Just saw this.
Movie is objectively great but I leave the theater really disappointed.
Let me explain.
1) Walker
"oh wow the guy that had a dark side was in fact the evil traitor all along"
Walker was one the coolest, funniest, and most awesome character in the entire franchise. He also offered something this franchise has lacked for a long time, moral ambiguity.
They threw all of that away to turn him into some forgettable generic Douche McEvil.
The original dynamic between Tom and Henry was so good. I couldn't wait to see two ideologies confront each other, especially on the same side.
The second he reveals he's evil it's like they tried their hardest to fit every single "villain trope" they could think of. I'm not kidding :
- gets outsmarted by the heroes twice in a row
- kills a familiar tertiary character cause can't kill any main or secondary ones
- threatens the hero's girlfriend
- comes up with a shitty plan involving bombs that can't be defused***
- Is literally unable to do anything he wants, whether it's punch, shoot, aim
- gets half disfigured randomly to show he's really evil
- hangs on a cliff with the hero in dramatic fashion
- dies after one movie
2) The villain's plan
The whole "HAHAHAHAHAHA OUR BOMBS ARE UNSTOPPABLE* !!!!
*unless you get the detonator"
Just no. Nobody forced them to write the story like that, come up with something more interesting than this.
The whole two bombs thing felt so unnecessary and at this point you can tell they have no idea what to do with the team so they just add this kind of stuff to divide the screentime.
3) The final fight
I have to assume this was shot after Tom broke his leg and they couldn't get as physical as they wanted.
but we went from one of the absolute top 5 best fight sequence of all time in the bathroom, to a terrible sloppy "fight".
That was literally the only thing to look forward to after Walker was turned into a generic villain, seeing Cruise and Cavill beat the shit out of each other, and that did NOT deliver.
4) The lack of adventure
So because of the relentless pacing, the characters rarely have time to breathe (and no dropping exposition, to the audience or other characters, isn't the same), get used to the new settings etc... Something Ghost Protocol and the first MI did really well.
I feel like it hurts the movie a little, but that's a minor nitpick.
So all that left me really a bit sour.
But holy shit the first half is an all time high.
Visually has some mind blowing stuff. Henry stole the show before they ruined him. I was already imagining sequels with him =( ...
Cruise runs were amazing.
It's a great flick, I'm just a bit disappointed, probably too high expectations. But really just disappointed they ruined Henry permanently. :(
