Where I Watched it: Digital Copy I Own

English Audio Description Provided By Darren Polish

Narrated By: Darren Polish

Cast: Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny, Cary Elwes, Vanessa Kirby, and Pom Klementieff

Written By: Erik Jendresen and Christopher McQuarrie

Directed By: Christopher McQuarrie

The Entity. I wish they had a better name for that. For it to be as freakishly powerful as it supposedly is, it should pack a scarier punch. Not everyone has loved this entry, and for various reasons. I think we’ve come to expect a lot from these films, and while I really did like it, even I have to admit that it fell just short of its previous two entries.

The Entity is basically Mission Impossible’s attempt at fighting an enemy Ethan can’t see, AI that is sentient and therefore much smarter than him or his team. How can they beat something that is fully tapped into every piece of technology everywhere? Esai Morales, who has been churning out solid work for years, finally gets some time in the sun. What a casting choice. I never would have predicted Morales would get a prime villain spot in this series, but here he is. And he’s great, though i have seen some disagree. I think it’s unfair to compare him to past villains because they all offered something different. Each main villain, or secondary villain, has brought something new, and Morales doesn’t feel like he’s copying anyone,. He’s confident enough to walk in anywhere armed with the information he has learned from The Entity, and get people to do things for him. He knows your Google search history by heart. Clearly an intelligent villain, he also has a fight sequence in here that is the real reason most people tuned out.

Yeah, someone doesn’t make the cut. But for a series that has seen a lot of loss across the Impossible Mission Force, including high turnover in their leadership, and a disappearing Jeremy Renner, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the family would be broken up again at some point. I know fans were disappointed, and I was a little bit too, but we have to continue to raise the stakes.

this is and always will be Tom Cruise’s franchise. Ethan Hunt is the star, and the fact that a major loss for him will fuel Part 2, really excites me. Also, in the world of these hanging chad films we’ve had this year, Dead Reckoning is the one that felt most like it finished a complete thought. Sure, there’s still work to be done, but it introduced the impossible mission in parts, and Hunt has achieved part of this journey he’s on. The ending to Across The Spiderverse is just weird, because the story introduced something it really didn’t finish, or even attempt to. That truly does feel like a movie chopped in half, whereas Dead Reckoning just feels like an entry that is super confident that a sequel is coming.

It is so hard to top the stunts from the other films. Tom is getting older, and he’s already hung from the tallest building in the world, and clung to the side of an airplane as it takes off. He really does these stunts, and in Fallout, he injured himself while doing one. So, I figured the reason the stunts here feel like they didn’t go bigger, is because he couldn’t afford to shut down filming with another broken foot/leg/ankle. And, as F9 proved, sometimes trying to top yourself reveals that you really need to stop. At least Ethan didn’t need to fly to space for this one. In a car.

I suppose I should mention Hayley Atwell. What I like about her is that she’s different than her predecessors, but she’s not nearly as useful as previous female leads like Paula Patton and Rebecca Ferguson. There’s still a part 2 coming, but I still want to see what Ethan saw in her. What is her skill set, since part of the thing about her character is that once she joins Ethan, she’s way out of her depth. A better way would be to balance what she’s good at, and show how that helps the team. if she’s an excellent thief, she can probably get around without being noticed. Lean on that.

The audio description oddly only mentioned Darren Polish at the end. I’m so used to hearing just a company, or nothing at all, that I can’t remember if I’ve ever heard just the name. is Darren Polish his own company now? Did he do everything for this, including writing the script, mixing, quality checking, and recording his own narration? if so, give him an award right now. I assume that’s not the case, and Paramount needs to get on board with crediting the audio description team.

H

However, I mostly enjoyed Polish’s narration. I questioned why he hid the identity of Ethan at the beginning. When we first see Ethan, in the seventh entry of his own franchise, he’s referred to as “the older man”, even though he’s not wearing a disguise. It’s not until after he’s watched his “Your Mission, Should you Choose To Accept it” video that the narrator uses Ethan, except this is all pointless. Just use his damn name. There’s no reason to wait two minutes. And, the verification used to tell the audience he’s Ethan, is a prerecorded video that, if we are being honest, anyone could have intercepted. So if we are playing by the weird audio description rule book, he still hasn’t been identified by a living individual. Another character could have just as easily intercepted that video.

If I were to show you a scene where someone comes home and hits the answering machine, and you hear “Henry, it’s Mike, give me a call when you get a chance.”, and you start calling that man Henry, it doesn’t mean he’s Henry. He could be Henry’s partner, roommate, or just simply a burglar or assassin. Maybe the film is about a son coming home and it’s his dad. I have no problem with just naming a character where it isn’t a spoiler, which is exactly what I would have done, instead of putting some odd mystique around the first appearance of Tom Cruise in the 7th movie in this franchise, but if we are doing it by “the book”, it still makes no sense.

I’ll be interested to see how this all wraps up in Part 2, and whether or not this is the last mission for Tom as Ethan Hunt. I think with Jeremy Renner, they almost had someone who could take over, but they also thought he could inherit the Bourne franchise. That’s probably why Renner exited a while ago.

One final mission, I reckon.

Final Grade: A-