That last section in OUATIH is as close to a film jumping the shark as I have seen in all my years. I thought it was hilarious but not for the reasons Tarantino wanted us to.

I want to watch it but it’s so darned long!

I think they got a little caught up in the Entity of it all.
I still had fun with it but I don't think they were going to ever be able to top Fallout which not only had the best action the series has ever had but also had the nice simplicity of nukes being the big threat.

Has to be said though, the score, based around Lalo Schifrin’s original work from the tv series, is just so fucking good. The second it kicks in, it’s impossible not to be swept along in the madness.

Yeah, there’s a definite uncanny valley with a lot of the stunt work in this one. Lot of the time it just looks very augmented with cgi to the point that you’re left wondering what’s real and what’s bollocks.
Anyway, done now. Enjoyable enough, but far too long, the plot is absolute garbage, and it just feels like I’ve seen this all before, but done much better.
Feels like the franchise has steered itself into Roger Moore/Pierce Brosnan Bond era territory, which is not a good thing.
Mission Impossible has always been fantastical, but this one rides the shark off a cliff with the sheer amount of implausibilities and plot holes, and the whole Entity thing is absolutely nonsensical.
Still, Hayley Atwell was really good, and the score kicks ass.
Predicto for part 2…

Yeah I think it would have helped to show how the AI communicated with the bad guys. Even just one shot of a text telling him something he wouldn't have known or maybe an earpiece. I suppose you're meant to just assume it but to me it seemed like he was working under his own power for most of the time when he would have needed constant AI guidance to know where to go.

But really it doesn't matter because Fallout exists and if I want an MI fix I'll just go back to that one

Fallout is great.

The original is better.

Yeah, it's entertaining, and the action is obviously top tier, but it really just becomes an annoying mess of contrivances by the time it gets passed the mid-point. Really feels like they were making it up as it went along, rather than having a story to tell before they started shooting. It's just action set piece/exposition scene/action set piece, over and over and over, with nothing engaging in the way of plot to string it all together.
Couple of things. The main henchman, Gabriel. At the start you get this very brief flashback that shows a bit of young Ethan's first encounter with him decades prior. Now I just assumed this was a flashback to maybe the first MI, which I haven't seen since it was released in the cinema, which would explain why it's so brief. I was basically left thinking Eh? What is this flash backing to, should I remember this, and why is it all so vague? Turns out the film was originally meant to start with a twenty-five minute cold-open flashback to that story with a de-aged Cruise. They did actually shoot some, or all of this, but Mcquarrie binned the entire sequence because he didn't like the effect the de-aged Cruise had on it. Unsurprisingly he couldn't see passed the de-aged Cruise's face in any of the scenes, and decided that this was a bad thing, so binned the entire sequence. So now all the viewer is left with is that brief, confusing flashback to what is essentially a completely new villain to the franchise, but the implication was to me anyway, that I should rememberber this guy from an earlier film. Not good.

With regards to the appearance of much of the stunt work, this was apparently the first MI to be shot on digital rather than film, and I think this is where a lot of the uncanniness stems from in the action sequences. I'm guessing they were forced to shoot digital, because it was a Covid shoot, and all the film labs were in lockdown, but it's definitely to the detriment of the overall look of the film.

It's also the only MI plot which I've ever suffered from constantly thinking, How did he get here/know this/have this/do this... because the plot is just absolute nonsense (and full of holes). This is unusual, because while the MI films are by their very nature, fantastical nonsense, they are usually pretty damn good at not crossing that line that stops the viewer suspending disbelief. Not this one.

Yeah, the bike off a cliff stunt is an odd one. I'm sure in Cruise's head it was totes amazeballs, but as a viewer, it's really not that impressive to watch. This is also compounded by them releasing all that making of awesome stunt footage prior to the release of the film. Bad move that imo. Bit like a magician giving away all their secrets while you're still standing in line outside the theatre. These things are best kept until your audience has seen your film. Good for extras on a disc somewhere down the line, but I guess the move to streaming has fucked that.

Very much so. He’s just savvy enough to never talk about it now.

g.man wrote:

Yeah, the bike off a cliff stunt is an odd one. I'm sure in Cruise's head it was totes amazeballs, but as a viewer, it's really not that impressive to watch. This is also compounded by them releasing all that making of awesome stunt footage prior to the release of the film. Bad move that imo. Bit like a magician giving away all their secrets while you're still standing in line outside the theatre. These things are best kept until your audience has seen your film. Good for extras on a disc somewhere down the line, but I guess the move to streaming has fucked that.

it's a tricky one to balance with stuff like that i guess. i've not really been a fan of the MI films, it was how much i enjoyed Maverick that got me interested in this, and then watching that stunt stuff pre release kind of got me more into it with how much Tom puts into the physical stunts etc. and hoping they could connect it with an enjoyable (if simple) story like they did with maverick.
however by the time i was watching the film and it was stunt after stunt, i was kind of just waiting for them to get to the bike bit to see how it played out...and it didn't really feel all that special as a moment. Impressive knowing it was done by the actor, but not in a way that i think you would feel any different about the film if it had just been done by a stuntman.

Also, this is a really good vid about the metric fucktonne of cgi that was used in the making of Top Gun: Maverick...

I have little memory of the story myself. But I'll probably rewatch pt1 and then go see pt2 in the cinema.

You make a good point with the cinematography of the newest MI as well. I thought it was interesting (and it gave me great pause) when hearing McQuarrie talk about some of the choices they made in filming this new one. Doing things a different way doesn't always make something worse but I do feel like core changes to how they filmed some stuff here did make for a lesser film.

It's not quite as bad as Zack Snyder being the DP on his films now (yikes!) but I do think it had a negative effect on their ability to piece together the film