After last year's amazing reboot of Top Gun, Tom Cruise continues his creation of Hollywood legends with the 7th instalment of Mission Impossible. While the former is a 3-decade-gap one-off reboot, the latter has never been far away from us. While Top Gun introduced successfully a new co-star Jennifer Connelly, Mission Impossible continues with the parade of IMF heroines. Thandiwe Newton is the one I remember most. This time, we have Hayley Atwell, as well as a bevy of other beauties. Rebecca Ferguson, after two instalments, takes a back seat. Vanessa Kirby is back as the exquisite White Widow. The brightest spot, however, belongs to Pom Klementieff who, even without her antennas (Guardians of the Galaxy), is cute as ever, as a villain!
Just like "Fast X", this one is only half a movie. It is therefore not essential, indeed maybe not even be possible, to understand the plot. In any event, there appears to be a consensus that if a single word is to be used to denote this movie, it would be: fun.
The opening scene of a Russian submarine destroyed by a phantom enemy underscores the lethal nature of I. T, and more. Our hero then appears in a scene set in a shady warehouse in Amsterdam. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) receives a "food delivery", the familiar tape containing details of his next mission, if he chooses to accept, of course. Hunt's tip to the deliverer, a new recruit, is "we live and die in shadow". The current mission is to recover two halves of a cross-shaped key which reveals the secret of an enemy which is "everywhere and nowhere", called "The Entity". If things get out of hand, the fate of the entire human race is in jeopardy. The Entity cannot be killed. But various stakeholders do not want to kill it. They want to control it and, through it, the entire world.
Let the fun begin. Hunt gets his two buddies together, Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), briefs them, and makes a plan. We get a busy set piece at the airport when the lead lady appears, Grace (Atwell) a professional thief hired by a mysterious employer to get the keys. Hunt shows up ahead of the buyer to try to convince Grace to be a "put pocket" instead of a pickpocket. At the same time, Benji is racing feverishly against a ticking clock to disarm a nuke device at the luggage depot, one that loves playing riddles. Lots of running and chasing, needless to say.
It serves no purpose for me to get into too much details. There is an all-out car chase in Rome, Hunt and Grace, handcuffed together, changing vehicles, downgrading eventually to a tiny yellow Fiat. On their tail are Gabriel (Esai Morales), the servant of The Entity and Paris (Klementieff) his right-hand goon. Coming to their rescue are Luther and Benji, plus Ilsa (Ferguson) who is working from the MI6 angle, but unofficially and to be disowned by the government if things go astray, just like the IMF.
The next, lavishly staged set piece is in Venice. Enters The White Widow (Kirby) who is the host of a classy party as well as Grace's secret employer (not even known to Grace), with the lofty proclamation "The world is changing. Truth is vanishing. War is coming". Everybody, heroes and villains both, are there. Lot of running, chasing and melees abundant.
The climactic concluding set piece is on a train in the Alps. The defining cliff-hanger you would have seen endless times before, but never as outrageously outlandish as in here. At the end of this two-and-a-half-hour half-movie, there are still expectedly a lot of unanswered questions. One thing that would unquestionably come to mind while you were watching is the Terminators franchise, artificial intelligence taking over. During the Terminators era, the concept was already not that groundbreaking. Today, it simply cannot be more relevant. Just pray, wherever your faith lies, that by the time we watch Part 2 of this movie, the world is not already under the control of IA.
Just like "Fast X", this one is only half a movie. It is therefore not essential, indeed maybe not even be possible, to understand the plot. In any event, there appears to be a consensus that if a single word is to be used to denote this movie, it would be: fun.
The opening scene of a Russian submarine destroyed by a phantom enemy underscores the lethal nature of I. T, and more. Our hero then appears in a scene set in a shady warehouse in Amsterdam. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) receives a "food delivery", the familiar tape containing details of his next mission, if he chooses to accept, of course. Hunt's tip to the deliverer, a new recruit, is "we live and die in shadow". The current mission is to recover two halves of a cross-shaped key which reveals the secret of an enemy which is "everywhere and nowhere", called "The Entity". If things get out of hand, the fate of the entire human race is in jeopardy. The Entity cannot be killed. But various stakeholders do not want to kill it. They want to control it and, through it, the entire world.
Let the fun begin. Hunt gets his two buddies together, Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), briefs them, and makes a plan. We get a busy set piece at the airport when the lead lady appears, Grace (Atwell) a professional thief hired by a mysterious employer to get the keys. Hunt shows up ahead of the buyer to try to convince Grace to be a "put pocket" instead of a pickpocket. At the same time, Benji is racing feverishly against a ticking clock to disarm a nuke device at the luggage depot, one that loves playing riddles. Lots of running and chasing, needless to say.
It serves no purpose for me to get into too much details. There is an all-out car chase in Rome, Hunt and Grace, handcuffed together, changing vehicles, downgrading eventually to a tiny yellow Fiat. On their tail are Gabriel (Esai Morales), the servant of The Entity and Paris (Klementieff) his right-hand goon. Coming to their rescue are Luther and Benji, plus Ilsa (Ferguson) who is working from the MI6 angle, but unofficially and to be disowned by the government if things go astray, just like the IMF.
The next, lavishly staged set piece is in Venice. Enters The White Widow (Kirby) who is the host of a classy party as well as Grace's secret employer (not even known to Grace), with the lofty proclamation "The world is changing. Truth is vanishing. War is coming". Everybody, heroes and villains both, are there. Lot of running, chasing and melees abundant.
The climactic concluding set piece is on a train in the Alps. The defining cliff-hanger you would have seen endless times before, but never as outrageously outlandish as in here. At the end of this two-and-a-half-hour half-movie, there are still expectedly a lot of unanswered questions. One thing that would unquestionably come to mind while you were watching is the Terminators franchise, artificial intelligence taking over. During the Terminators era, the concept was already not that groundbreaking. Today, it simply cannot be more relevant. Just pray, wherever your faith lies, that by the time we watch Part 2 of this movie, the world is not already under the control of IA.