Yes No Maybe So? Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Wednesday, March 25, 2015 at 7:00PM Someone needs to do a supercut of all the things Tom Cruise has hung from in his career like a daredevil, an action martyr or a human sacrifice: there've been helicopters, cliffs, glass skyscrapers, Scientology campaigns, cables, and now a big jet plane. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation has a lot to live up to now that the series improbably peaked as late as its fourth installment, Ghost Protocol.
After the poster, let's breakdown the trailer with our trademark trifurcation...
YES
• Well it's a good series, full stop.
• Tom Cruise is such a good sport about putting out for his movies - he really gives his all, stunts, shirtlessness, intensity, publicity. There are other uh... issues of course but what's onscreen is what counts at the movies.
• I'm already eager to see how he gets out of that poison gas jam
• "we've never met before, right?" Heh.
• A flute that becomes a gun !!!
• The stunts look fun and "practical" i.e. less CG than actual stunt which is always welcome
Tom Cruise seeks Purification Rundown treatment at the Scientology Center
Casting anonymous badguys is tough work!
NO
• The Syndicate sounds exactly like H.Y.D.R.A and S.P.E.C.T.R.E.? Why is this such a trend right now?. Does everyone feel that their companies or their friendship circles or their families have shadow conspiracies hiding within them that they're not privvy to? What's with the zeitgeist of paranoia?
• Also Ghost Protocol gave Ethan Hunt such an elegant series exit. Why ruin a good thing by holding onto it too tightly. See also the blasphemy of Pixar making a Toy Story 4 and thereby ruining the beautiful arc of childhood's end in Toy Story 3. For shame.
• I don't understand what Simon Pegg is wearing during the plane stunt and I'm not sure I want to. There's comic relief and then there's desperation for the FUNNY
Simon Pegg drops in direct from the set of Mad Max Fury Road
MAYBE SO
• a badass woman who can take down enemies in an evening gown? Always a yes. But why is their only one woman featured? Rebecca Ferguson (what a bland name for a Swedish beauty!) best deliver. The other movies were smart enough to at least double down.on the women. Few things in Ghost Protocol were as fun as the Paula Patton / Lea Seydoux cat fight.
• Do you think Jeremy Renner is embarassed that he was meant to take over both the Mission: Impossible AND Bourne franchises and both were taken back by their original stars? Or is he just laughing all the way to the bank each year and unconcerned with his legacy as an actor after all these failures to go full franchise hero?
Are you a yes, a no, or a maybe so? break it down for us.
Reader Comments (18)
I"m a no without even seeing the trailer. I haven't wasted money on a Tom Cruise film in over a decade and I don't see that changing.
Besides, the idea that someone could hold on to the outside of a plane in flight is ridiculous.
I'm a YES based more on Ghost Protocol than the trailer but the trailer was decent. Also, the production actually tried to get Paula Patton and Maggie Q from M:I-3 to come back for this film but there were scheduling conflicts... or at least that's what's been reported:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Mission-Impossible-5-Didn-t-Bring-Back-Paula-Patton-70190.html
Uh... no. I just don't like Tom Cruise. He's the John Cena of Mainstream American films. Playing characters that he's too old to play while not giving younger and better actors the chance to play these kind of roles.
Mr Cruise might be getting a bit old for this sort of thing....
Jaragon: It's like he's kept his "midlife crisis period" going for most of his films for 15 years. Never mind that his best performances since Magnolia were Les Grossman and William Cage, which relied on Cruise pretty much burying his ego and recognizing that people would maybe like the idea of watching him die over and over respectively.
"lso, the production actually tried to get Paula Patton and Maggie Q from M:I-3 to come back for this film but there were scheduling conflicts... or at least that's what's been reported:"
If that's true then it makes the absence of a woman on the main team more forgivable. Besides that it looks like a really fun movie. I can't wait to see this.
Yes! Love this series. I was wary of the directorial change (especially since I didn't much care for Jack Reacher), but this looks like a very stylish, very confident piece of work, and I've been rooting for a proper, sustained Cruise comeback for a few years now.
I am just happy Rebecca Ferguson is there. I like her. But Poor Jeremy Renner. He keeps trying to get into a franchise and even with Avengers gets the least memorable character. But he is making money and doesn't have to only do low budget indies now. When was the last time he did one?
Cruise may be getting older but he is still more attractive then Jeremy Renner. I am feeling a bit more sympathetic towards Cruise after his pairing with Emily Blunt last year.
I hope it's a success for him, and I hope Matt Damon gives us a proper Bourne film.
Renner can go find something for himself, and I hope he never gets paid more than his female co-stars again.
Definitely a Yes.
"But he [Renner] is making money and doesn't have to only do low budget indies now. When was the last time he did one?"
I would end that first sentence "and can do as many low-budget indies as he wants now." ;-)
His last low-budget indie came out this past fall: Kill the Messenger. I really liked his work in it, but it seriously bombed with little to no promotion from Focus Features.
I didn't watch the trailer, but I'm pretty much a Yes on this. I've enjoyed them all so far, and even though I usually can't stand Cruise's acting, he has some goodwill stored up from Edge of Tomorrow as well.
I am just thankful that they have kept the traditional Mission Impossible scene where the woman dresses up like a high class hooker in order to infiltrate a party (Thandie Newton, Maggie Q at the Vatican, Paula Patton in Bombay, and now apparently Rebecca Ferguson).
Some things are sacrosanct after all...
I'm bummed that Paula Patton isn't in it - she was such a fierce presence in Ghost Protocol and, even if there were scheduling conflicts, it sends out a really bad message that they can somehow hang on to Tom, Jeremy, Simon and Ving and not a single female from previous missions
The most foolhardy stunt Tom Cruise ever pulled was jumping up and down on Oprah's sofa!
Absolutely! Tom Cruise is one of the last genuine movie stars we have, and I feel like in this era of franchise flicks, audiences are coming around to that and willing to overlook any feelings they may have about his personal life. May he reign supreme.
I'm gonna be honest: I WAS a no. General franchise fatigue, and there's just no possible way this could ever top Ghost Protocol. But then I actually watched the trailer, and... YES. TOTAL YES. The M:I films have never taken themselves too seriously, and this looks to continue in that vein - and thankg GOD for that! Tom Cruise is great as Ethan Hunt, I like the rest of the cast, Rebecca Ferguson appears to be BRINGING IT, and while I highly doubt anything will ever top the Burj Khalifa sequence, that plane stunt looks like it will probably come pretty damn close.
I'm on the maybe so. In my mind Paula Patton should be back, and Jeremy Renner would be taking over. Ethan Hunt should have talem his series exit, but you can't expect Tom to let go. He's holding on with all his might to his last beacon of superstar popularity.
Sorry but Tom is just too long in the tooth for this. They should've stopped while they were ahead - the original.
A definite maybe. They are fun movies, but I can take them or leave them.