Entry tags:
M:I Ghost Protocol (2011)
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Dir. Brad Bird, 2011.
I'd pretty much given up on the M:I movie franchise, but it seems that Hollywood hasn't, and, happily for its continued prospects, this is probably the best of the lot since the first one. The gadgets are cool (and not perfect), and the action scenes are great--I especially liked the very grounding focus on footchases and mistakes, which fits with what character arcs there are in the movie, particularly between Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, looking older but still good) and Jeremy Renner's character, Brandt, who is damn smooth. Also damn good looking, particularly when he is being angsty. I could get used to seeing more of him (and indeed, I won't lie, he's a big part of why I dragged my dad to the movie in the first place). The other agents were good, particularly Simon Pegg, and as well as being intelligently written the script also has a welcome dose of humor, which serves to break up the near-constant action.
They might as well have subtitled this one Mission: Impossible - Emerging Economies, because the action veers from Budapest to Moscow to Dubai to Mumbai, giving us a decent amount of eyecandy along the way. I didn't have![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marina to tell me whether the actors were actually speaking Russian, though the switch from English to Russian and back was handled plausibly in script, and in the end I thought the movie was actually fairly non-Russophobic for a Hollywood outing, if you set the entire "Russia has loose nukes!" premise of the plot aside. Also, the villain is a former Swedish special forces member turned nuclear theorist! I also appreciated that Hunt's phantasmic wife was no longer being actively put in threat of danger by the villain, and that the character who was motivated by revenge for a loved one's death was a woman of color. And unlike M:I 3, with that stupid "rabbit's foot" McGuffin malarkey, the stakes were comprehensible. This is one of the things I think is important in movies like this, actually, can you tell?
What I actually find most interesting, on a sort of meta-cinematic level, is the question of just why Hollywood is suddenly obsessed (again) with nuclear war. It's the central plot device of two major movies this year (XM:FC and M:I 4), and I just don't quite get it. Something like Goldeneye, that made a lot of sense (though it wasn't even about nuclear weapons, but EMP) for its time and place, but why are we suddenly worried about nuclear war and nuclear terrorism so much again? Did I miss a general societal memo somewhere?
I'd pretty much given up on the M:I movie franchise, but it seems that Hollywood hasn't, and, happily for its continued prospects, this is probably the best of the lot since the first one. The gadgets are cool (and not perfect), and the action scenes are great--I especially liked the very grounding focus on footchases and mistakes, which fits with what character arcs there are in the movie, particularly between Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, looking older but still good) and Jeremy Renner's character, Brandt, who is damn smooth. Also damn good looking, particularly when he is being angsty. I could get used to seeing more of him (and indeed, I won't lie, he's a big part of why I dragged my dad to the movie in the first place). The other agents were good, particularly Simon Pegg, and as well as being intelligently written the script also has a welcome dose of humor, which serves to break up the near-constant action.
They might as well have subtitled this one Mission: Impossible - Emerging Economies, because the action veers from Budapest to Moscow to Dubai to Mumbai, giving us a decent amount of eyecandy along the way. I didn't have
marina to tell me whether the actors were actually speaking Russian, though the switch from English to Russian and back was handled plausibly in script, and in the end I thought the movie was actually fairly non-Russophobic for a Hollywood outing, if you set the entire "Russia has loose nukes!" premise of the plot aside. Also, the villain is a former Swedish special forces member turned nuclear theorist! I also appreciated that Hunt's phantasmic wife was no longer being actively put in threat of danger by the villain, and that the character who was motivated by revenge for a loved one's death was a woman of color. And unlike M:I 3, with that stupid "rabbit's foot" McGuffin malarkey, the stakes were comprehensible. This is one of the things I think is important in movies like this, actually, can you tell?What I actually find most interesting, on a sort of meta-cinematic level, is the question of just why Hollywood is suddenly obsessed (again) with nuclear war. It's the central plot device of two major movies this year (XM:FC and M:I 4), and I just don't quite get it. Something like Goldeneye, that made a lot of sense (though it wasn't even about nuclear weapons, but EMP) for its time and place, but why are we suddenly worried about nuclear war and nuclear terrorism so much again? Did I miss a general societal memo somewhere?
no subject
The best hypothesis I have at the moment is that we're at a moment in history right now where everything feels like it's changing forever - perhaps not in a good way - and we feel existential anxiety, which is expressing itself in media about apocalyptic war.
no subject
Yeah, I don't know, I think you're probably on the right track.
no subject
Incidentally, the more I think about it the more I think that Moriarty's plan was fucked in the head. There's no way Germany wouldn't just seize all those munitions factories, nationalize them, and throw up currency exchange controls. If Moriarty ever saw a dime, I'd be shocked!
no subject
Though it's not just the munitions factories, as my seeing the film again yesterday confirmed--he's got drugs, bandages, and foodstuffs rolled up too. So even if he loses the arms production, he still makes lots of cash.
no subject
In short, to be effective, an action movie does need to tap somewhat into actual fears, but if it gets too close to them it has the potential to really upset people. Contagion, earlier in the year, which was about a worry people actually have treated in an at least attemptedly realistic fashion, was a horror movie. A good action thriller gets the zeitgeist a little, but only enough to make it reassuring when Our Protagonists kick the danger in the ass.
no subject
Yeah, Russian nukes are not very 2011, are they? North Korea or Iran would be much more apropos, but of course Hollywood won't go there. (How poorly timed is the new movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, for instance, aside from any other issues around it?)
It was mildly interesting just how close to failing this particular movie let Our Heroes come, actually.