Entering
the newest auditorium in my local cinema, late on a Saturday night, I was
reluctantly hopeful for the newest Tom Cruise (whom I am not a big fan of)
film. After some commercials and a trailer for Iron man 3, they gave us three commercials in a row of the Dolby
Atmos, feasting the ears with some impressive soundscapes, so far so good,
until all of a sudden the voice of Ethan Hunt, by which I mean the faithful
scientologist Tom Cruise, appeared doing narration. The first thought that
popped into my head was why they have Morgan Freeman in a movie, but someone
else is doing narration, and my second thought was that this was starting to
look ugly. Tom Cruise´s stiff narration of some mediocrely written text telling
us everything we needed to know (just to have it be repeated later in the film
through dialogue, thereby neglecting the need for a voice-over in the
beginning) put us up for a bad start.
The film is
a mix of nearly every science-fiction film you have ever seen, making nearly
every twist predictable miles away, however as knowing as little as possible
about the film does help the enjoyment and so a plot synopsis will not be
necessary. That being said, the story does its purpose, while not being very
original, it managed to keep a certain amount of engagement in film, as well as
making way for some incredible visuals. However, what is a very big issue in
the script is the dialogue and characters.
The worst
scenes in the film were those asking for an emotional response from the
audience. There are three important factors in making emotions work in film,
firstly the characters have to be well enough realised so that the audience
cares about them and feel their pain, secondly the acting must be good enough
so that the audience forgets that they are acting, and thirdly the dialogue
needs to be natural, unpredictable and just overall good. 0 out of 3. There are
no characters present in the film, outside some brief moment of trying to give
Tom Cruise some character, but which just don´t seem to work (notice how I said
Tom Cruise because in fact this was just Tom Cruise). Then there is the
dialogue, which at times me you want to just run and hide in a closet because
it was so cringe worthy. As for the acting, Tom Cruise is fine, but he is too
much doing what he always does, but at least he is by no means bad outside a
few bad line deliveries. However, when it comes to the girl he meets a third
into the film, played by Olga Kurylenko, there are some huge issues. She seems
to force a shocked expression onto her face for everything she looks at, having
her walking around looking pretty ridiculous, as well as being far too
melodramatic in the emotional scenes. Luckily both Morgan Freeman and Andrea
Riseborough were pretty good for the scenes they were in.
Now to the
positives, the visuals. If there is one reason to go to see this film it is for
the astonishing visuals, which manage to pay homage to the great science
fiction films we love, but still feel different. That being said they are not
enough to keep your interest through the film, as everything is white, it
eventually grows stale. That being said it always a joy seeing a famous
landmark just barely peeking up from the crumbled earth (even though it makes
no sense whatsoever).
The score
by M83 was somewhat of a let down as it had some potential to be great and
while it at times is truly epic; it becomes a tad overwhelming, as well as
repetitive. It also seems like the director felt the need to crank the
soundtrack with the most intensely epic song during a scene that feels more
small and subtle, showing a huge flaw as a director.
While
visually amazing, it is too convoluted and too illogical to have any chance of
being engaging. The script lacks characters and good dialogue, making it easy
for the audience to drop out. If your are going to just see a fun film with
some friends, you could have a good time with this one if you can turn your
brain off, as there are a couple of fun action sequences, but not much more.
2/5
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