mission: impossible – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Written by Christopher McQuarrie & Erik Jendresen
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

This year (2023), I watched/re-watched the entire Tom Cruise-Mission: Impossible oeuvre (I only get a few chances to use that word). As far as big Hollywood productions go, it’s not among the worst. I do hand it to the filmmakers involved that they always try to go with practical effects whenever possible, and CG is used in ways that never take me out of the films. Almost every scene is an actor in an actual location or set, not a motion capture/green screen. I don’t think Tom Cruise is an actor. Really, he’s the textbook definition of a movie star. The films under Christopher McQuarrie have improved with each entry, and I like including physical comedy as part of action sequences. These are silly movies, after all, so let them be silly.

Movie Review – Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
Written & Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

I’ve never really been into action movies. I am male, straight, and white; the period where I came of age (1980s thru 1990s) seemed focused on hyper-violent action media that people like me were supposed to eat up. I enjoyed the worlds, designs, and ideas behind many of your typical 80s fare. I was obsessed more with heroes who were not action-oriented. Marty McFly was someone I saw as a fun hero. The same with the superheroes in the comic books I read. I never enjoyed espionage or gun-wielding fare. That still remains today. I am okay with guns being part of a film’s story or nuclear bombs or hand-to-hand combat. I just don’t get a thrill from those things. A story with a strong character arc, especially one that is bittersweet, is what really draws me into a narrative. I know some people adore this movie. I thought it was fine. It’s certainly not the worst Mission: Impossible movie, but I’m doubtful these pictures will ever hook me as they do for many others.

Movie Review – Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
Written by Christopher McQuarrie & Drew Pearce
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

And with this film, we reach the McQuarrie Era of Mission: Impossible. When Dead Reckoning Part 2 releases in 2024, McQuarrie will have directed half of the MI franchise. That makes it worth diving into what McQuarrie says about global foreign affairs. MI is a franchise grown out of the Cold War and anti-communism. Currently, communism as an engine of state power has been beaten back by an unrelenting capitalist assault. I know China has a Communist party as its core governmental body, and they implement policies that have undoubtedly lifted people out of poverty. However, I would argue, and many other communists would, too, that they have been teetering on the edge of communism and capitalism since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. Communism has never been the offensive threat the West has made it out to be; nations who claim to have communist governments have always been entrenched in defensive positions from outside interference. All that to say, there is no genuinely threatening “commie” bogeyman for these types of films any longer.

Movie Review – Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
Written by Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Christopher McQuarrie
Directed by Brad Bird

Brad Bird was not a director likely to have been chosen to direct Mission: Impossible. Before Ghost Protocol, he had no live-action directing credits but had helmed The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Bird proved to be up to the task and partially ended up shifting the tone of the MI series to a style that remains today. He also was part of a change in the types of villains the films presented. Previous MI films featured rogue IMF agents (MI & MI2) and an arms dealer (MI3). One of the biggest problems with a director like Bird is that he is intensely objectivist, following the writings of Ayn Rand. This can be seen most prominently in his box office flop Tomorrowland but is present in nearly all his work. It follows that his villain in Ghost Protocol is someone whose motives are never clear or coherent but is an outsider attempting to disrupt the status quo. This is also a typical villain archetype in Marvel films which has been a primary reason why those films have become increasingly less appealing to me.

Movie Review – Mission: Impossible III

Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and J. J. Abrams
Directed by J.J. Abrams

For a brief shining moment in 2002, we could have had David Fincher directing a Mission: Impossible movie. But that didn’t happen, and there would be a sequel. As cheesy & silly as Mission: Impossible 2 was, it was the second highest-grossing movie of 2000, just behind How The Grinch Stole Christmas, which meant we would be getting more of them. Joe Carnahan (Narc, The A-Team) was working in pre-production on the project, and the film was reportedly going to feature Kenneth Branagh as a Timothy McVeigh-styled villain with Carrie-Anne Moss and Scarlett Johansson starring in supporting roles. But after a conflict over the film’s tone, Carnahan left, which sent Tom Cruise to the phone to call J.J. Abrams. Due to scheduling delays, many of the film’s actors left the project, which led to recasting. Eventually, all the pieces came together, and a new Mission: Impossible came to the big screens with a whole different tone & style than the previous two.

Movie Review – Mission: Impossible 2

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
Written by Ronald D. Moore, Brannon Braga, and Robert Towne
Directed by John Woo

Is bland & formulaic better than something bizarre & bad? I’m unsure which is the right choice, but I know that Mission: Impossible 2 (of MI 2) is very much the latter. Yet, it’s not the sort of bad that makes watching the film unenjoyable. Unlike some of the later MI pictures, I was glued to the screen for the entirety of this movie. This is mainly due to the sheer 2000s-ness of this one. John Woo is at peak Woo-ocity as well, including his iconic drama doves, one of which almost gives away Ethan Hunt’s position in a crucial scene. To understand MI2 is to remember that this franchise wasn’t quite sure what it would be. I have to hand it to the MI series that, for the longest time, it refrained from dedicating itself to one director or one style, and each picture really did feel like that filmmaker’s take on the concept.

Movie Review – Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible (1996)
Written by David Koepp, Robert Towne, and Steven Zallizan
Directed by Brian De Palma

There is a formula. At the time of this writing, I have watched five of the six currently released Mission Impossible films, and there is most definitely a list of things that have become expected for nearly every installment. That said, each film (up to Rogue Nation) has its own director and a distinct style, which sets it apart from much of the copy/paste nature of its contemporaries, like Marvel movies, where the directors are made to suppress their style to be, well, bland, I suppose. I don’t think the MI films are a boon to cinema, but they do feel like something completely different from what we are served today.