Hey film fans, Slick Dungeon here back to review yet another Oscar nominated film. This time I am reviewing the seventh film in the Mission Impossible series starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg. This movie has been nominated for Best Sound and Best Visual Effects. There will be spoilers for this film (but if you’ve seen any Mission Impossible movie you already know what the basic beats are here) so be forewarned before you read the review. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go watch the movie and then come on back here to read the review.

What’s it About?

The movie starts out just a little bit differently than most of the MI films in that we start in a Russian submarine. The sub is testing an advanced AI and things go wrong. The sub is targeted and destroyed by the AI. There is no reveal of Ethan Hunt here and there’s not even a high-flying, death-defying stunt for Tom Cruise. This sets up for the film to be a bit more mysterious than some of the past entries.

We then do catch up with our hero in the Arabian Desert where he gets a key from Lisa Faust, an ex MI6 agent. Faust also fakes her own death.

Okay, so I could go on with this plot, and give you all the intricate details. However, it gets down to this. There are two keys that unlock something. It’s something really powerful and the AI from the beginning of the movie has something to do with it. In typical fashion. Ethan Hunt needs to gather the pieces before other interested and deadly parties get ahold of it. To do this, he assembles his usual team (or in this case they really assemble around him without being asked). Along the way he meets some new people, sure to become cast members in the next film, he does some insane stunts, including driving a motorcycle off the Alps and parachuting down onto a moving train. There are shootouts, car chases, flirtations, bad guy monologues, mask reveals and the whole bit.

To go through the whole thing in intricate detail would be kind of pointless because either you are a super fan and already know all this stuff, you are a casual fan and would have to rewatch six films before this one totally makes sense, or you don’t care and there’s not much point in catching you up.

What this film gets down to is it is a fun, fast paced, action adventure film where the main character has to get a thing before other people get a thing so they can unlock another thing.

While I absolutely enjoyed the experience of watching the film, it is still nothing more than a bunch of characters chasing a McGuffin until the movie ends on a cliffhanger.

The Awards

Plot aside, the film is nominated for best sound and best visual effects. I will say the visual effects are impressive here and it’s hard to tell when the film uses CGI over practical effects because they tend to use those to enhance rather than replace visuals. The stunts look spectacular, as always in these films, and are exciting to watch.

The sound is loud and conveys to the viewer the information needed. I’m sure it is difficult to figure out just how certain things would sound in the movie and make them work. But, the sound isn’t really central in any way to the story of the movie, other than to help us understand what is happening on screen. It’s not really played with or used in a way we have not seen before in film. (I guess I should say heard rather than seen but you know what I mean).

I have strong doubts this film will win in either category it is up for considering the competition. For visual effects, I think it is going to lose to The Creator and in the sound category I think Oppenheimer or Maestro will beat it out.

In Conclusion

If you like fun action films, this is a good one to watch, albeit a bit on the long side. If you haven’t ever watched a Mission Impossible film, this is absolutely the worst one to start with. If you are a casual fan of these movies, you’ll have a good time but occasionally find yourself trying to remember who a character from several films ago is.

It’s not a bad film at all, there is some great stuff to look at and hear. But, I just don’t think it’s actually Oscar worthy this year.

Impossibly yours,

Slick Dungeon