I suggest you listen to some George Michael.
-xtien
Nice!
Tom, you can’t talk about a depth of a movie when you clearly didn’t care about its characters, you just can’t.
I mean, when Luther - the heart and soul of this movie - is saying to Julia: Go, be with your husband, there is nothing else you can do… - the stakes were so high, I couldn’t believe they pulled something like this off at the end of freaking Mission, colon, Impossible movie. And you and Kelly are both like: Meh…
The same thing about stunts. When it’s Fury Road, hell yeah, everything is so authentic, so alive, you can smell it. When it’s Fallout, hell no, we couldn’t care less… they might as well slap CG over it.
Come on, you can’t fix that helicopter chase in post, or all the stunts in this movie. There are tons of them, because Tom Cruise is extremely dedicated fella. You won’t be able to get such a huge CGI budget, to get ILM or Weta for all sequences in order to be consistent, because you need to make them faster, because release date was already set in stone. Even Infinity War wasn’t able to do it, it looks like garbage in some of the minor scenes.
Regarding critics and audience positive reaction to the movie. One of the main reasons of this is Fallout certainly fixed most of the previous Missions’ issue, when their emotional peak was somewhere in the middle, during a heist sequence. Rogue Nation was especially bad in this regards, and I’m freaking love Rogue Nation finale, when Ilsa uses Hunt as a human shield and pats him on the back explaining where Lane’s goons are coming from… She was equally impressive during the final sequence of Fallout. She incapacitated Lane before saving Benji. So McQuarrie did get her character, by the way, adding thematic depth for you.
P.S: Props to Christien for recognising this action masterpiece.
Great example. Fury Road didn’t care one whit about Tom Hardy doing his own stunts. It cared only about what’s on screen, how it looked, how it felt, how it fit into the worldbuilding and character’s experieces. Max didn’t arbitrarily need to airdrop onto Furiosa’s war rig because he didn’t have the magic RIFD bracelet.
And I hate to break it to you, but Fury Road is absolutely slathered in CG.
-Tom
Eighth Grade had me further to the edge of my seat than M:I-F. Action packed!
Both times I saw 20thCW in the theater this moment was what I imagine a Dingus laughter moment to be where I was the loudest howler in the place.
Fury Road did care about it, that’s why we could see Hardy’s face as long as it was needed, otherwise it would be a lesser movie.
The bracelet wasn’t the reason why HALO jump was used in the movie, and since MI is a spy movie, the jump is its world building, an ability to get to any place of the planet this fast fits within spy experience.
I’ve seen Fury Road Making of videos, it has lots of CG augmented shots, but it’s still grounded in reality, based on real life footage (sandstorm is an obvious exception).
Meanwhile I was talking about CG characters, face replacements and fully artificial environments. They still look bad and immersion breaking. The final fight between Black Panther and Killmonger immediately comes to mind. Infinity War had poorly looked artificial scenes like that one as well.
One of the key things for me that sadly didn’t get discussed in the podcast is how the movie has these wonderful hooks for the audience. The truth is, I had no idea going into this movie that Tom Cruise did his own stunts, or even that they were real stunts and not heavy CGI sequences. What mattered to me the most is how I was drawn into the action each time.
In the HALO jump, after Ethan describes how to do the jump to Hawkes, he walks up to the open ramp with his mask on. As he slowly walks up to the edge, we, as the audience look at first from behind him, and then the closer he gets to the edge, the more we look from above him as the camera sweeps upward and we see the lightning storm right below him as he looks over the ledge. Holy shit. The vertigo I felt at that moment, the intensity of the storm, the way Ethan heads back and says, we can’t jump, we’re going to abort, and then Hawkes pushes him aside and jumps out. Wow, I was literally leaning forward from the moment we saw that storm over that ledge. At that moment, all I’m thinking about is that storm and lightning, and the jump itself, not about how they should have landed in Charles De Gaul airport after going through security checks on each side, and gone through baggage claim with their gadgets and equipment instead. No, I’m not thinking about that, I’m thinking “oh shiiiiiiit”.
The bathroom sequence is not just thrilling because of the stuntwork, it’s exciting because of the mix of humor and how things really don’t go as planned at all. That’s one thing that a lot of heist movies don’t get right, that mixture of the audience wanting things to go according to plan, but being thrilled when they see things go wrong and the plan has to be re-worked due to circumstances. You really want things to line up with the plan, but you really, in your heart of hearts as a movie-goer, want to see them succeed despite things going wrong.
The next thing I wanted to briefly touch on is just the beauty of some of these shots. McQuarrie doesn’t just shoot Paris to show you some establishing shots and get you into the action. He shoots it on a beautiful day, frames each shot so lovingly, and really gives you a visual feast for your eyes. A helicopter flying through the air with the prisoner? Just an establishing shot, right? Nope, we get this beautiful air flight over Paris as we see Notre Dame, and the Arc De Triumph, and the Eiffel Tower. The motorcycle chase goes to the Arc De Triumph, and even in the little bridges and alleyways it goes through let you drink it beautiful visuals and framing. He doesn’t just show the action, he is showing you the beautiful city with it.
In the main heist in Paris, that first sequence that’s showing you what the White Widow’s plan is, the way he filmed the sun washing out the scene, accompanied by that slow haunting music, and cutting out the sound effects of gunfire completely, I just loved it so much. Ethan takes off his mask after shooting a couple of guards, and in slow motion approaches the last desperate guard who is pleading for his life just through his facial expression as Ethan slowly aims and shoots. The combination there of the visuals and sounds just made that scene so powerful. These are the stakes. This is the consequence of Ethan not being able to get that mask on in the bathroom. He has to actually play out this identity now, and be the monster, not just pretend to be the monster.
So of course when the actual heist takes place, it does go according to Ethan’s alternative plan, where he doesn’t have to be the monster, but he still gets to pretend he’s John Lark at the same time. It’s that extra layer that makes it extra thrilling. But then things go wrong again when they get out of the boat and they open that garage door to discover the female cop. At first the humor and then the tension in that sequence is again, just so brilliantly played. It’s another one of those moments in the movie, where I’m leaning forward, having absolutely no idea how Ethan can get out of this without becoming the monster.
Another example of pulling me forcibly into an action sequence is the way he followed John Larke’s helicopter. Did he get into another helicopter and start flying after him? No, he hung onto the payload on another helicopter!! And then he climbed that rope, and just the way he was trying to swing his legs to hook into the bottom of the helicopter, oh my god. This movie is so good with these hooks where you think he’s going to make it look easy, but the way he is doing it, you can tell it’s really hard, and then he falls!!! That’s how hard that was! Now you’re fully leaning forward as he climbs the rope again, and again tries to swing his leg and hook it into place. It’s the art of making things not look easy, it’s just done so well in this movie.
I know Kelley and Tom didn’t like it, but after having gone back and seen every Mission Impossible movie, I have an extra appreciation for the fact that Luther has been with Ethan from the first movie to the last. I thought he was the only character that could have delivered both the speeches to the women in Ethan’s life, and I thought both scenes were handled really well. I really believed Luther, and his sincerity in those scenes. They made me care so much more about Ethan’s love interests, and about Ethan himself as a white knight in these movies. He was sort of on the edge of becoming the monster a few times in this movie, and those scenes with Ving Rhames really made me appreciate that they pulled back, and didn’t let him become one.
Yeah, that’s why I think he’s one of the the best action filmmakers today. It’s not just about how you capture the action, but what actually happens in the scene. Good action isn’t just about the choreagraphy and how it’s shown off, it should also have tension. You establish a goal for the scene, and then you bring in obstacles, and make it about how/if the characters overcome them. The bathroom scene, the final sequence (and I don’t think dingus is a dummy for being got for a moment in the end, because there’s been a continuous racking up of odds all the time, it’s just where being caught up in the moment brings you), and the opera sequence in Rogue Nation are prime examples.
With Love.
What I love about the action and knowing Tom Cruise is doing most of it is that the films are called Mission:Impossible. These are supposed to be the most difficult of spy missions. Things that the government doesn’t even want to be on record for and could always go wrong. The stakes are already at their highest and we get to see the actor seemingly doing what a man is capable of when pushed to his limits.
I know it’s movie magic, but that buys a lot of good will with me. When Cruise is trying to get on that helicopter at the end, I looked at my son with an incredulous smile and said “He’s really doing that! It’s really him!!” Just… wow.
If I had to describe Kelly’s Ving Rhames with a commonly used animated gif it would be the one where Fassbender says “Perfection.” Plus he talked about Fast Five a bunch. Way to carry the podcast, KW.
In the category best working action director, George Miller has a distinct advantage over Sam Peckinpah by virtue of not being dead.
I misread the statement, and just saw the superlative… I’d also add the the cocaine-addled Peckinpah post-Convoy may be at a disadvantage to Miller as well. :) But I sent it With Love, actually using the icon and god that is The Peckinpah and that specific shot to illustrate what you said about:
Because I agree with you 1000%.
Also, this was a pretty common reaction. My two friends watching beside me also thought the same thing as me for a second. When I convinced my coworkers to go see the movie the following weekend, they came back on Monday, and both of them had the same reaction for a second as well.
The synopsis surprised me. I didn’t realize I knew this much of Tom Cruise’s career.
Also the RSS feed seems to have broken back on July 26th. I just thought it had been a long time since a Qt3 podcast and sure enough the site has a bunch of stuff I haven’t seen.
I may seem persistent, but I found a better example to prove my point. There was a truck scene in the trailers which was absent from the movie. Here it is:
I remember the first time I’ve seen it I thought: Wow, that looks terrible, it’s fake and cheap. The movement is so smooth and linear, like Hunt didn’t try to pull up, didn’t react to the truck at all. Background lighting is a bit off, especially if you compare it with earlier footage we could see in the trailer. If they think that’s their money shot, we’re screwed.
I don’t know the way it was shot, but Christopher McQuarrie said in the podcast that Tom wanted to fly a helicopter, but he wasn’t flying real helicopter in this scene anyway, because the cockpit was on some kind of a ramp. That’s how he convinced Tom they should get rid of this scene to improve the final chase pacing.
My point is that’s how fake the entire helicopter chase or at least a significant part of it could look like if Tom Cruise didn’t fly that helicopter himself. And of course, I’m glad that fake shot wasn’t in the theatrical cut.
Aww, that truck bit would have been cool. Very T2.
Is your point that Tom Cruise flying the helicopter makes any sort of difference to the movie? Well, sure, it’s a part of the movie’s marketing, and if that particular marketing message reached you, I’m sure there’s an “oh wow” element to the otherwise unremarkable helicopter stuff.
But it’s really just PR. There’s nothing in the movie that wouldn’t have worked just as well with a pilot CGed out of the shot, the same way the wires and harnesses are CGed out of all the other shots. It never occurred to me watching the movie that Cruise was supposedly flying the helicopter himself. It’s not like The Matrix where the actors are actually in the fight scenes and it makes a huge difference. It’s just advertising.
By the way, I’m skeptical that Cruise did all the helicopter flying the same way I was skeptical that Natalie Portman did the dancing in Black Swan. Did they also include footage of the helicopter flown by a stunt pilot? If so, they would be more than happy to have you believe Tom Cruise did all the flying, because it’s part of how they’re selling you the movie.
-Tom
Yeah, because I can clearly see the difference in quality between this fake truck shot and the entire chase sequence.
Oh, there is. Look at the cockpit again. It had one pilot chair in front of it. There was no second chair to the left, which could possibly hide real pilot, so they’d have to block around him. It’s just Tom right there alone. That’s why they could shoot the scenes the way they shot them, showing him inside the cockpit from any possible angle, constantly using exterior shots and very wide lenses, shooting right through glass windows full of glares and reflections, because there was nothing or no one to hide inside. It’s all there in the movie, and it’s really impressive, you just didn’t get it.
Besides, you’re saying it’s a PR thing, because you get the information in this order: they told you, you watched the movie. More importantly, the movie didn’t work for you, so you didn’t care. To the point you’ve said in the podcast that Tom’s broken leg could be another PR thing. Come on, they stopped the production for eight weeks because of that accident.
By the way, the fight between Lane and Ilsa was poorly lit compared to the bathroom fight, because they shot it weeks later because of the accident, and Rebecca Ferguson was already pregnant. And it still worked very well in the movie, because it was in line with its darker tone.
I don’t think you quite understand how CG works. :)
I still disagree. It seems to me if you weren’t subjected to the PR, you would have no reason to think Tom Cruise is actually flying a helicopter. Speaking of, I’m about to blow your mind. Are you ready? You sure? Are you sitting down? Most of the time actors are driving a car in a scene, they aren’t actually driving a car! Crazy, right? They totally had you fooled! But the car was being towed, or there was some rig set up on the roof, or in the olden days there was a projection screen behind them. Movie magic! Even before CG got invented!
Snark aside (sorry to give you so much guff) my point is that regardless of how the seats are arranged – and that’s pretty cool to watch now that you point it out – I’ve been watching actors fake drive/fly/fight all my life. I can’t imagine anyone who watches Mission Impossible: Fallout will think, “Whoa, Tom Cruise is totally flying a helicopter!” Unless Paramount told them beforehand. That’s what I mean when I say it’s PR. It’s part of how the movie is sold and not part of the storytelling.
Oh, I don’t mean it didn’t happen or that it was faked. If I implied that, I misspoke. I’m just saying they exploited it for PR. Paramount released the video so folks would click on it – Tom Cruise Injured on Set of Mission Impossible; See the Video Here! – and, voila!, a little fortuitous brand awareness before the marketing campaign even started.
-Tom
This is such a strange hill to die on, Tom.
What Cruise does for these movies is incredible and it adds a level of authenticity to the film that I find appealing. I noticed multiple times during the film that he was the one doing the stunt, and like Jackie Chan’s films, it adds to the experience.