Nothing's: Impossible - M:I-4 on the way with Cruise

[EricJ]

- Gilliam needs a firm story hand and he wouldn't be able to "shoot" a frame without a solid story nailed down by the brain trust. Besides, who got a building moving under its own steam first? Gilliam, in The Crimson Permanent Assurance, long before Up.

As I heard it, the Pythons had originally scripted that to be the one 30-second gag of breaking through the window...But by the time Gilliam got through with it, it had become an entire ten-minute big-budget "Brazil" epic, and the Terrys had to stick it on the film separately, since they couldn't fit the new sequences back into the structure of the movie.
And while that sounds "creative" to Gilliam fanboys, to Lasseter story-heads, that sounds too diva and self-indulgent to fit within the group restrictions of the Story department brain trust. Sooner or later, some artistic heads would butt, and the outsider-guest would find himself the expendable one.

[Ben]

But wouldn't it be a grand experiment? And wouldn't Gilliam, as he *has* done in the past on Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, et al, be on best "I don't really wanna screw this up" behavior?

[Dacey]

Aw, nuts:

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=65798

[Ben]

Nuts? Just a date change...maybe to accommodate a director script revision...?

[Dacey]

I know. I'm just upset because I like my M:I movies in the summer.

Bird is confirmed for director:

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=65810

[Ben]

Yep...and I'm strongly of the opinion that Bird's appointment is the reason the film has been pushed back, to allow him a script polish. It may come later, but it'll be better.

[Dacey]

Saw this before "Transformers 3." Awesome, awesome, AWESOME!

http://youtu.be/V0LQnQSrC-g

[Ben]

Maybe it was cooler on the big screen, but I didn't get too much more out of this than for other M:I trailers. Has much of the sameness about it, like the big location shots, close ups of Cruise, a leggy lady emerging from a shiny sports car, etc. I actually chuckled when I heard Tom Wilkinson's voice, as he just seems to have resigned himself to playing these types of roles and needs to be careful of beginning to be typecast.

BUT...I've liked the M:I films so far (except 2) and this looks to be on par with 3, which was the best one for me, so I'm probably going to see it. Interesting that Chris McQuarrie was a screenplay writer on it, and the action looks solid. Very solid. More of the same, me thinks, but why fix it if it ain't broken?

[estefan]

Don't like the other M:I films, but this is one of the most anticipated films of the year. Do I even need to explain why?

[Dacey]

Not sure. Would it have to do with a Bird?

[EricJ]

BUT...I've liked the M:I films so far (except 2) and this looks to be on par with 3, which was the best one for me
More of the same, me thinks, but why fix it if it ain't broken?

Uh, might want to consult with the MI:1 and TV fans about whether or not 3 was "broken".
Abrams tried to throw an olive branch, fix the grievous, grievous mistakes of #2, and give us another "clockwork" team plot in the first half--But as long as the movie was still about X-Games Cruise vs. the Famous-Actor Baddie, the 2 poison was still in the system...As if Martin Landau had become a kung-fu expert and gotten his own vanity spinoff series.

(The Original show is currently airing on Instant Netflix, and getting hooked on a few of those episodes will give you a new appreciation for DePalma's 1, and a desire to beat up Cruise for throwing the rest of the franchise off compass.
For those who don't have Instant Netflix, here's why the first half hour of Movie 1 and the CIA-building raid got it right: )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MAJlTjgzqo

[Ben]

Your link isn't working.

I don't think the first M:I got it right either, except for the pre-titles sequence when they really were working as a team unit (and under Jim Phelps).

Once it became The Tom Cruise Show, that was really it for the rest of the movies, with Cruise basically using some co-stars to help him out, which isn't what M:I was about anyway, especially after they made Phelps - one of the most incorruptible heroes on TV - the bad guy! Oops!

M:I-2 was just a bunch of Cruise vanity and John Woo (remember him?) tricks that he'd already played out in better movies, and the whole point of M:I was that Phelps used different agents each week (or, okay, at least the choice of different agents, though due to actors' contracts they were mostly the same guys). In a movie version, the lead operative should have been able to pick different people for each film, given their distinct specialties.

Both the first and second films didn't follow the basic Bruce Gellar template because they threw it out by removing Phelps and turning it into a man on the run thriller...the same as any other. By the third, it was too late to return to the TV concept; the M:I film franchise was a Cruise on the run series, but at least they brought back the IMF infrastructure, and that did make it a bit more like Gellar had intended.

But, really, they should have kept Phelps, or made Cruise the Phelps character (with Phelps himself the IMF chief), so that they could have continued with the basic TV idea. By the second movie, after setting Cruise up in this way, they could have played out the "he's been framed" idea then, but they should never have made Phelps a villain. Just wouldn't have happened.

For what it's worth, I liked III a whole lot better, and this at least looks like more of the same of that. The M:I films are decent Cruise on the run capers, but faithful M:I movies based on the TV show they are certainly not.

[EricJ]

(Link worked fine for me?)
Well, you have to remember that moment in the first movie as The Theme kicks in as we see the "fire engine" heading for the CIA building--For the next seven or eight minutes, it's back to being a version of the TV series again...Until Cruise goes on his bungee-jump and it's All About the Star again. (And what iconic image do most people stereotypically remember from the movie? )
The opening Senator sting at the party also happened to get a few newbies hooked on the old-show's formula, until the Bourne-esque Plot Twists took over.
Still, dePalma got closer than most--That's as much as I'd expect from the Untouchables guy.

[Ben]

Yep...when Lalo Schifrin's theme came crashing in half-way through the first film, I admit to it feeling exciting again. But a theme doesn't make a TV adaptation a good one!

[Bill1978]

The trailer to #4 was going so well that I was thinking I might actually watch this one (having only seen #1), but that the trailer turned in the Tom Cruise love show and endless explosions. So I'll skip this one I think