Mission Impossible 4 - more explosions, more Tom Cruise close-ups

Well the news is out. Tom Cruise will be doing yet another Mission Impossible movie. But I wonder if we really care.

Given that Tom Cruise makes money every time he shows up on a screen. It’s actually very hard to think of a movie with Cruise, in the past decade or so, that was not a blockbuster. Of course that does not mean they were great films. Just greatly packaged.

But specifically when we think of the Mission Impossible films, we are reminded that this is the revisioned idea of the series that spawned the big screen adaptation. There is almost no connection between the television series and the movies.


Because Cruise knows how to market to the youth, men and women.

The Mission Impossible films are lots of flash, explosions, a couple of cool stunts, and massive amounts of close-ups of Tom Cruise removing a face mask while inevitably running.



Occasionally we get a glimpse of a team, something dropped hard in the early minutes of the first film. Why pay extra money for a cast of celebrities when you can just show Cruise smiling again? I mean it’s not like the youth market expects a “remake” to have anything to do with its original source.

So I expect that the next Mission Impossible film will include generous amounts of the following:

• Big explosions
  
• A chase on a motorcycle, and cars
  
• Tons of shooting with automatic pistols and assault rifles
  
• A bunch of tech gadgets every guy would love to have
  
• At least a dozen nameless bad guys that will be killed off seconds after being seen
  

• Location shooting in at least 3 major cities (probably European)
  
• At least one major stunt involving Cruise doing something that the insurance companies will hate (likely in the first 5 minutes of the film or the last 10)
  

• Oh, at least 2 very slender and somewhat exotic women. Probably 1 of them will be topless or allude to nakedness and/or sex. It is a Summer movie you know.
  

Beyond these essential items, a very loose plot will be formed. It will mandate that Cruise don and remove a mask in a big close-up, invariably running at the time. We will be able to notice that Luther (Ving Rhames) and some actor that no one really knows or cares about (beyond his mom, family, friends and landlord) will be in a few scenes to allude to team actions – all executed primarily by Cruise. And I expect that Cruise’s character (Ethan Hunt) will either be divorced and bitter, or really upset after having a major blowout with his on-screen wife (from the 3rd film) – which is bad news for the first bad guy he finds.

We might get Laurence Fishburne back for a return as the boss. Possible a quick scene or too of comedian Simon Pegg in a return role.

So will I go to see this film? Probably.

I already know that these films are light on anything but action. They are virtually forgettable, but provide a great distraction for a couple of hours. In fact I don’t consider this Mission Impossible, but Mission Explode Lots Of Stuff. Which can work after a long day of work in the real world.

So plan ahead that at least one day in 2011 will be spent at the theater. Just don’t expect it to be memorable.