I’m not sure there’s much wrong with this one that you can’t argue is a problem with the entire McQuarrie era, and the franchises transition from hiring interesting auteurs to bring their inconsistently stylized visual stamps to the more reliable and functional framework for the Tom Cruise stunt spectacular circus these turned into. McQuarrie’s primary contribution was in working so closely with Cruise in the pre-production process and deg a diverse array of escalating espionage sequences and dangerous-looking egomaniacal practical stunts and working their way backwards towards them in tandem through ridiculous Bond-esque serialized plotting that tried to make the history of these movies into a uniform mythology of Ethan (and Cruise, who feels like at some point he was upgraded to co-writer) as not just a physical manifestation of human ingenuity and analog effort in an increasingly Godless, stateless, algorithmically digital world but of fate itself, a center of the universe that collected a rotating bench of new character actor enemies and crew like a makeshift Fast & Furious family he puts his body and soul on the line for. McQuarrie’s skill for achieving the slick and brawny spectacle of these increasingly extended, expensive setpieces and managing Cruise’s pursuit of a deity-like mankind-saving Mr. Movies image of himself and for the most part keeping the moving parts of a traditional spy-actioner satisfying enough despite the convoluted nature of what he was being tasked to manage was pretty evident in the last couple of entries, which is why it’s a bit sad to see him appear to finally buckle under the weight of it all.

I’m not sure there’s any filmmaker who could’ve survived a literal opening hour and change of not just mission exposition (which these movies have always had a ton of) but unnecessary franchise management retconning and Previously On flashbacks, not only attempting to resolve all the already hilariously overcomplicated plotting of Fallout (which is when the movies started to suffer from this, they had no idea what to do with Ilsa after introducing her), every recent character pickup who was previously doing a fun antagonistic dance with Cruise (notably Atwell’s crime caper pickpocket and Pom’s maniacal assassin) is now written to either be another one of the anxious bystanders to Ethan’s addiction to impossible mission planning or an awestruck zealot who worships him like a Christlike selfless martyr that Pegg and Rhames have been largely reduced to for a while. Pegg and Rhames are good in those roles and have the screen history of aging alongside Cruise to lend it some legit gravitas in their moments, but for everyone else it’s a lot of elongated staring while music swells and they get put in the timeout corner to defuse a bomb while Tom has fun.

That being sad, fun he most certainly has! Despite being forced to show their hands and I think subsequently running out of the runway that Cruise and McQuarrie have been improvising for years, their clear t ion and pathological desire to activate the primitive part of your brain and show you something physically incredible for real with all the old-fashioned Hollywood resources they have still manages to carry the messier chunks of this over the finish line. The two major stunt setpieces are both hitters: 1. A wordless highly pressurized deep-sea dive and sunken flooded submarine heist that slowly rolls out of near-drowning control with rogue torpedoes flying around and feels like if you asked James Cameron to invent a show-stopping sequence for one of those 90s Cold War sub-thrillers (Hunt For Red October, Crimson Tide) and 2. An old-school biplane wing walking version of the airbourne helicopter v. helicopter chase from Fallout (honestly maybe a little too similar), featuring so much death (wish) defying clinging, twirling, hopping and crashing it’s as astonishing as anything they’ve achieved on screen together. As someone who has been on board with the idea that the McQuarrie era of these are better viewed as self-portraits of one our foremost obsessive, megalomaniacal industry showman’s, these moments of seeing Tom torture his body for my entertainment is enough for me to forgive the bloat, and is helpfully also a reading that makes the genuinely bad writing of having every ing character mostly serve as a vessel to bow down, monologue about and hype him up while Tom stares into the middle distance and accepts the praise/responsibility of being the lone good, trustworthy man (who should be allowed to have nukes?) more amusing than annoying for the most part.

Full discussion on my podcast SLEAZOIDS.