Mission Impossible meets Sherlock Holmes

Rating: 6/10 (31 July 2015)

This film goes completely over the top. The storyline is quite ridiculous. But, in addition to the action / stunts / fights / shooting that is the usual motif of this type of film, we now have the inclusion of the Sherlock Holmes factor: intelligence. Yes, folks, Ethan Hunt and his nemesis, Solomon Lane, are locked in a battle of wits. It's like Holmes and Moriarty all over again. Each of them reminds the audience at regular intervals how they have got the other's next moves all worked out. But B knows that A has got his moves all worked out. So B does something different. But A knew that B was going to do something different and had planned for that outcome. But B knew that A would realise that B would change his plan and so then B doesn't his plan after all.Or maybe he changes his plan in a different way. Who knows? Who cares? The result is a storyline of bluff laid upon double bluff laid upon triple bluff until we really have no idea which character is the most intelligent because we have no idea what is going on. But then there's a motorbike chase which is fine because we know how those work. Ving Rhames must have weeped when he first read his lines in the script. Ditto Baldwin.