Wednesday, January 2, 2019

‘Blu-ray or Bust’ MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT


‘Blu-ray or Bust’
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT (2018, PG-13, 147 minutes, BAD ROBOT/SKYDANCE)


When I first reviewed this film, I gave it a “C”.  Hey, I can admit when I’m wrong—and I was with my initial grade of this one.

You see, I’ve always been a wee bit jealous of Tom Cruise.  He and I are roughly the same age, so you can imagine my disgust at the fact that I got ugly and he’s still pretty.  Okay, fine; I got ugly-ER.  But this guy… he was the actor all the girls wanted to see back when I was a teenager.  This was the cool guy “Joel” from RISKY BUSINESS, the handsome athlete in ALL THE RIGHT MOVES, the hero of LEGEND and TOP GUN.  He was handsome, rugged, and got to make out with Rebecca De Mornay, Elisabeth Shue, and Nicole Kidman.


I’d like to say that I got over my jealousy, but, again, I ain’t gettin’ any prettier, so there will always be some bitterness there.  So that initial review was a bit jaded.  I felt as though the movie was nothing but a set of extreme stunts (I kept imaging the cast of TV’s “The Office” yelling “parkour!” and jumping off of furniture) linked by little bits of story.  Upon a second viewing, however, I have to admit that my view was a bit… askew.

Here’s the story: after Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team fail on a mission, the CIA assigns an agent (Henry Cavill, doing his best “I’m not Superman” imitation) to help track down the plutonium that Hunt and his crew lost.  Somehow, the villain from the last film (Sean Harris, who, unfortunately, is not given much to do here) becomes a pawn in the proceedings, and shenanigans commence. By “shenanigans” I mean “stunts”.  And there are several good ones; a white-knuckled freefall/halo jump, another motorcycle/car/truck chase, a helicopter chase, and a foot chase that borders on excessive. 


But what writer/director Christopher McQuarrie does with the story, the stunts, and the locations is almost ingenious—and here is where the film school part of me gets really excited.  Technically, this movie should be taught in classrooms.  The cinematography by Rob Hardy (ANNIHILATION, EX MACHINA) is at times beautiful, and at others takes you so close to the action that you cannot help but cringe.  There is very little CGI in this film, and very few of the stunts were performed on sound stages or by someone not named “Tom Cruise”.  So the creativity used by McQuarrie, Hardy, and second unit director Wade Eastwood is almost astounding in its execution. Three different types of film were used in the production, and the practicality of each is discussed in the special features—namely in the eleven minute “Light the Fuse”, which offers more technical aspects of filmmaking during that time than some featurettes do in entire releases.  There is also a breakdown of the halo jump, the Paris stunts (which include cars, trucks, and motorcycles), and deleted scenes.  But even with the deleted scenes, you get direct explanations from the filmmakers which delves deeper into the storytelling process.  This care in explaining HOW they told this story, and why they told it the way(s) they did, is not something you get to experience with every disc.


Honestly, the special features declare a love for cinema that goes beyond your typical release.  You can tell how much everyone involved loves their jobs, and how, ultimately, they are all just a bunch of movie geeks like the fans that flock to their films.  So, yeah—Cruise and Co. have impressed me the second go ‘round.  And I’m sure there will be another MISSION film in the future; Mr. Cruise doesn’t seem ready to pass the stunt torch just yet, which he probably shouldn’t.  What he and McQuarrie dream up here is thrilling, even if some of the story feels a bit rehashed (there are some genre troupes you just can’t seem to escape nowadays).  Just don’t expect the next MISSION movie anytime soon, as they are both hard at work on the TOP GUN sequel.  But FALLOUT should be enough to tide you over.

Film Grade: B+
Special Features: A
Blu-ray Necessary: Oh, yes

- T.S. Kummelman

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