Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a writting masterclass
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https://blenderdumbass.org/reviews/rodan__1956__jetted_its_way_to_alpha_centauri. : 👁 1
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
In Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning the mission is so impossible that there is a possibility that either Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, the entire world, or both will die. Not to mention that Tom Cruise himself can die. Because in this one he climbs from one plane to another mid flight. ↩ Reply
Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie this movie is oozing with McQuarriness. This is the kind of writer that doesn't just do a cool twist in the end of the film. This is one of those writes that puts a mind-blowing twist in every scene of the movie. Yet in this film he took on a much larger challenge. ↩ Reply
The franchise ( until McQuarrie took over ) was primarily directed one-film-per-director. So we had a cool ass dramatic thriller with the first film by Brian De Palma. And then an explosive Hong-Kong style high octane action film by John Woo, which feels like it is in a different universe all together, to the first film. And then J. J. Abrams tried to course correct a little bit, by trying to merge the two previous movies into this new genre, which the movies pretty much were to this day, through Brad Bird and into Christopher McQuarrie ( who added his flavor or writing to the table ). ↩ Reply
Now McQuarrie is trying to tie all this nonsense into one coherent thread, making all those utterly different movies make sense as one continuous story. A story that question's Ethan Hunt's actions and asks whether all those mission that he did were truly Impossible. ↩ Reply
There are a lot of very bad movies about surveillance happening lately. From the abysmal Ice Cube's take on War of the Worlds to barely unwatchable films like 2017's James Ponsoldt's The Circle with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. All of which care about the subject matter ( maybe ) but do not care much about the movie itself. Making you feel like you are watching a lecture in the best of cases. And in the worst of cases you get Ice Cube's War of the Worlds. ↩ Reply
But some good film-makers with similar themes still exist. Strangely a lot of good films about the subject came out long time ago, from Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation ( 1974 ) to Tony Scott's Enemy of the State ( 1998 ) to Steven Spielberg's Minority Report ( 2002 ). But it doesn't mean good films about the subject matter aren't done today. We have Sam Mendes's James Bond: Spectre ( 2015 ), Oliver Stone's Snowden ( 2016 ) and even Spielberg's Ready Player One ( 2018 ). The Final Reckoning and it's previous part The Dead Reckoning are kind of about the same thing, in a way. But with a twist. ↩ Reply
The main bad guy in these two Mission: Impossible films is an AI entity. Basically Ethan Hunt and co are fighting against ChatGPT. Yet McQuarrie takes both the subject matter ( of a rouge AI that ( because people are dumb enough to have digital surveillance ) is about to control everything everywhere all at once ) and the film-making of the movie itself very seriously, with good twists and nice action scenes and everything in between. ↩ Reply
So think about this, McQuarrie takes a disjointed mess of movies and a complex subject matter that usually turns into a dull film and makes out of it not just something watchable, but something epic and amazing. This is some real skill there. ↩ Reply
Tom Cruise ( who, by the way was in Minority Report that had similar themes and also was in a much better War of the Worlds, also done by Spielberg ) is also very dedicated to this movie. In some strange sense because Tom is 63 and making his own stunts is kind of insane, this movie is an anti-ageism movie too. But not just on screen. Behind the scenes as well. ↩ Reply
There are what I would consider flaws. McQuarrie's answer ( probably because he likes to shoot on film and do practical stunts ) to the problem of big tech is to go back to analog. As in, to use paper and film and VHS cassettes and stuff. It almost feels like, he knows there is a problem, but he is not aware of any actual solution. And I cannot blame him for that. ↩ Reply
Maybe somebody needs to send McQuarrie a link to gnu.org or something... ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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