A Decent Action Film

Rating: 7/10 (5 July 2015)

To me a film becomes boring if it becomes predictable - especially if what was predictable was supposed to be a huge twist for the film. Even though I sometimes write spoilers I'm not going to spoil who the villain of the film is (I knew in the first 15 minutes of the film) but that doesn't really matter since it is so easy to figure out.
I noticed that this film set a lot of precedents for action films made after this film. For example, if you have seen the first Spider-man film with Tobey Maguire then you probably remember the scene where Peter's single drop of blood signals Osbourne to become suspicious of his environment, and it is a very tense, simple scene. Well, in Mission: Impossible, Tom Cruise is breaking into a room which will sound an alarm if the tiniest amount of weight is added to the room, even a drop of water, and Cruise starts sweating, and the scene becomes tense when a single drop of sweat is about to fall from the glasses he is wearing.
This movie seems to think it is being overly smart which gets annoying when you realize the story is pretty simple. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is on a mission at the start of the movie that goes haywire and results in the death of most of his team members. Somebody who is higher up than Hunt in this business calls him to a meeting immediately, where Hunt learns they think he is a traitor, so he has been set up. The plot then focuses on Hunt trying to contact the actual mole in the agency by referencing a specific bible verse from the book of Job (something was mentioned about a "job" in his initial meeting with the executive) and in my mind it is kind of confusing how he knows exactly what to say and who to e-mail to try to find the mole. It becomes like speaking in riddles and I do not think the movie needed to be this "smart" when its purpose was to be a fun action movie.
Towards the end of the film, the CGI is just plain terrible in the climactic action sequence. Not to say that the action itself is not fun, but it just breaks the illusion of the film and you realize you're watching a movie (a movie should allow you to get lost in it). This is especially noticeable when Cruise's character flies towards the camera at one point, and you notice that the Cruise coming at you is computer generated for two thirds of the jump. The one effect I was astounded by, however, was the use of masks in the film - I'm not sure if the masks were real masks, but damn, they were elaborate masks that copied exactly how other characters in the movie looked, and I have to say bravo.
I didn't enjoy this action movie since it wasn't as fun for me as other action movies, but perhaps this is your type of action movie; who am I to say?