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Yeah. This is a good point.
A James Bond Ethan Hunt spin off spy film. The title
Mission Bond
Plot
The IMF is under threat from evil AI/terrorists yadda yadda yadda and MI6 has top secret intel on how to stop the villain. James Bond 007, MI6's top agent, works with Hunt and his team to save the world!
Could have had awesome potential! 😎 I may do a fan poster (with some AI help). 😉
It's not Cruise himself, it's that DR was a disappointment and this one is a direct sequel, so general audiences aren't that hyped. It's like if EON had made AVTAK a 2-parter.
Oh, thanks. That's a good point. Because I was beginning to wonder.
He's arguably the most successful box office actor of the last 30 or so years and you can't achieve that level of success without a lot of fans. I think he may struggle to remain a big star in his 60s. Top Gun 3 is probably his best way to stay relevant to younger movie goers.
I very much doubt Hollywood will find the next Tom Cruise. The era of the big movie star has passed. Gen Z and Gen Alpha don't care about movie stars.
But honestly, his onscreen persona is a different thing (although I'm not always drawn to him as an actor either). He's definitely a well regarded movie star though.
🤔
I mean, action movie stars being the big thing comes and goes based on trends, and even then they were at least 40 anyway.
There are definitely still young, popular movie stars about. And older living legend types. How much people care about them (or claim to) is another thing entirely.
The funny thing is that SPECTRE did have a sequel!
It's easy to understand if you look at young actors today.
My main criticism is that for a film about the end of the world - the highest stakes possible - the film just felt so small. I don't think this is helped by the lack of large set-pieces in the film (for a MI film this is really odd). There are only two - the submarine and the bi-plane chase, and one isn't really a set piece.
The first hour is really tough to get through. Its all set up and exposition of both recapping Dead Reckoning, recapping the wider series (with a focus on M:I), and even flashing back to something Hunt said literally 30 seconds ago. It does pick up in the second half when the two set-pieces kick in.
They're still introducing far too many new characters who get very little screen time and stuff to do - see Hannah Waddingham and Scoot McNairy. Nick Offerman at least gets a heroic death at the end.
Bringing back Donloe from M:I was a good move and I liked his character and arc (he was in the film way more than I expected). That on its own would've made a good book-ending with the first film. Revealing Brigg's real name was Jim Phelps and he had a grudge against Hunt was both unnecessary and pointless - the script doesn't do anything with this.
On the note of tieing things back - tieing the Rabbits Foot from MI3 as an early version of The Entity is poor retconning - the device clearly by its markings is some sort of biological weapon.
There was a lot of mention about how the Sevestapol sunk in 2012 - assuming this film is set in 2023 (its mentioned it is two months on from the events of that film) - I don't know how the timelines worked.
Probably the biggest issue for me is that it did not solve its villain problem from DR, in fact I think it made it worse. Gabriel was a poor villain in DR and in this he is basically a non-entity (excuse the pun). He is absent from very long stretches of the film and his motivations are poorly thought out. The film (as far as I remember) doesnt address his past with Ethan in a way DR set up, and his death is also very lame. It even felt like the actor was in an 'ah, fuck it' mindset during the finale given his facial overacting.
Random Thoughts:
- Why does the team stop chasing Gabriel to get into the AI simulator?
- Why does Dega switch sides to the good guys?
- How can the guys on the submarine be Entity supporters, given they would've been on the submarine during the events of the movie to that point?
- So many nuclear bombs in this film.
- The score was rather subdued. I picked up on the use of 'The Plot' motif and very little of The Entity's leifmotif, but the use of the main theme wasnt much and overall a step down from Balfe's DR efforts.
- The film at least looked nice from a technical perspective and the IMAX expanded ration scenes were quite good. That said, the "archive flashback" filter they applied to previous movies, and Dead Reckoning in particular", was odd and looked poor to boot.
Anyway I will probably expand upon this more once I have thought about it a bit more, but yeah, underwhelmed. Shame.
I am at least glad they didnt kill Hunt. I didnt think they would given Cruise's ego and stance on giving audiences "what they want".
If there is to be an M:I:9, I think its is probably time for McQuarrie to move on from writing and directing, bring in some fresh creative blood. Oh, and have a decent script in place before shooting. They managed to get away with it twice (in RN and Fallout) - not with these two.
😂
I don't recall much running in the Bond films pre Brosnan era. Bond doesn't need to run. He's Bond. 😎
;)) Great pun.
Such is the issue with doing a two parter.
I wonder how much of 'The Final Reckoning' was written up prior to them committing to and making DR. Also, given how much of these films is written on the go, doing a two parter is even more precarious.
As for the submarine bit
1.Fallout
2.Dead Reckoning
3.Rogue Nation (very close to DR, maybe same level)
4.Ghost Protocol
5.Mission Impossible 1
6.Final Reckoning
7.M:I-3
8.M:I-2
Weirdly this film reminded me of Fallout and TND in places
From a career perspective Tom Cruise is a smart guy. He is brilliant at self promotion. I'm sure he thought "I really need one crazy stunt to define my acting career."
I haven't seen FR but assuming most of the biplane sequence is real (and nothing in action film making is completely real, cgi is used all the time, including the MI films) but even so, hanging from a small plane is very impressive and memorable. From Cruise's perspective he's achieved what he set out to do. Arguably, the final Mission Impossible film hasn't achieved what it set out to do because many people feel it was too long, too much exposition, silly villain etc. But Cruise may not care.
Look at the main poster of MI 8. It's all about Cruise doing a crazy stunt. Crazy stunts had nothing to do with Mission Impossible the tv show. Cruise successfully moulded/reinvented the tv show to make the film version of Mission Impossible all about Tom Cruise. Some reviews of MI 8 say Ethan Hunt is portrayed as a Jesus Christ saviour type character. You can't get more narcissistic than that. 🤭
Re: your spoiler comment: