Christopher McQuarrie, welcome to your tape

The most major of spoilers below—I’m assuming you’ve seen the movie or don’t care about spoilers if you continue!

Ilsa Faust

I really thought we were past this kind of hackneyed screenwriting at this point.

That sounds unforgivably naive now, but this specific franchise had built up some goodwill: one of the smartest things Ghost Protocol did (besides hanging Tom Cruise off the Burj and not replacing him with Jeremy Renner) was revealing that Julia was still alive at the end after making us think she had been ignominiously butchered for the entire movie.1 While Rogue Nation does definitely fall into the “I’m going to take my high heels off before I kick ass” school of feminism, Ilsa is still a fascinating character with genuine pathos. And Fallout not only invites her back—which is rare for anyone in this franchise who isn’t Tom Cruise—but smartly avoids the “woman has to leave to prevent a man from psychological catastrophe if she gets hurt” trope.2 

Ilsa is literally the only person—not just woman, person—in Ethan’s life who isn’t a thing he needs to save. For all that’s made of how Ethan can’t let one person die, let us all be reminded that Ilsa put herself in serious danger with Solomon Lane in Rogue Nation by helping Ethan, a man she had never met, escape simply because he was an ally of MI6, and that was enough for her. True, Ethan does get her out of her shitty situation with MI6 in Rogue Nation and Fallout, but in those movies, she’s never in a pickle like a gun to her head or a noose around her neck that Ethan needs to save her from. It’s her that saves Ethan from drowning in Rogue Nation and Benji from suffocating in Fallout.3

Killing Ilsa was always going to be a mistake, even if it was the noblest of deaths. But not only is she killed, she’s killed by a man we don’t know and don’t care about just to give Ethan another reason to go after this guy. It’s textbook fridging. And the first reason was that Gabriel killed another woman Ethan was close to! Not only do I still not care about if Ethan catches Gabriel, now I’m also mad at the movie for pulling such a creatively bankrupt trick twice. I can’t help but think that it’s a pretty bad sign for part two if Chris McQuarrie is apparently this severely out of ideas in part one. Yes, Rebecca Ferguson is a very busy person with Dune and all, and sticking around must be a scheduling nightmare. But if we must cycle out our brunettes, I would honest to god rather her not be in this movie at all.

I’m hoping against hope that Sam Adams turns out to be correct and we just got yet another death fake-out. As cheap as that would be, nothing would be worse than this being her end.

Some food for thought

If we absolutely needed to off a main player to establish how much of a threat Gabriel is… it should have been Benji.

I know, I know, I know. I love Simon Pegg as much as the next person! But if we can be honest with ourselves for a second, what does Benji contribute that Luther can’t? They’re both techy and comic relief guys and killing Luther is absolutely off the table for any number of reasons. Yes, Luther needs someone to banter with, and we probably do need two tech people, but if we’re keeping Grace around, why can’t she be that person? That’s not her field of expertise, but these movies do so much handwavey shit that I’d be happy to suspend my disbelief. It’d give Ving Rhames someone new to bounce off of, we’d still see what it’s like for someone to join the IMF, and needless to say, it’d really help solve the franchise’s disposable women problem.

All of that said, Benji dying would probably be just a little too much of a bummer—which is why in part 2, it would be revealed that Benji faked his death or something.4 I’m sure there’s some super-spy way to fake getting stabbed with a knife; again, this franchise trades in handwaving. And Benji has been the damsel in distress5 so many times that it would be satisfying to have him show up as a deus ex machina in the climax of part 2. Nothing can be done about it now, but just a thought.

The things I liked

I’ve been pretty critical, but it’s still Mission: Impossible, and these are still some of my favorite movies, so I’m always going to have fun.

• Motorcycle goes vroom! Motorcycle goes vroom off a goddamn cliff!

• Ethan Hunt is a dweeb who likes magic tricks.

• We’ve seen Ethan get out of ridiculous car and motorcycle chases before, and while I absolutely wouldn’t complain if we got another one, I appreciate the innovation of having him get out of a scrape handcuffed to a noob in a tiny Fiat.

• The train hitting the Fiat made me yelp in the theater (sorry to the guy sitting next to me.)

• Benji answering a sentient nuclear bomb asking what the most important thing to him is: “My friends!” Aww. Maybe I won’t kill you in my rewrite after all.

• “If there’s a nuclear bomb, I need to know about it!!”

• The room full of typewriters made me chuckle.

• These movies live and die on their MacGuffins, and I really liked the key design.

• At least Ilsa got a sword.

• So did Pom Klementieff!

• Not sure what they added plot-wise, but I did enjoy the shenanigans of Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis as American Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

• Speaking of: the return of Charles Parnell and Greg Tarzan Davis from Top Gun Maverick! Jon Hamm should make a cameo in part 2.

• Vanessa Kirby as Hayley Atwell as Vanessa Kirby is delightful. (That said, Ethan should have just done White Widow drag. They’re the same height! Would have saved Grace a lot of trouble.)

• Every other movie would have had the train sequence end after the first part went over the bridge, but if Tom and Chris are going to send a locomotive off a cliff, they’re going to get their money’s worth. Bonus points for the looney tunes nonsense of an actual falling piano.

• As a dedicated AI hater, I cannot wait for the Entity (and the AMPTP) to get its shit rocked.