Always Good Movies

Direction: Christopher McQuarrie
Country: USA

Awesomely scripted, the seventh installment of Mission Impossible franchise, is neither unworthy nor mind-blowing. It features its star, Tom Cruise, in top form, as super-spy Ethan Hunt, who, this time around, fights a ghost from his past - the terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales) - and a metaphysical Entity that, as a destructive AI parasite, undermines digital communications and threats humanity. The secret to avoiding its propagation is to find the other half of a cruciform key with the help of old IMF teammates, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and an unexpected new partner and incorrigible thief, Grace (Hayley Atwell).

Director Christopher McQuarrie directs this well-calibrated, fast-paced action romp with panache, taking in typical car and motorcycle chases, and extending them to an uncontrolled train - the famous Orient Express - crammed with enemies. Although every threatening occurrence is solved last minute with an excess of coincidence and implausibility, the good outweighs the bad via its sense of adventure, ranging motion and thrilling tone. It is escapist entertainment with no fainting spells. Nothing more, nothing less.

Meeting the canons of the saga while taking the form of an artful spectacle, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One was the most expensive and longest film of the series, but is far from being an extraordinary achievement. Fans can expect Part Two to arrive in 2024.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Country: USA

Under the direction of Christopher McQuarrie, “Mission Impossible - Fallout” is the follow up to “Rogue Nation”. The sixth installment of the MI franchise continues to incorporate Tom Cruise as IMF agent and team leader Ethan Hunt. For the present adventure he teams up with his loyal friend Luther (Ving Rhames), IMF field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), and CIA assassin, August Walker (Henry Cavill), hired to control all his moves.

They all engage on a suicide mission in an attempt to dismantle The Apostles, a terrorist group that emerged from the extint The Syndicate, after the capture of its anarchic leader Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). The group is illegally dealing plutonium cores in Europe and Hunt is assigned to retrieve the hazardous material. However, the secret agents fail to accomplish the mission in Berlin when Ethan decides to put Luther’s life in first place, leaving the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett), in a pile of nerves.

With the agent’s double life featured through an encounter with his estranged wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan), the film advances at high speed, relying on the tension created by interminable and often overdone motorcycle/car chases that take us to inevitably packed crossroads and confined dead alleys. Besides this, we have supplementary manhunt mania in Kashmir, this time involving a plane and a helicopter; agile physical confrontations; advanced technology methods; and dangerous transactions with sudden ambushes.

Co-produced by McQuarrie, Cruise, JJ Abrams (“Super 8”; “Star Trek”; “Star Wars: The Force awakens”), and Jake Myers (“Dunkirk”, “The Revenant”, “Interstellar”), this blockbuster satisfies in its purpose but doesn’t earn the title of ‘impossible to miss’.