Clichéd, by the book, lazy - you get the message

Rating: 2/10 (15 May 2017)

A quid in a charity shop - having enjoyed most of the others, and with this one being the most recent, I couldn't believe my luck! But now I know why someone donated it, and I feel short changed...
The Tom Cruise action series rumbles on and does so in a text book tick- the-box fashion - car chases (tick), chases on foot with gun and fights and stuff (tick), chases in the dark (tick), world wide locations (tick), Cruise being the only one with the 'vision' (tick), Cruise going on the run (tick), subterfuge and deception as standard (tick), the authorities not appreciating Cruise and his IMF chums (tick), Cruise having to do something death defying (tick) several times (tick), Cruise on a motorbike (tick), Cruise going against the advice of his IMF colleagues (tick), guns, lots of guns and gadgets and technology (tick), Cruise saving the girl (tick), the day (tick), the world (tick), etc (tick).
The writers appear to have either fallen asleep or just grown lazy when coming up with this one: the CIA (boo, hiss) want to close down Cruise (hurrah!) and his playmates for not being reliable with saving the world, citing the plots of previous films (breaking into CIA headquarters, destruction of the Kremlin, the missile that didn't wipe out Seattle, etc) to which Jeremy Renner (as Brandt) has to appear before a board of bigwigs and the CIA boss (Alec Baldwin) to argue his case for them not to be closed down (wasn't Renner a field agent in the previous movies? Where was their boss anyway?), which the CIA want, purely so that they can control an out of control Ethan Hawk (Cruise). But when the IMF (Cruise's boys) subsequently gets closed down, and absorbed into the CIA, Cruise goes underground to carry on his investigation into a group that everyone except Cruise (obviously!) believes does not exist. Baldwin decides that Cruise has gone renegade and pursues him like there isn't a bigger problem in the world to occupy his time (incidentally, it is unfortunate that the world moves on and Baldwin now plays the orange US president on SNL, because that was all I could think of in every one of his scenes), even to the point of making it a shoot to kill mission, seemingly because Cruise made a fool of him. There was a beautiful British enemy agent (actually working for the British secret service - or was she?) in a bikini, there was an unemotionally evil criminal boss with a weird voice, there was an evil British government minister with ugly glasses and a dull voice, there were a few evil henchmen who looked as though central casting had been asked to just send some mean-looking east European-looking hombres (own hair not important) along, there was blundering Benji and dependable Luther to do the technical stuff, warn Cruise not to give the secret 'gadget thing' to the opposition and look scared, confused and knowing as required.
Like I said earlier, straight out of a text book; sometimes the end result of a scenario was practically telegraphed, it was so predictable. The mystery came from trying to figure out whether the girl would die before the end of the film, and how the baddie would die (spoiler - he doesn't).
On the DVD there was an additional special feature, a short called Cruise Control, about (surprise surprise) Tom Cruise, a little propaganda piece in favour of Cruise, with his colleagues (from both in front of and behind the camera) telling us that he was a dream to work with, that he was on the side of the movie goer, that he was dedicated to bringing the best film possible to the viewer, etc. My eyes glazed over and as a result I missed the end, but it is safe to assume that Cruise overcame the baddies, got the girl, and saved the world as usual.
I have been of the opinion that M:I2 was the worst of the bunch; it might still be if I can't convince myself that lazy and predictable equals bad.