Mission Unwatchable

July 17, 2023, 7:00 am , by Richard Lutz

RICHARD LUTZ takes in a pair of summer blockbusters starring two pensionable A-listers. One movie is junk, the other a gem

A 61 year old Tom Cruise heads the zillion dollar movie Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One and it’s a frenzied mess. Why is he laughing when he’s in such an overblown jumble?

In the same week, I saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with 81 year old Harrison Ford. He has a small albeit perceptible smile on his craggy face, maybe because he’s in such a funny winner:

I took in the pair of supersized movies because my local ice cream parlour was throwing around 2-4-1 deals with the local cinema. A fiver for a film isn’t bad these days.

The latest Tom Cruise chapter of the Mission Impossible franchise (with a title about as long as the movie) is just too overwrought, frenzied,  angsty and ultimately boring. Cruise cruises through the foggy story like a puppy high on his new squeaky toy. There’s no light, no shade. Just demented action. Though I have to admit the train crash and its attendant CGI effects are stunning. And Cruise unable to handle a lowly Fiat 500 for the obligatory car chase was fun.

But sadly the Mission Impossible makers are convinced the story is ‘important.’ It attacks modern issues and narratives. Or tries to in a cackhanded way: ultimately, this latest chapter in the mega successful franchise has all the moral weight of a bag of feathers. The trite story line seems directed at the average 3 year old; it’s, if anything, very tedious and for all the wham bam effects, it’s a slow dreary journey into tediousness- I fell asleep twice as its characters banged on about an all powerful Entity computer which I didn’t understand or was never fully explained.

As this is Part One of the Dead Reckoning sub-chapter, I’ll give my next 2-4-1 deal to someone who has time to waste on the threatened Part Two.

’…a twelve year old flying a plane back to Ancient Greece? Yeah, why not?’

Now..as for Indiana Jones: it’s cheeky, comfy and, though equally indecipherable, it’s as if the director and writers shrug their shoulders and say: You want an underwater fight? Ok, here you go. You want a 12 year old flying a plane through a time tunnel to land in Ancient Greece? Yeah, why not?

Harrison Ford is the selfsame Indiana Jones, the star’s face re digitised in the opening minutes to re-imagine the star as a younger guy doing his hero bit back in Nazi Germany. Then, the shift to forty years later and there’s grumpy Ford with a lumpy face that resembles the side of a wet Scottish mountain.

Of course, there’s the necessary car chase through meandering city streets. Of course, there’s a train crash and, of course, there’s female support- Phoebe Waller Bridge-who, by the way, peps up the dialogue with her writing skills.

But what raises the Indiana Jones blockbuster is its humour. It’s funny, gently taking the mickey out of the whole idea of a creaky 40 year old action series. Cruise and his Mission Impossible pals are too glum, too frozen into non stop mock drama. Ford and co. are irrepressibly self referential, with sharper chitchat and, ultimately, simply very entertaining. And yes, they did thankfully include that creaky toy plane flying across a torn map complete with the thrum of a prop-driven plane.