Mission Implausible

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2008)

This movie is an edge-of-the-seat roller-coaster ride. Cruise and Voight head a capable group of actors through a labyrinth of pyrotechnics and special effects and some needlessly graphic violence. The whole thing is so completely overblown and implausible that the acting is franked by the same stamp. There are situations that could scarcely be imagined outside of the movies, let alone anticipated, and so it would be impossible to imagine how one might react. As a result, human behaviour is of the the most banal, juvenile comic-book kind. It's how children would behave.
The story is suitably complex. There is wheeler-dealing and betrayal. And of course suspicion and discovery. It is a cosmopolitan effort, too, with some nicely selected locations, after the fashion of that equally preposterous James Bond franchise. America's most secret facilities are juxtaposed against a very grubby old back-street near London Bridge, with which I am readily familiar. And later there's a pub in Rotherhithe from which I've had the pleasure to wobble home a couple of times.
There is also a burglary so blatantly ripped-off from the older and more believable 'Topkapi' that I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the credits.
I don't mean to criticise this movie out of hand. It's what it is: impossible - comic-book nonsense. Sit back and enjoy the ride. My only grumble is that this style is becoming increasingly perceived as 'normal' in a movie context. There is so much 'Matrix' style hokum finding its way into movies in general that reality itself seems to be in danger of ending-up on the cutting-room floor. Nothing more demonstrates this phenomenon than baddies with machine guns who seem quite incapable of hitting anything except windows which shatter spectacularly. Fast-moving heroes seem bullet-proof.
Even a recent episode of CSI (a series with cerebral pretensions) saw Gary Sinise's character and a female side-kick, doing precisely this when their labs were invaded by armed villains. Then, within minutes they had set-up a bomb that was triggered by an invisible laser Field. Yep - I kid you not. Naturally, as a former lab technician, it's the first thing I thought of.
Pretty soon the only believable broadcast will be the test-screen.