I Watch Films: Mission Impossible: Fallout
So this is some nonsense, but there is some fantastic film-making in here. Even though we know it’s been stitched together by CGI the scene where there is one long shot that circles Tom Cruise and Henry Cavell arguing in the back of a plane, then they jump out into a thunderstorm and perform some serial stunts, all in one take, that is amazing. And there are several other shots like it.
The bad guys have to both make their (political, philosophical) case and then also disprove it. Tear down the world order because it’s held up by war and murder and horror, yes, got that. And the method for doing so is to... unleash plagues and nuclear weapons? Killing yet more people? It ain’t going to work. That ain’t it chief.
The Mission Impossible team’s response is to very precisely target their violence onto murderous bad guys, trying to avoid the involvement of bystanders and innocents. That’s nice, you’re superheroes, I get it.
Anyway the series continues to use actual real world city geography better than most; you can almost follow some of the routes through London and Paris (maybe not across the rooftops). The St Pauls scene is very funny to me for two reasons; firstly back in the day (before the cathedral burned down and was rebuilt as the one currently on the spot) the nave was a famous place to meet and be seen, and also a shortcut to avoid having to walk around the whole site. See Paul’s Walk for more details. More pertinently though I have attended a memorial service at St Pauls and I feel very seen. And they didn’t even put me in the credits!
Watch This: For spectacular action with very nearly a handful of clever turn-about set piece scenes
Don’t Watch This: For a film that engages with its own ideas
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