Mission Impossible vs The Fast and the Furious

I've come to realize over the last couple of years that the true line dividing our society is that between those who enjoy the finer things in life - a good drink, talks with friends, Vin Diesel driving a car off the Burj al-Arab - and those who live lives devoid of joy. Those, in short, who prefer the Mission Impossible movies.

Forget left vs right, atheism vs belief, or Coke vs Pepsi. Our culture is riven by the war between those who prefer the adventures of Dominic Toretto, Han and Ludacris vs watching Tom Cruise jump off of stuff. I think you can tell from the preceding paragraphs where I fall in this important question.

Now, it's worth saying that I've watched almost all of the Mission Impossible movies, and am indeed taking a quick break from watching Fallout, the most recent of the series. I expect once I've finished this essay I'll go back to it (only 45 minutes to go, joy), but in the meantime, please be prepared for SPOILERS:

So why have I watched all the Mission Impossible movies? I dunno - maybe it's a certain masochistic completionism, or maybe I keep hoping there'll be something to love in them. The trailers always look impressive, and I can't deny that the stunts really are amazing. In Fallout, for example, Henry Cavill and Tom Cruise skydive out of an airplane INTO A THUNDERSTORM and land in Paris. Mid-jump, Cavill gets knocked unconscious and Cruise has to save him in mid-air.

Fairness compels me to note that this is probably a better set-piece than my favorite Fast & Furious one, which is the sequence in Fast 5 where they drag that safe through Rio. It's also better than the sequence in FF6, where they're on that enormous plane that's taking off for ages and both Han and Giselle (seemingly) die to save the world... and that's a pretty darn good action sequence.

I guess my objection to the MI movies is that I still haven't forgiven the series for the first three movies. The first, which came out when I was in high school, was an okay bit of fluff, with Tom Cruise jumping around and doing crazy stuff, and it was fine, I guess? Though I disapproved of the ending twist where the guy who'd been running the team in the old TV show turned out to be the bad guy (which is why Jon Voight played the character and not Peter Graves).

The second remains my least favorite movie ever, and probably damaged John Woo's career here in the west. The characters, down to their names, were stupid and obnoxious, and to top it all off, a cat jumped under my car as I drove home afterwards - while I won't imply there's a causal relationship here, it certainly makes you think.

(Btw, I seem to remember seeing the cat hop back into the bushes along the road afterwards in my mirror, so I'm hoping it didn't actually get killed. But still - fuck that movie)

MI3 I don't even remember, because it's one of the few films I ever fell asleep while watching. Granted, I was jet lagged, but it's hardly an endorsement, is it?

So I resisted watching Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation for the longest time. Eventually I did break down and watch them, and they were... fine. I suppose. But the problem is that they're so serious, and they lack the sense of fun that characterizes the FF movies. Not only that, but the first half of the series didn't really build on any of the previous films (much like the James Bond movies), and it's only in the last three films that we've had a running storyline about Tom Cruise's guilt about abandoning his wife.

Compare that with the complicated mythology that grew up around FF, where it starts as a bromance about Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, but then they keep making friends with their adversaries (e.g. the Rock and Jason Statham). The way that Michelle Rodriguez seemingly dies, then is back, and all the drama that ensues.

Now, let's not pretend either of these series is high art, of course. But when I say the MI films are silly or implausible, what I really mean is convoluted - climbing around Emirati skyscrapers or jumping through lightning storms may look good, but I'm sure there are less complicated ways of achieving your goal. The plots are weird and hard to follow, and this might sound counter-intuitive, but what drives me nuts is that if I glance away at my phone for a moment I lose track of what's happening.

When I say that the FF movies are silly, I mean they're over the top, stupid and proud of it, but they aren't making any pretense of being any more than silly actioners. Though I will say I miss when they were just heist movies, rather than a series about foiling global terrorism by driving cars at bad guys.

Anyway, I have to get back to watch the end of Fallout. I hope there'll be some good spectacle in this final 45 minutes, on a level with the car chases and sky dives of the first 90 minutes or so. But in my heart of hearts what I really want to see is Tom Cruise driving a super-car off of something high and maybe killing a helicopter with it. That's something Vin Diesel could pull off.