Year: 2025
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
And so we arrive at the End Of A Major Film Franchise, now traditionally requiring a two-parter finale of bottom-numbing length. And so it is with MI8 and its just shy of 3 hours run-time. We saw it on a Sunday afternoon which seems about the right time, and on the big screen which is definitely the right place.
The plot, as is also traditional in MI films is both convoluted and nonsensical. Malware baddie The Entity is now taking control of all the world’s nukes to create some sort of Matrix-style nuclear post apocalypse world to rule over, where Mcafee and Norton are but a distant memory and there are no pesky humans to turn things off and on again. To combat it Tom must get into the sunken sub that started it all in the predecessor with his special key, and take a portable hard-drive together with another piece of code while avoiding the Russians who also…and returning Entity’s Representative on Earth Gabriel…before his own government…oh god this really does make no sense.
What’s great about this film, as with all the MIs is the set-piece stunt action sequences delivered through practical effects rather than CGI. It takes some time to get us there (and Hannah Waddingham as the least likely captain of a US aircraft carrier in history) but the submarine sequence is as thrilling a set-piece as anything in the preceding seven. Just Tom vs the water and cold and the architecture of the sub, it delivers everything you want from an action movie in 15 minutes of virtually silent fantastic action. Second set-piece, without any spoilers, is the biplane chase which sees Tom and Gabriel facing off in mid-air. It’s far too long, and to get Tom and the baddie mid-air twists the plot into even more mind-numbing and pointless contortions, but you do get that weird face contorting from the wind to show these are real stunts done by real men.
For the other two hours of the film there’s a lot of exposition to ensure we know exactly what each hard drive contains and why the fate of the whole world rests on Tom getting hold of it/deliberately letting it go/whatever. Adding to the End there’s many callbacks and montages from the previous seven movies – and one quite neat recycling of a character from the first movie, now stuck on an island in the arctic where of course the fate of the world brings everyone. What else? See Tom run with his funny arm action around deserted bits of London that have that hyper-real look now seen in everything from Paddington to Black Doves. There’s a quasi-love interest with Hayley Atwell, but really he’s too old for this stuff now. Next stop the Liam Limp as the grandad action hero.
What’s also great, though not for everyone, is the scenery-chewing A-listers lined up to shout about The End of the World. Angela Bassett as the President, Hannah Waddingham in her combat gear, Mark Gatiss as a head spook, Nick Offerman in his best junta general gear. Special mention to Milchick from Severance who has moved sideways from Lumen Industries to commanding a submarine. All good fun.
What’s not so great, as in art One, is the lack of any defined baddie. The ‘supercomputer takes over the world’ has had many iterations from The Forbin Project to War Games to The Terminator. In all of them there’s been a box, or robot minions, to give a physical presence or threat. The ghost in the machine that is The Entity is a rather bland screensaver. Which may be of course true, but gives the whole thing the air of a rather pressing cybersecurity issue.Again, the plot doesn’t bear any thinking as Tom appears to be able to globetrot quite happily without The Entity’s knowledge. Though I notice he avoided getting a meal deal from M and S. Gabriel, who wants to control the Entity, is a rather forgettable henchman/double crosser who really just adds to the confusion around who Tom is meant to be fighting and why.
On the whole fantastic entertainment, and the hair budget alone for Mr Cruise would power Mike Leigh’s next five movies. Also: as ever with the Cruiser there’s a camp take on all the macho posturing indulged in, as Tom takes on not one but two separate baddies clad only in his underpants.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
Well 1-7. Screensavers.
Was it really a final reckoning? For the characters a bit of yes, a bit of no. Well my thoughts are whither the Cruiser after this. Action has always been his core skill – and at 61 (15 in lizard years of course) he’s heading into Liam Neeson territory. Top Gun 3 with him as the grizzled vet tutoring the grizzled vets tutoring the young guns…
We got a special intro from Tom thanking us for coming to the cinema, and how stoked the cast and crew were about the film. What with the none-too subtle pop at CGI he clearly wants to carrry on making films for the mass audience. All the trailers (for a 12A) were superhero or existing IP.
That submarine sequence was really something – intense and oppressive, to the extent that I had to have a sharp puff on my inhaler!
Your review mirrored my thoughts rather worringly exactly. It was great, even more silly than usual, both over-long and not long enough (the movie not your review, of course… ahem).
The sub sequence was absolutely gripping and easily the best bit of actual film-making art in the whole shebang, made even more exciting by the sound you get in IMAX screenings. The sound, editing and camera people need awards for this movie but they won’t get them, which is a shame.
Cruise lives for this sort of thing and it must be really hard to let go. I don’t really want him to either but all things must pass.
Sounds awful.
Like the others.
Spot on review. This franchise used to be 80% mind blowing action sequences, 20% people talking nonsense in conference rooms. The last couple of movies have reversed those ratios and been all the worse for it. The sub sequence was great though.
The only thing I’d take issue with is the notion that Action has always been the Cruiser’s top skill. That’s a relatively recent development; many of the peaks of his imperial phase involve little or no action at all (Cocktail, Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire, et al).
I’d actually say his top skills have always been running, getting suddenly quite angry and shit eating grins. No one in Hollywood history can match him in those areas.
One day I will write the lengthy and tedious post on Cruise’s career that I know is bubbling away inside me. Fortunately, today will not be that day.
I was disappoint.
I expected to have to suspend my disbelief. The stunts are impossible, of course. But, I enjoy MI when there is some kind of coherent narrative I can hang my disbelief hat on. Not the case this time. A nebulous AI super being taking over the world. Cuh!
I’m also very fed up with a bomb timer involving a clock that ticks away at an incredibly slow pace. 3 minutes? 15 more like.
The whole “let’s hope your reflexes are up to saving the world” bit broke my FFS-ometer, true; but come on, when you get right down to it what are supercomputers for if not to try to take over the world?
I think that bomb timers with the countdown clock are a narrative device you can use once per film.
And only if they keep time properly. Don’t create tension by giving someone 2 minutes to save the world and then take 10 minutes to run the clock down.
I know! SPOILER ALERT.
When the second bomb started ticking, my eyes rolled.
Your eyes rolled? Well that’s ruined it for me.
I love a good action film. There are too many that aren’t good though – if there is insuffient narrative, if the narrative is preposterous or if its just the same as the previous 5 in the franchise.
Happily, MI sounds good enough – just.
The submarine and biplane scenes make it worth watching.
Haven’t watched any of them., but have inherited a few Blu-rays that my former father-in-law was dumping. Is there a masterpiece amongst them or is it all special effects and Tom Cruise pretending he can act?
None of them have the emotional heft of It’s A Wonderful Life, to be sure, but then again IAWL doesn’t have two blokes having a fight in a biplane.
And if you don’t think he can act why watch any of them?
Might be better if he doesn’t need to act very much. For me action films work if you feel real danger and care about what happens to the characters. Just wondering which one is the best for that
* He was good in Born on the 4th of July and not bad in Rainman