"Blue is glue, red is dead" Mission: Impossible 4 POST Release Thread - Page 3

Insignificant and totally co-incidental but still fun fact (well possibly ...). Both Josh Holloway and Jeremy Renner played vampires on Angel.

Who else from Angel can show up in MI5???

 

Can James Bond guest-star once they get to MI6?

They should actually cross over with Fast and the Furious.  If they can get another film in quickly enough, they could probably be in line by 7 or 8.

A crossover as epic as Flinstones Meets the Jetsons!

 

Ethan Hunt vs. Luke Hobbs!  The David and Goliath showdown cinema has been waiting for!!!

Huh, so I guess I'm not the only one who thought that Ethan Hunt was "simply a robot devoid of any real emotions."  While I certainly agree that films like MI: 4 are about vicariously living through the "ideal hero" as they get into ridiculous situation after ridiculous situation, it helps if said hero is at least somewhat interesting from a character standpoint.  It's a flaw that's more obvious due to Cruise's co-stars being far more engaging characters.

I thought the movie was a damn blast.  GREAT action.  The fisticuffs looked, sounded and felt brutal as fuck.  

 

The "No. SHIT." line particularly amused me because it was my immediate response, too!

 

The jump back into that window...Jesus.  My girlfriend, who loves action movies, gasped and covered her mouth when he hit the lip of the window.  That's some good tension in an action scene, if you ask me.

 

The big bad and is boring and it does make me imagine how much awesomer the movie would be with PSH's villain from 3 as the villain in 4 and that movie is super rad.

 

Really enjoyed it. Best pure action movie of the year.  Hanna and Attack the Block are better movies and Fast Five is still really fun, but for pure, spy-fi, cars, explosions and punchings, Mission: Impossible gets it.

I have to say, whatever ill-feelings I have about the movie, everything in Dubai is pretty much outstanding, and the tower climbing sequence is probably the best action/suspense scene in all the Mission Impossible movies (whatever that's worth).

 

Gonna watch this in IMAX (the real one) tonight. In preparation, I watched the first three flicks in a row today. 1 was pretty okay but weak. Felt very underwhelming and DePalma seems to be on autopilot. 2 is basically a John Woo action extravaganza and in those terms it's actually brilliant and the most entertaining of the first three. Then there's 3. Watching it seconds after 2 made it even worse because I jump from a movie with a great visual flair to some crummy looking TV-movie. Just doesn't hold up well at all and J.J. Abrams was such an awful choice after DePalma and Woo.

With all that aside, I look forward to GHOST PROTOCOL on IMAX.

It was through discussing the first 3 movies on Facebook with some Chewers where I realized how ridiculous the digital color timing in MI3 is.  I mean REALLY...

 

Yeah, it had some of the ugliest cinematography going on especially during that climax shown on the above pic. It made things feel cheaper and anti climatic. I think Abrams' grasp was far too short in his debut film. I'm not crazy about SUPER 8 but that had such a big improvement as far as film-making goes, despite his insistence on moving the camera around unnecessarily. I honestly don't think Abrams any different than Michael Bay as a director.

During that discussion, someone linked this NPR story from back in 2008:

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88444570

 

 

This is all part of the TEAL & ORANGIZATION epidemic in Hollywood!!! Hahahah

 

I could be wrong, but the color palette in MI4 felt MUCH more natural.

 

Someone.  Sure, nooj, someone.

Edited by neoolong - 12/19/11 at 5:00pm

Was it you?  I couldn't find that thread!  It was weeks ago!  Forgive meeeee!!!

It was six days ago!

 

Also, so Andreas Wisniewski played Max's companion in the first Mission Impossible movie, and now is playing the Fog's contact in MI4.  I guess at some time he switched employers, or are the Fog and Max connected?

 

Whole lotta subtle connections between the Ghost Protocol and the other movies.  Couldn't think of anything from MI2 though.

My favorite nod to earlier entries was the burlap sack Ethan has to wear in order to meet with the arms dealer is the EXACT SAME one he has to wear when he meets Max. Even has the same goofy eyes stitched onto it.

I think it's Andreas Wisniewski's character's personal mask.  He's the one that led Ethan both times after all.

Oh, that dude was the same guy!?  That's awesome!

 

Sorry, Peter.  I got the MI thread mixed up with the Fifth Element thread for some reason.  Hahahahahah.  You can see how terrible my memory is!

Just got out of this movie and once again, JJ Abrams teases us with a Bad Robot alumnus being a bad ass super spy only to take them out a minute or two later.   Dammit, I would have totally watched a Mission: Impossible movie with Josh Holloway as the lead or at least part of the team.   Cruise is getting up there in age and he should start thinking of handing off the series to a younger star.

 

As for the film itself, I thought it was the one that got most everything right.   The action scenes worked well, the team aspect was tight, and the story wasn't too hard to follow.   If only there was a more interesting villain to play off of, this would have been classic.    As it stands, it's easily the best since the first one and a pretty decent live action debut for Brad Bird.

The younger star would be Renner presumably.  Although he's in his 40's.

Would audiences watch a Josh Holloway headlined action flick? Just curious about that.

 

Probably not.

 

It is kind of weird how Lost failed to launch any of those guys into stardom. Holloway in particular. Skeletons in their closets?

Good question.   At the very least he could have headlined a spin off movie the same as Keri Russel.   I'm actually surprised that there isn't any spin off movies from this franchise yet.   Anyway, I fully expect Terry O' Quinn to be some grizzled field agent who does some badass stuff only to be killed 5 minutes later in the next one.

Has that really borne out in the past with other TV shows?  I'm sure there are individual cases, but even great actors on a TV show might not cross over.  David Caruso!

 

Lost only ended last year also.  Admittedly, he doesn't have a lot of stuff lined up according to IMDB.

Matthew Fox is training to be a Secret Agent right now!

 

This is especially the case with actors on genre TV shows.   Just look at Star Trek and its 40 year history.   How many have broken out?   Shatner?   Patrick Stewart?    I think with Cruise getting older, the next M:I movie needs to be a passing the baton film or you risk a Roger Moore situation when he overstayed his welcome with the Bond movies.

I checked this out on Sunday. It was ok. I still love MI3 the best. I can't help it. I hate one and two but I love MI3. This one just seemed weaker. I don't understand the fascination with IMAX either. Nothing ever WOW'ed me like people always say with IMAX. To me, I'm just watching it on a bigger screen. The scene where Cruise and Pegg create that virtual wall thing seemed pointless. If Cruise was dressed up as that General guy then why couldn't he just go into that room anyways? Or demand that that guard open it up?

 

Anyways... the Dubai building scene was pretty great though. Seeing that behind the scenes video makes me love practical stunt work even more. There's just no comparison between CGI "stunt" work and real stunt work. CGI can be added to maybe slightly enhance practical work but it's just not as good when doing full CG (the Kremlin explosion for example and the football field demolition in TDKR).

 

I liked the cast, they all did good. It was fun seeing Rhames show up. Renner was good. Is he supposed to carry on the MI franchise? Because isn't he doing the Bourne reboots? Maybe I mis-read something somewhere.

 

I'm sure there was other stuff I liked and disliked but I really can't remember much of the movie.

The movie did seem a little light but I kinda liked that.   We've had alot of darker M:I movies so it was nice to see a change of pace in terms of tone.   I too have a soft spot for M:I 3 as that one had arguably one of the better stories and inarguably one of the best villains in the franchise.   It certainly deserves more love than it gets.

There's a nice interview up at Wired with Brad Bird about Ghost Protocol and other projects.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/12/brad-bird-interview/

 

'Michael Giacchino...and I were having lunch at Bad Robot when J.J. walked by and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was just looking around, and that night he sent me a text that just said, 'Mission?'

 

That's quite a difficult text to reply to.

'OK! lol'

I don't give two fucks about this franchise, but it was the boyfriend's turn to pick a movie.  Holy shit, I had such a great time watching this.  Watching Tommy boy outrun ridiculous scenario after ridiculous scenario (Kremlin collapse!  Sandstorm!) was a riot.  The Dubai building sequence made my palms sweat.  I fucking jumped out of my seat when he hit the top of the window after he jumped.  Speaking of sweat, I'm pretty sure every man in the theater was secreting something when Paula Patton was onscreen.  That woman is flat-out STUNNING.  Pretty sure Cruise demanded that throwaway kiss just to say that he kissed her.

 

Guilty!

 

 

Saw it, liked it, now I'm having trouble remembering it, except Dubai.

 

 

My boyfriend gasped when she got out of the car in that dress.  I was right there with him.  Robin Thicke is a lucky man.
 

 

Her face actually reminds me of Kim Kardashian's... except, you know... not hateful.  

 

Patton was lovely.  I loved that moment where she goes, "I'M ON IT!" and takes off her heels to go after the assassin.

We've got a tag-team review (one of so, so many this week) that's damn near completion. I liked it, Nick really liked it. Should be fun times when it's up.

 

I will say that I'm pretty proud of the new term I've coined for "lame bad guy."

So, after hearing a lot of praise for this in the B-Action Movie Thread, I decided to check out this movie earlier today. I didn't see it on a real or faux-IMAX screen, but rather one of those giant screen knockoff faux-IMAX deals.

 

Truth be told, I've only seen 1, 2, and 4 this week. 1 is goofy yet entertaining, and it has nice scenes and a rather bombastic ending which at least I was able to laugh at in a good way. 2... that turned me off almost right away, and not just because they used that Limp Bizkit song during the opening credits and thus dated things rather badly. The characters were dumb and irritating, and doing a lot of stupid things just because the script told them so. It was just something I didn't like, aside from some nice action stuff.

 

This movie, though, sure it's ridiculous and you don't want to think too much about the plot. Yet, it's satisfying popcorn entertainment. I don't think it's as great as some people on this site have suggested, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit and it was worth it to see the action stuff on the big screen. I certainly prefer this sort of popcorn entertainment to stuff like the Transformers movies or overplotted messes (i.e. the Pirates series as a whole). Hell, I much rather preferred this spy movie to Quantum of Solace. Not to start a new tangent here, but I'll agree with the person who said that Bird should direct a Bond film. I'd be down with that.

I think he was lost.

We have to go baaaack!

 

 

After this and The Incredibles, I'd be down for that as well.  And despite his villain being somewhat lackluster here, I think Nyqvist would make a pretty damn good Blofeld if they ever decide to reintroduce him.

Our tag-team review:

 

http://www.chud.com/77912/tag-team-review-mission-impossible-ghost-protocol/

 

Vanillain!

 

Nice review, and I saw it pretty much how Nick saw it.

 

I also was so ignorant of the making of this movie thought I was watching Alice Braga the whole time. Who the hell is Paula Patton? And where can I see more of her?

The only two parts I didn't really dig apart from the vanillain were the hallway projection screen gadget and the Ethan-hunt-climbs-all-over-the-outside-of-a-bunch-of-windows-but-nobody-sees-him scene.

 

I particularly liked Anil Kipoor. Dude cracks me up with both his facial and vocal expressions.

 

I also really liked how the dust storm worked into the action, especially how they had fun with the old "blip suddenly approaching at surprising speed" trick.

 

Also ...

 

Pretty sure Patton has the distinction of representing one of the only boob shots in modern PG-13 history (last ten-fifteen years). That would be Deja Vu.

First of all.  Holy shit!  I know it has been said already, but the Dubai sequence in Imax is just fucking awesome.  Like historically awesome.  Its one of the greatest action scenes I've ever seen, made possible by Imax cameras.

 

Anyone who watched it in Imax will know the movie frequently switches between regular footage and Imax footage.  And when we're treated to the Imax footage its glorious.  The scope and insane resolution afforded by the Imax cameras really looks incredible in the Dubai sequence.  The Imax footage is the pinnacle of cinematic presentation, IMO.  Can you imagine what it would be like if the whole film was shot in Imax?  Hopefully, this is the future of cinema.

 

Overall, I enjoyed the movie quite a lot.  The direction and directing choices were perfect.    Yet, the movie certainly wasn't perfect.  Yes, it was filled with lots of great scenes and moments, but the actual script and especially the characters were lacking at times.  The main villain was too thin.  His desire to destroy the planet didn't seem fleshed out or well explained, and this hurt the film.  As much as I like Michael Inqvist, he wasn't a compelling enough character.  And Anil Kapoor came off as unnecessarily buffoonish.  As much as I enjoyed this new MI, it felt a little like a collection of great sequences rather than a cohesive narrative experience.

Am I crazy, or was Lea Seydoux's name in this movie Lea Seydoux?  Because I don't recall her ever being called Sabine Moreau (from IMDB).  Weird.  My brain must've just made some wrong connections.

 

ANYWAY... SHE ONLY GETS PAID IN DIAMONDS!!!!

When she got her kick out the window, all I could think was "There goes a perfectly fine set of breasts." I know, she was evil, horrible, a murderer and such...but there's a shortage of perfect breasts in the world, it seemed almost a pity to waste hers.

I can so easily picture you saying that laying incapacitated in bed... with only the use of one hand.

They name her when her picture comes up during the mission briefing on the train. 

 

Just to clarify something about the ending: so is Ethan truly divorced from his wife, or is she still faking her death, or what?  That wasn't a look of "Oh my God, we cannot be together LONGING!" between them at the end.  They both looked way too cheery for a couple who supposedly can't be together without the woman being in mortal peril.

 

Seems like she's still faking her death.  Probably has a new identity or something (as a member of Grey's Anatomy!!!).  Stalking her seemed to be something he did once in a while and her reaction to seeing him looked like one of welcoming surprise.  But not surprised enough where it's the first time she's seen him since their 'split.'

Yeah, the ending was so goofy. I read it as her being in some kind of Ethan-organised witness protection but the fact they didn't actually meet up and only engaged in long distance grinning just felt odd. She seemed wildly happy for someone who couldn't be with her beloved.

Can I just say I fucking love the gadgets in this movie? The eye-tracking disguise screen, the throwable, instantly-inflating stunt cushion, the glue gloves, the magnet robot with metal suit accessory. This seriously might be the best lineup of film gadgetry since... shit, maybe Goldfinger. The fact that they always malfunction actually makes it even better to me.

I'm usually pretty cool in the theater, but when the blip got closer, and Ethan got hit by the car I let out a Ha!