Grade: C-
Mindless summer entertainment meets cheap plot devices thanks to JJ Abrams.
This summer has been a pretty dry season for me, movie-wise. The reviews on the blog prove my point–most are older movies I’m reviewing thanks to Netflix or Blockbuster or HBO. This not-completely-old review comes thank to Japan Airlines who happend to show the flight while I’m doing an overseas work trip. So I’m glad I saw it, but even happier that it was free. For mindless distraction, it works for the most part. But where it fails, it really fails.
The Mission: Impossible series has always had its share of plot holes. This one is no exception. But while the big holes are always easy to criticize, I always find the greatest difficulty with the smallest ones.
Take, for example, the technological skills of the IMF team Tom Cruise leads. These are top notch super-secret spies that can use the latest technology courtest of Marshall…I mean, whatever the Marshall-guy’s name was in this show. They have magnetic bombs and eye-scanning cameras and computers with hydraulic keyboards. I’m not sure why they need any of this, but they’ve got it, baby! And they know how to use this tech, fitting it all into the seamless mechanics so that in the middle of a shootout they can call out to their partner, “Mag!” and that person will instantly know to give them a new magazine for their pistol–no matter what pistol they happen to be using at the time. They’re just that good.
Unfortunately, they don’t know how to use cell phones. This becomes clear during a pivotal scene where Tom Cruise must place a call in a few seconds or someone will die. But, wouldn’t you know it, while he’s being chased by security forces in Shanghai he just can’t get a signal. So he hands the phone off to the driver despite the fact that two other people in the car aren’t driving or shooting at the moment. This actually makes sense–everyone knows that drivers get better signals on their cell phones! And while Tom Cruise tries to convert the bad guys to Scientology, the driver proudly informs us all that he got a signal. So Tom yells at him to hit redial.
This, apparently, the driver did not know. Because that’s pretty advanced stuff, the redial button. Instead of saying something dramatic and tense like “Make the call!” or “Dial, dammit!” or “Can you hear me now?” he loudly informs the super-secret spy on a function my Luudite mother can perform. No wonder so many of these missions are impossible–the spies don’t know how to use cell phones!
Minor detail, I know, but these kinds of things are what keep the whole series from ever being a great movie. Instead they’re just all a series of stunts with some kind of plot strung between the action sequences. This one has less plot than others, which is good. But it also has less action than others, which is very bad. And the best action sequence of the movie is never shown. Seriously. Tom has to break into an ultra-secure building and steal a McGuffin and he only has 2 hours to figure out how to get in and do it. That’s good stuff for a MI movie, like the first movie’s CIA break-in becoming an instant classic. Here, they show Tom getting into the building, then nothing. We literally sit in the car with the other team members until the theft is over. Really?
[Edited Comment: So I just found out I may have seen a censored version of the movie that cut out the break-in because the Chinese government didn't like it and the airline flies into China. Interesting--has someone else seen the movie and recall if it shows Tom inside the building to steal the Rabbit's Foot?]
This, I think, falls squarely on the shoulder of the writers. The main one being the director, JJ Abrams, of Alias and Lost fame. I’ve been writing about why Lost sucks for quite a while now. One of the main reasons I think it sucks is because it uses artificial tension–showing the most tense moment in a story, then flashing back to the beginning and building up to that event. That’s cheap storytelling–you can literally do it with any story out there that has any kind of tension. The true challenge is to build a story from the ground up–make the audience actually feel interested so that when you reach the tense moments they’re feeling the same tension you are. JJ Abrams just can’t do it. Couldn’t do it with Alias. Couldn’t do it with Lost. Couldn’t do it with Mission: Impossible. And it’s really, really annoying.
This movie ends up just being a big-budget Alias. There’s the Marshall guy I mentioned above–the tech from Alias reproduced as a UK national with the exact same speech patterns as Marshall. There’s the chick spy, played by one of JJ’s favorite actresses (that chick from Felicity). Even Greg from Alias (and the pilot from Lost) makes an appearance. This is exactly what a big-screen Alias version would look like, but with a lead who doesn’t believe in psychiatry.
And ultimately he makes the movie worse for it. All three of the series have been forgettable. But at least the first two had some memorable action sequences. This has none. And it doesn’t even show all the action, which is unforgivable. Please, let the JJ Abrams love-fest come to an end before he strikes again!
