Well, it’s a Mission: Impossible. They got masks. They got self-destructing tapes. Big action set pieces. Tom Cruise on a motorcycle (a couple times). And I enjoy all that stuff. Perfect popcorn movie in that way.
And yet, I remember enjoying moments more in previous films (who can forget Henry Cavill reloading his arms or the skydiving fistfight?). I also frankly only vaguely remember the plots of… any of the previous films? There’s a backstory callback in this one and I’m frankly unsure if it’s new or not. It could go either way!
Now to talk about the elephant in the room: the half movie structure. This is a two hour and forty three minute movie. We at least get like a… macguffin arc for this one. But you can’t tell me that they couldn’t have fit the whole plot into this movie. It’s practically made of filler bullshit. I watched Across the Spider-verse last week and even though it bothered me, too it felt like most of the runtime was doing like, themes. This is just counting down requisite action sequences.
Speaking of action sequences, I’ll give them props, there’s some creative ones. I especially like the part where they have to escape several train cars from falling into a ravine in a row. Tom Cruise’s fetish for doing stuff For Real really shines here.
The only exception to that being several scenes where his face looks funny because the wind whipping around it. This is particularly funny in a close up where there’s no reason for him to be on a moving train given that there’s no meaningful background.
Anyway in conclusion: it’s mid. A lot of unforced errors could have made a decent entry in the series at least a more compelling one.