I love Mission: Impossible. It's the only film franchise to have 2 spots in my Top 10 Favorite Movies, and Mission: Impossible 6 is my most anticipated movie of 2018. Mission: Impossible just does so well at one of my personal favorite things in a movie.
Mission: Impossible 2... isn't like that. Mission: Impossible 2 felt like watching a child who had grown up HEARING about Mission: Impossible trying to make a Mission: Impossible movie, but he missed what really makes a Mission: Impossible movie.
So what are the essential elements of a Mission: Impossible movie?
There has to be a distinctive stunt.
M:I 1 has the Cable Drop
M:I 3 has the Swing
M:I 4 has the Building
M:I 5 has the Water... and the Airplane... and the Opera... and...
M:I 2 doesn't really have something like this. Its most stunt-like sequences are a rock climbing scene that has nothing to do with the film and a cable drop that pales in comparison to the first film's drop's tension.
It felt like someone noticed that Mission: Impossible was supposed to have a cool stunt and decided to just recycle the last film's stunt, but didn't pick up on what made it so good last time.
It felt like someone noticed that Mission: Impossible was supposed to have a cool stunt and decided to just recycle the last film's stunt, but didn't pick up on what made it so good last time.
When Christopher McQuarrie started co-writing M:I 5, Tom Cruise told him, "You can do anything you want, but there has to be a heist".
M:I 2's heist turned out to not be very memorable because it wasn't really a heist and it was too easy.
A heist is an elaborate and pre-planned attempt to steal or enter something heavily guarded without the use of force. We didn't have any obstacle exposition to see how heavily guarded the MacGuffin was and while we don't need to know much of the plan, we didn't have any idea that there even was a plan. The plan turns out to not be very elaborate.
And most importantly, this heist isn't Mission: Impossible. This isn't even Mission: Difficult. This is Mission: Easy - Ethan is going about this with ease until the other team gets in his way. M:I 1's Cable Drop, M:I 3's Swing and Parachute, M:I 4's Building, M:I 5's Water and M:I 1's Cable Drop are memorable because of their difficulty.
It felt like someone noticed that heists were important to Mission: Impossible and did his best to write a heist, but didn't know what a heist even is or how important the difficulty level is.
A heist is an elaborate and pre-planned attempt to steal or enter something heavily guarded without the use of force. We didn't have any obstacle exposition to see how heavily guarded the MacGuffin was and while we don't need to know much of the plan, we didn't have any idea that there even was a plan. The plan turns out to not be very elaborate.
And most importantly, this heist isn't Mission: Impossible. This isn't even Mission: Difficult. This is Mission: Easy - Ethan is going about this with ease until the other team gets in his way. M:I 1's Cable Drop, M:I 3's Swing and Parachute, M:I 4's Building, M:I 5's Water and M:I 1's Cable Drop are memorable because of their difficulty.
It felt like someone noticed that heists were important to Mission: Impossible and did his best to write a heist, but didn't know what a heist even is or how important the difficulty level is.
The masks are important to Mission: Impossible, but they aren't used that well in this film.
After a savvy audience sees 1 plot twist every half hour (on average) they realize they shouldn't trust anything. I call this the Abrams-Nolan Uncertainty Principle, after J.J. Abrams and Christopher Nolan had so many plot twists in their movies & TV shows that we realized how few things we should trust. After 3 mask reveals in less than 90 minutes (the 2-hour movie has a total of 5 mask reveals), I was watching for which characters would be in masks and why. Many mask reveals didn't add much to the plot - some of those scenes could have been done without masks with a slight rewrite so the film could stay under the half-hour limit for plot twists so that the audience could accept what was going on and be shocked at the plot twists instead of expecting more plot twists.
Third is the team:
Anyone Ethan can get on his team in M:I 1 or M:I 3 is a godsend.
Anyone Ethan can get on his team in M:I 1 or M:I 3 is a godsend.
Ethan's teams in M:I 4 & 5 each have character roles they fulfill well.
M:I 2's team consists of The Love Interest, a hacker, and a helicopter pilot. And the hacker and pilot don't seem like fleshed-out characters or major characters. It felt like someone said "He needs a team" and someone else chose the most basic needs for a worldwide mission: transportation and hacking.
M:I 2's team consists of The Love Interest, a hacker, and a helicopter pilot. And the hacker and pilot don't seem like fleshed-out characters or major characters. It felt like someone said "He needs a team" and someone else chose the most basic needs for a worldwide mission: transportation and hacking.
Fourth is the IMF:
M:I 2 is the only M:I film where Ethan has the support of the IMF the entire way. After Ethan assembles his team, they never really do much with the IMF. It felt almost like someone heard "He needs to not have the IMF's help" and followed the advice at the time, but didn't think about WHY he's on his own in this movie.
M:I 2 is the only M:I film where Ethan has the support of the IMF the entire way. After Ethan assembles his team, they never really do much with the IMF. It felt almost like someone heard "He needs to not have the IMF's help" and followed the advice at the time, but didn't think about WHY he's on his own in this movie.
Fifth is the female lead:
The lead starts as awesome, but slowly progresses into a character who just there to get saved. I've never seen a character get nerfed this much in one film before. It felt like someone heard "We need a strong female lead" and found her, but then changed her half-way through production.
The lead starts as awesome, but slowly progresses into a character who just there to get saved. I've never seen a character get nerfed this much in one film before. It felt like someone heard "We need a strong female lead" and found her, but then changed her half-way through production.
Sixth is the overall quality:
Fight scenes were difficult to follow because of geography. Some shots and scenes that were in the final film could have been taken out. Etc.
Fight scenes were difficult to follow because of geography. Some shots and scenes that were in the final film could have been taken out. Etc.
What's ironic about Mission: Impossible 2 trying so hard to be a Mission: Impossible movie is that there was no concept of what a Mission: Impossible movie meant. This was only the second movie. And since the first movie is about a different team and in a different genre than the TV show, M:I 2 could have done almost anything! Instead, they focused so much on making another Mission: Impossible movie that not only did a character reference a trope that the first film established, someone even said "This is Mission: Impossible".
Well, yes, this is Mission: Impossible, but this film doesn't know what that means.
Regardless of how good M:I 2 was, I'm just looking forward to M:I 6 coming July 27, 2018.
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