Year: 2015
Director: Chris McQuarrie
Let’s get something straight from the start. This is a movie reaching a broad demographic – represented in our party by three parents and four children aged 9-13. It’s a broad movie, offering thrills, a few laughs and two hours of entertainment in the dark. It’s not Haneke and several years of taking children to big Hollywood action movies have taught me to:
Forget about the plot. The world will be saved. Tom will not fall off the building/airplane/motorbike and smear himself all over the tarmac. Here there is a convoluted Skyfallesque plot about a secret organisation of rogue agents, which Tom and Simon and Jeremy and Ving have to fight by going rogue. It’s called Rogue Nation. We get it. Everyone is rogue. I bet if they went to Caffe Nero the baristas would have gone rogue.
Enjoy the set-pieces. There’s a pre-credit one on a plane. The best one in this is done very stylishly at the Vienna State Opera – all kinds of assassins turning their brass instruments into weapons, and surely they’ve seen the Marx Brothers A Night At The Opera when we get everyone swinging from the fly floor on the stage ropes. The motorbike chase is a bit ho-hum, then we get an underwater bit at a secret computer facility cum power plant. It’s got a great starting dive that should feature in the next edition of Splash! The final chase and shoot-out is a bit undercooked for me but there’s enough thrills for everyone.
It’s all about the small pleasures. Take the little moments, intentional or unintentional, and forget about whether it’s a good movie or not. There are plenty to enjoy here.
The opening scene post-credits sees Tom crate digging at an IMF outpost at the back of a trendy vinyl shop. Tom and the blonde manning it have to get through some excruciating dialogue about jazz back catalogues or something.
The Brit actors on pension pot duty! We get Simon McBurney and Tom Hollander (the Rev cast) pretending to be the head of the British Secret Service and the Prime Minister while chewing the scenery. Rev as PM – how great is that?
Alec Baldwin as head of the CIA, channeling pure 30 Rock suit-ness.
Sean Harris has ‘Worst Accent Ever’ as chief baddie. Jeremy Renner has just about the most lived-in face this side of Tom Waits. Rugged doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Everyone has to say ‘The IMF are in trouble’ or ‘The IMF are a rogue organisation’ with a straight face every 5 minutes. I kept waiting for Christine Lagarde to turn up and tell Alec Baldwin that the CIA were defaulting on their debts.
So not as good as Ghost Protocol. But – a bit but here. There are no People In Tights. None whatsoever. I feel that the family action movie that is not about superheroes is fast becoming an endangered species. Tom needs your vote, or he’ll have to take over the Taken franchise and no-one wants that.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
Skyfall, Brits in Hollywood, Awesomely obvious product placements. BMW Cars and – yes – Windows phones. jeremy Renner has to save the world with a Windows phone and a Dell computer. Good look with that!
Good review.
I really enjoyed this movie. I thought it was better than both Ghost Protocol (felt less like I was watching an expensive advert for the opulence of a sponsor Arab state) and Skyfall (in that it at least recognises its own ridiculousness).
Agree that the final action sequence in under-cooked, and that the opera scene is the high point.
I have grown to really like this franchise. I didn’t enjoy either of the first two movies, but three was superb, four was alright and this one is very good. There’s a bit of joy behind them these days, and I’ll be interested to see whether Cruise makes another; evidently the introduction of Renner was intended to enable him to phase out, but he’s had a change of heart.
I bloody love Tom Cruise. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: everything he’s in, be it tod or treasure, he acts his little baby socks off. He’s never been in a film that he hasn’t committed to 100% – he’s an absolute pro. No knowing asides or phoning it in for Tom. No archness, no po-mo, not so much as the obliquest glance at the fourth wall. He does the job every time, even when the script is shit and the director is, I dunno, McG or somebody. He’d earn every penny of his fee if he was in an Uwe Boll film.
I really enjoyed this film too, after being slightly disappointed in Ghost Protocol. And anyone who hasn’t seen Edge Of Tomorrow needs to, stat.
Nodding my head here like tiggerlion at a Kendrick Lamar gig.
Up arrow!
Everyone thinks that now though – don’t they? He had me at Jerry Maguire.
Edge of Tomorrow: very much an adrenaline generating machine blockbuster let down by ho-hum ending, I thought.
Jerry Mag? What kept you?
I was into him before Legend, which I watched on a limited edition pink plastic VHS tape that I imported from Japan.
Spot on. From Risky Business on he’s been a trooper. Couldn’t watch Eyes Wide Shut though. Not Tom’s fault, but there was something creepy about it.
Name one Tom Cruise film that could potentially appeal to me, a pseudo-intellectual film snob with a superiority complex who regards popular cinema with an affectation of haughty disdain.
Can’t, can you?
Didn’t think so.
Not one.
‘Cept Magnolia.
The single best thing about Thomas Cruise Mapother IV is that he doesn’t stoop to court the likes of you.
There’s no “of course, it just pays for the work I really want to do”, no hammocking European arthouse films between franchise blockbusters. He hits big with Top Gun in 86 and then it’s just blockbusters all the way:
The Colour of Money (1986)
Cocktail (1988)
Rain Man (1988)
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Days of Thunder (1990)
Far and Away (1992)
A Few Good Men (1992)
The Firm (1993)
Interview With the Vampire (1993)
Mission Impossible (1996)
Jerry Maguire (1996)
No messing about, no indie movies with worthy directors – jus smash after smash. He’s not a much of an actor but he’s one of the greatest movie stars that ever lived.
Also: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders (1983). Oh, and Aaron Sorkin wrote A Few Good Men if that floats your boat, ya big ponce.
Magnolia was good though.
Google Tarantino on top gun then you can enjoy it ironically. Me I love the f-14s straight up though Val Kilmer needs a touch of diStance.
He is THE greatest movie star ever, in terms of popular success, AND he saved the Hollywood motion picture industry from bankruptcy.
I know Eyes Wide Shut doesn’t get anything but sneers round here, but it’s a genius piece of work and Cruise is perfect in it.
But the movie I’d unhesitatingly recommend to Gary (and anyone) is the brilliant Collateral. Cruise as a very bad guy indeed. None more noir.
I saw the original Mission impossible, but none since. I saw MIRN last week & thoroughly enjoyed it.
Great stuff, looking forward to MI6 now.
Thanks Moseley. Reading this makes me think my son (12) would love it and I would doubtless grudgingly have fun.
BUT
You have ignored the major point: Has the Afterword gone rogue? Can there be rogues lurking on our threads? Will it be de-rouged in time?
De-rouged? How dare you!
I gather the buses powered by human excrement aren’t all that fast. In contrast, vehicles fuelled by “cum power” get you there in a jiffy..
Another small pleasure is watching the script struggle with updating the format to current trends and views. So Rebecca Ferguson (no not the ex x factor singer – would have been great if it was) gets a far more competent and active role than the traditional meet Bond/help Bond/shag Bond/die female in an action spy pic. Indeed its almost bromancer Simon Pegg who now fulfills the role, ending up kidnapped and needing to be rescued by Tom. ps Pegg went public on the posters which saw Ferguson’s posterior more prominently displayed than his
All Pegg has to do is stroll around a dress slit up to the thigh during one set piece, and do a scene where he strips to his undies (though in the background), and the job’s his completely.
I loved Usual Suspects and Way Of The Gun as much as anyone can, but Christopher McQuarrie’s been mainly ‘miss’ since, hasn’t he? (Apart from the first thirty minutes of Edge of Tomorrow, obvs.) e.g.
As Director
The Way of the Gun (2000) – Also writer (original screenplay)
Jack Reacher (2012) – Also writer (adapted from novel)
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) – Also co-writer with Drew Pearce (adapted from television series)
As Writer
Public Access (1993) – Co-writer with Bryan Singer and Michael Feit Doug
The Usual Suspects (1995) – Writer (original screenplay)
Valkyrie (2008) – Producer and co-writer (original screenplay) with Nathan Alexander
The Tourist (2010) – Co-writer with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and Julian Fellowes
Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) – Co-writer with Mark Bomback, Darren Lemke and Dan Studney (based on an original idea by Lemke)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – Co-writer with Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (adapted from novel)
Regarding Way of the Gun, it’s a great opening scene followed by a fairly mediocre movie, in my view. The last third, in particular, really drags. Vastly prefer Edge of Tomorrow, which deployed the Cruiser to great comic effect, particularly in the first half.
I’m also going to stick my neck out and say that I enjoyed Jack Reacher. I hadn’t read the books, so I didn’t come with any baggage, but I thought it was essentially a TV movie, bundled in with three great moments (Spoilers): the opening shot through the scope, the fight in the cramped bathroom and the Herzog speech about eating his own fingers. The movie worked for me because it was incredibly bland, but illuminated by two pulsating beacons of weirdness in the shape of Cruise and Herzog.
Ah, I thought Way Of The Gun rocked. I loved the reverse of the ‘slow’ car chase in particular, and the Peckinpah-ish shootout at the end. It was a while ago I saw it, though. Maybe I’d feel differently on a new viewing. Oh, and I Ioved the soundtrack as well.
Jack Reacher I literally can’t remember a thing about, but on reflection that could have been more about my disposition at the time, rather than any fault of the film. Someone gave me the DVD recently (along with Sucker Punch, ha!) so I’ll probably get round to it again.
Maybe I just loved that shocking opener so much that the rest of the movie just couldn’t live up to it. It just felt a bit “post-Tarantino 90s hit men movie” to me, but I should probably give it another look.
Sucker Punch – noooooooo!
Yeah, it’s weird cos I don’t actually remember the opening. It’s the car chase and the shootout that stuck out for me.
Here it is:
Early appearance from Sarah Silverman.
Thank you! I’ve just rewatched the shootout and it still pushed all my buttons. Virtually wordless until over four-and-a-half minutes in, and then the theme begins to build…
That’s much better than I remembered it.
Right, time to revisit. Ta!
MWHID
… it’s like that white triangle is trying to draw your attention to something …
Just to add: the Tourist and Jack the Giant Slayer are both appalling.
Tom Cruise? No No NO.
Not seen the film. How many running scenes has he got? He must have them in his contract.
I have a bad feeling about this movie, on the basis of the trailer. My feeling was, this looks shite. I think Ghost Protocol is perhaps the greatest action movie ever made, what the Bond movies should be but never are. But the trailer for this – Tom hanging off a dull old aeroplane, Tom in a dull old motorbike chase, Tom holding his breath underwater, Tom in a big orchestra scene … these are shabby, shopworn set pieces I’ve seen exactly thirteen thousand and four times before. The motorcycle chase (there may have been two – it seemed like it) made me groan out loud. Not again, Tom!
So I’ll pass on this one. Tom, I know, will be in floods of tears when he hears this, but hey. And from my limited understanding, it’s not exactly setting the US box office on fire, either.
Rogue Nation is forecast to clear $200m domestic, which will put it within touching distance of Ghost Protocol ($209m). It’s also killing it internationally.
There are, however, questions as to whether there will be a sixth installment of the series, now that Cruise is attached to the Afterword franchise.
Watched the Scientology documentary on the big screen recently. Tom is hilarious in this. I hadn’t realised he’d such a gift for comedy. He plays the part of a closeted, deluded madman impeccably. If he doesn’t get an Oscar for his performance, I’ll eat my E meter.
yes he is very good in that part. There was a Vanity Fair article a while back about how the church was trying to find him a new wife when Katie Holmes got out. Creepy.
Tom Cruise’s performance in Rain Man is the one that sticks out for me. A completely obnoxious, ignorant and blinkered self-serving charlatan who manages to gain our sympathy over the course of the film without really changing the fact that he is still deeply flawed and far from perfect.
The greatest Cruise performance of them all, the very apex of Cruise as phenomenon, is Jerry Maguire.
There are three things audiences have traditionally wanted from a Cruise flick: he needs to be angry, he needs to be in a rush and (ideally) he should have great hair. The hair probably peaked with Vanilla Sky, the anger with The Color of Money and the rushing with The Firm, but Jerry Maguire, and specifically the first half of Jerry Maguire, is where the Cruiser most mercilessly deploys his three principle weapons in tandem.
He’s not got much to work with; Renee Zelweger is sleepwalking as usual, the script is serviceable but not great, and the only things he really has to pop off are Jay Mohr and a six year old, and yet he makes it magical. His star wattage at this stage was so great that he could make a mediocre movie sparkle, and that’s exactly what he does here – hell, he evens makes Cuba Gooding Jnr look good.
Incidentally, my personal favourite Cruise performance is the opening twenty minutes of The Firm, in which the film tries so hard to make it clear that his character is a Good Guy (here he is waiting tables! Being cute with his wife! Studying hard! Doing back flips in the street with pre-pubescent acrobats!) that at some stage the effect begins to invert and the viewer finds themselves wondering what this guy’s deal is, what he’s working so hard to hide and – dear god – whether he might just be planning to kill us all.
The roots of Cruise’s late-career foray into playing his intrinsic weirdness for laughs (Knight and Day, Edge of Tomorrow) are right there in that sequence, and that’s why I love it.
Personally I think the hair in MI2 was his best. It found its own motivation, performed brilliantly under John Woo’s slo-mo yet still kinetic edits and, as a consequence, helped the audience to forget just how terrible a film it was. Cruise learned the hard way on Top Gun that a buzzcut on a motorbike doesn’t work emote half as well as a full head of hair full of body and bounce on a motorbike.
You make a strong case.
Tragically, I’m not at my desktop or I would stick up the poster for Vanilla Sky as irrefutable evidence for my bold, perhaps even reckless, claim above.
Alas, it’ll have to wait until Tuesday now.
No, the hair in Vanilla Sky is so distracted by the face mask and with the idea of having a threesome with Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz that it forgets to react in the key scenes of the film and, to be honest, it really lets Tom down when he deserved much more from his mane. Unlike in MI2 where it steals every single scene, even the ones with Anthony ‘Scene Stealer’ Hopkins, so Tom doesn’t have to be associated too much with the film being shit.
… where’s the votes for Collateral? I’d make a case for this having the greatest Cruise coiff – a steely silver-grey to match his suit and eyes.
Too muted. His hair is not so much acting a role but stepping back and portraying itself as the subjugated pupil to its corporeal mentor. For Tom’s hair to truly put in a performance that speaks volumes (in both thespian and tonsorial terms) it has to be something working beyond his body and not simply an extension of it.
Not sure that Mann’s preference for HD video really brings out the best in Tom’s coiffure.
OOAA
As promised, here is the greatest Cruise hair that ever there was or ever will be:
Just look at it! It’s like he’s just stepped out of the salon. And by “salon” I mean “impenetrable CIA stronghold housing the nuclear codes he needs to trade for his partner’s life”.
For anyone who spent the weekend frantically hunting for the “whattaguy” sequence from The Firm, here’s its grim denouement:
Picking up on the ‘tom trio’ the greatest of them all is surely Top Gun. He has great hair. He is in a rush not just on a bike but in a frickin F-14. The Tomcat. Tom in a Tomcat. Just reflect on that for a second. And Goose dies so hell yes he’s angry. Unspecified Arab airspace intruders watch out.
Last weekend my wife went to an outdoor screening of Top Gun with some mates.
Serendipitously, and much to the intense joy of those assembled, halfway through the movie a lone goose landed in front of the screen and proceeded to parade up and down, to massed cheers.
Sometimes the world is such a beautiful place.
Each to their own, I suppose.
My Cruiser of choice has a nice shiny pate:
Surely it’s this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQgXEkL3NV4
Totally missed this continuation of an awesome thread about the awesome Cruiser. To sum up then:
Acting – Maguire. Also not uncoincedentally contains his greatest line: ” I am out here for you. You don’t know what it’s like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok?”
Running – come on now, we all know it’s MI:3
Hair – Collateral