Review

Rating: 6/10 (14 January 2012)

I think this is what you'd expect to see out of a Mission Impossible film. I have to say I thought it was probably better than the other 2. I seem to remember the first one being overly complicated, and the second one not really having much substance. Not that this one carries a whole lot more substance, but Simon Pegg was good in it. He did pretty much what he was supposed to do. As I am a fan of his, my expectations of him are high, and he didn't disappoint. I believe he managed to satirise some of the action film clichés, and thus elevate this otherwise fairly ordinary outing. Of course, I don't want to appear stupid, he didn't write the stuff, so full credit has to go to the writers as well. His character is pretty much the reason why this film gets a 6 not a 5 for me. Other aspects of the film are as expected. The action sequences are slick, the bit where the Kremlin blows up is excellent, and the technology is cool. The story line is a little over complicated obviously to exacerbate the drama. To begin with there are few of these obvious contrivances, but as the film goes on there are more and more. I don't know whether it is Tom Cruise, but whenever he is explaining those complex 'mission briefs' I tend to get confused? Like I need the pause button for him to run through it one more time. And in my defense, I don't think that it's me being slow. I think I probably have a 'just above average' ability to pick up narrative, which leaves me one question - what does Cruise or the directors of these films want to achieve by baffling their audiences. Are they covering for nasty contrivances in their plots? Do they want to appear clever? Or do they simply not have the chops to express themselves clearly? Which ever it is, it goes down as a negative in my book. Overall, I enjoyed myself. Everything flowed along, I could ignore some of the 'why didn't they just do that' moments, the humour was well placed (not just by Pegg also from a supporting cast member called Jeremy Renner (I have just looked up). This guy actually manages to produce a mysterious character which was cool. Again, not all his doing), I felt like I got my moneys worth. I think you will get what you expect, and I wouldn't expect you would expect to remember this film in a month. FYI, thought this was the MI3, not MI4, obviously blanked 3 from my mind. That is probably a fair indication of this ones longevity as well.