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.