulted in logically saving a life.

The bit grew even dumber as, out of hundreds of possible entry points to the train, Ethan crashed in exactly where such an accident would provide a positive effect, and EXACTLY at the moment.

As that whole stunt could not have been calculated to a perfect happenstance, the audience got treated as morons who'd swallow anything long as it provided a moment of suspense.

I don't wanna trash this movie because I value it on many levels. However, witnessing such thoughtlessness in such big budget productions is heartbreaking.

I just started watching this on RAIplay. First of all, Miriam Leone is a special visual effect all by herself and there is no doubt that casting her, instead of someone less charming but more Fallaci-like, is proof that he producers know what sells.

Oriana Fallaci is an important name with her take on feministic issues and certainly an asset when it comes to retro-woke readings of history.

But when you frame an already-woke narrative with the standardized virtue signalings right from the start, it becomes just too on the nose to make the viewer believe the situation was factually like that.

Quick examples: On the way to New York, she sits next to the seat of male journalist, and the guy assumes her to be the assistant of another male journalist, only to be corrected by Fallaci.

Really?

In 1956, a "woman journalist" is so rare a thing that people get taken aback when they see one? Event the positioning of Lois Lane in Superman (1938) suggests people were pretty much okay with women journalists decades ago. Not to mention His Girl Friday or other examples to how women were celebrated in positions previously associated with men.

One can argue that it is because she is coming from an Italian socio-cultural background and the Italian guy was therefore expecting all journalists on the plane to be male. I could buy that explanation had Fallaci been on a ship from Sicily to mainland Italy, but she's part of a group from Italy to the USA. It just doesn't make sense for a peer to not expect at all there could be a female reporter.

When every show is framed with the same, basic, highly promoted story of "social injustice based on race/gender", you get the same lame outcome, regardless of what subtleties you could have crafted out of a retro story like that. It becomes mere brainwashing, even if the intentions are good and message is correct. And RAI has been investing into this "genre" of woke repentence a bit too much.

I'm not saying that Fallaci wasn't born into and struggled out of conditions relating to gender inequality. What I believe is, by creating such points of stress within the course of the narrative, they are bordering pseudo-historic inaccuracies relating to social acceptance and baheviour.

Otherwise, the show is promising and the casting of a bombshell instead of a passably good-looking actress puts a smirk in your face thanks to how it slightly contradicts the underlying woke theme, but I think silent waters running deeper would be more elegant with regards to storytelling than rapid fires of virtue signaling.