spag.ag2003 said:
OP went overboard but I definitely think it's a bit overrated (and I love the MI series, especially the films by McQuarrie).
I think the movie gets too big of a perception boost because Cruise does the stunts - if it was just a stuntman doing this stuff I don't think it plays as well. Impressive as hell that Cruise does this stuff but I try and judge what's on the screen regardless of how the filmmakers and actors/crew achieved it.
Also, I just don't like Henry Cavill as an actor for some reason and he brings it down for me.
Disagree completely. The story itself is so damn good. The two big fake-outs, in particular, are just masterful, IMO. The aforementioned Wolf Blitzer fake out is one of my favorite gags of the entire series, and the way it ends with Cruise defiantly proclaiming, "What's done is done when we say it's done" - and then
boom, cutting to the opening credits - is just flat out exhilarating. Then the whole set up with Cavill's character saying, on the cargo plane, re: the masks, "People really fall for this sh*t?" and then he himself later falling for "this sh*t" when Benji is masked as Lane - I have a huge grin on my face every single time I watch that scene. The set-up/pay-off is phenomenal. I love the way Hunt is challenged in this movie, I love the way Vanessa Kirby and Rebecca Ferguson play into the plot, and that final act is legitimately one of the greatest feats of action ever put to screen. It's just an astonishing crescendo to a relentless, breakneck plot.