In September 2020, director Christoph McCauley posted a photo of Mount Helsetkopen in Norway on his Facebook.
The photo shows the crew building a slope on the edge of a cliff on Mount Helsetkopen.
In the video released by the local Norwegian TV station later, Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle over a cliff, and then opened a parachute in the air to complete a difficult performance.
This video quickly caused a huge sensation on the global network, and also made the "Mission Impossible 7" that is being filmed be expected by the whole network.
This is already a regular operation of propaganda during the filming of the "Mission Impossible" series of movies.
Tom Cruise, is a recognized type of man in Hollywood and even the world, although he is only 170cm tall, but with his handsome appearance and professionalism, he has achieved fame in his early 20s.
The "Mission Impossible" series is his best masterpiece and the IP he poured into the most.
1996's "Mission Impossible" is a spy war film with a strong Cold War temperament, which was not originally sold with action stunts.
But during the filming of a fish tank explosion scene, because the camera could not avoid the face of the stand-in, Tom finally convinced the director to let him personally go into battle.
Unexpectedly, after this scene, Tom no longer wanted to use a stand-in.
Later, in Mission Impossible 2 (2000), Tom tried rock climbing and road racing.
In Mission Impossible 3 (2006), he is blown off by a missile and thrown from the Bank of China building to another building.
Gradually, Paramount Pictures also figured out the best marketing method for the "Mission Impossible" series:
It is to use the stunt shots personally completed by Tom as a selling point to attract the attention of fans and achieve the best publicity effect.
In 2011, while visiting Dubai's landmark Burj Khalifa, a tourist accidentally photographed Tom hanging from the window.
Then the film party quickly responded, exposing the video of Tom filming the "Mission Impossible 4" stunt shot on the Burj Khalifa.
These promotional videos and photos attracted fans around the world and helped the film eventually win $694 million at the global box office.
In 2015's "Mission Impossible 5: Mysterious Country", Tom accomplished three feats:
Pick up on the plane and fly to an altitude of 1500 meters.
Hold your breath underwater for 6 and a half minutes, and see it all at once.
On Moroccan roads, race with motorcycles.
These deadly stunts have also made the film a global success, with a box office of $682 million.
In 2018's "Mission Impossible 6: Total Disintegration", Tom flew over the roof and broke his leg.
Skydive from an altitude of 7,650 meters and get a shot to the end.
Rock climbing on Kashmir cliffs.
With the help of "Big Super" Henry Cavill, the film won a global box office of $794 million, becoming the best in the series.
When the "Spy" series came to an end and the "007" series could not be sold.
The "Mission Impossible" series has become Hollywood's only strong spy film IP.
Under the recovery of the global film market this year, the major commercial film IPs in Hollywood have failed one after another, and after half a year, the best box office is an animated film - "Super Mario Brothers".
The release of "Mission Impossible 7: Fatal Reckoning (Part I)" has been given more meaning, this IP reputation has not collapsed, whether it can save face for Hollywood blockbusters, it depends on it!
This time, even the word of mouth of the major rating websites is unprecedentedly consistent.
Rotten Tomatoes freshness 96%, popcorn index 95%;
The IMDb score is 8.2; even the Douban score is as high as 8.4 (it has fallen to 7.9 points), and everything that can be given is given.
However, it seems that what is afraid will come, and since the film's release, the global box office has been $275 million, and the rise has been less than expected.
The mainland box office is even worse, under the attack of four domestic films "Disappearing Her", "Octagon Cage", "Chang'an 30,000 Li", and "Cha Ah 2 Zhong", the current box office of "Mission Impossible 7" is only 292 million yuan, and it is predicted that the final box office will not exceed 500 million.
To add insult to injury, as a round of screenings passed, controversy over the film followed.
Combined with many remarks on the Internet, it is easy to see that the problem of "Mission Impossible 7" is not in the action and stunt scenes, but in the story itself, Pico summarized and summarized, mainly the following 4 points.
One
The winning formula of 27 years undefeated has been broken.
I believe everyone will agree with this view:
The success or failure of a commercial blockbuster, grand special effects scenes and thrilling action stunts account for a large factor, but the decisive factor is the story of the movie.
This includes having a solid script, being able to grasp the details, shaping the characters, and controlling the rhythm.
Take the two series of "Spy" and "Mission Impossible" to compare, it is not difficult to find the advantages of "Mission Impossible" over the former.
The "Spy" series is known for its fast pace, the male protagonist Jason Byrne is in crisis because of his disappearance, and with his actual combat experience that has been integrated into his blood, he has experienced all kinds of dangers, and he can always overcome the danger.
The series has been a global hit since its launch in 2002, with a total of 5 titles, characterized by crisp editing and realistic action scenes.
But the "Spy" series has one of the most fatal shortcomings, that is, the pace is too fast, and it does not leave enough time to give the characters proper character shaping.
On the other hand, the "Mission Impossible" series also pays the same attention to the fast pace as the "Spy" series, but it does not give up the shaping of characters.
The male protagonist agent Ethan Hunt belongs to the CIA and is the head of the "Impossible Mission Force (IMF)" department directly under the orders of the US president.
Unlike Jason Byrne's solo fight, Ethan Hunt pays more attention to teamwork, and also has a very strong sense of teamwork and responsibility.
This leaves more room for characterization, the IMF will not give up any member, and every mission Ethan Hunt undertakes, often because he wants to make sure that each member can get out safely.
It also pays attention to the concise story and bright rhythm, but in the process of advancing the plot, it still pays attention to the embellishment of emotional drama.
Those plots with a human touch make the image of Ethan Hunt's character flesh and blood, which can resonate more with the audience, which is also where the "Mission Impossible" series is smarter than "Spy".
Looking at the "007" series, since "Dr. No" in 1962, this IP has experienced 61 years, changed 6 James Bonds, and launched 25 formal movies.
As the originator of spy war films, the 25 movies in the "007" series are not unified in story, rhythm and style due to different eras, and the level is uneven.
Although the "Mission Impossible" series does not have as long a history as the "007" series, because each work is produced by Tom Cruise, this ensures the unity of story polishing, character development and film style.
These are the winning weapons for the Mission Impossible series to remain undefeated for 27 years.
But in this year's "Mission Impossible 7", this painstakingly constructed unified style has been broken.
The length of the film reached 164 minutes, setting a new series high and unfriendly to the audience's bladder.
But the length of the film has increased, but it is not filled with dense story content, which causes the overall pace to slow down, no longer as tight as before, appear loose, and the transition of the plot is slightly stiff.
Perhaps the screenwriter feels that Ethan Hunt has run around the world before and has taken out all human opponents, and this time he needs to add something new to let him face more powerful "non-human" opponents.
Therefore, a self-aware artificial intelligence system called "intelligence" developed by Russians appears in the film.
This "intelligence" can hack into networks and wreak havoc on computers around the world, and only a key that splits into two can control it.
If you get the key, you can control the "intelligence body" and then control the global network, so both black and white want to get the key, and the only person who wants to use the key to destroy the "intelligence body" is Ethan Hunt and his team.
In order to popularize the powerful ability of "intellectual body" to the audience, the film has to spend a lot of time and lengthy dialogue to tell, which makes people very impatient.
At the beginning, the clues of the story become clear, and the protagonist and the villain are clearly distinguished, and the sense of suspense is lost.
The originally good spy war film suddenly became a "brainless" action movie like "Fast and Furious 10".
Two
Forcibly let the heroine "give way", in order to make the film more meaningful?
At present, the Internet has exploded, and what has caused strong dissatisfaction among fans is that in order to make way for the new heroine Grace (played by Hailey Atwell), an important character was "killed" -
Ilsa (played by Rebecca Ferguson), who is well portrayed in both "Mission Impossible 5" and "Mission Impossible 6".
Ilsa's first appearance in "Mission Impossible 5", she appeared on the roof of the Vienna Opera House, wearing a yellow high-forked long dress, beautiful legs with guns, beautiful and fierce temperament that amazed everyone.
Ilsa was originally affiliated with hostile forces and was a double agent, but after experiencing a life-and-death test with Hunter, she gradually integrated into the IMF team.
But in this film, just to promote the plot and make Hunter deepen his hatred for the villain Gabriel (played by Esse Morales), he arranged for Ilsa to leave the line early and die at the hands of Gabriel.
This kind of usual technique in Hollywood movies, which has often been seen in previous movies, is not smart, and seems tacky and lacks creativity.
At the same time, Ilsa's death is also to make room for the heroine Grace.
According to director Christopher McQuairey, he feels that Ilsa has been shaped very full in the previous two films, and her story is finished, "in order to make this film more meaningful", she can only be sacrificed.
But this practice of forcibly taking everyone's favorite characters off the line has made many viewers dissatisfied.
Ilsa has long become Hunter's confidante and the favorite female character of fans, and even many people think that she will accompany Hunter to the end.
Therefore, there are now very high calls on the Internet for Ilsa's resurrection in "Mission Impossible 8", but the director has hinted in the interview that she is "really dead", which is very regrettable.
Look at the heroine of this film, Grace, she is set as a multinational thief who likes to fight alone and bump into Hunter in order to steal the key.
Although Hunter and Grace were arranged a lot of rival scenes in the film, Hunter, who had just lost his "beloved", the screenwriter did not dare to forcibly arrange a new relationship for him.
And actor Hayley Atwell and Tom have an age difference of 20 years, which makes the two stand together and look like a father and daughter, and it is difficult to have a chemical reaction.
Let the original heroine Ilsa, who was unanimously praised by the whole network, forcibly go offline and replace it with a new heroine who "looks like a god", this kind of plot arrangement, no matter from which point of view, is a final operation.
Although Marvel's "Captain Carter" Hailey Atwell is familiar to everyone, and her performance is also very hard, the audience will still not accept it for a while.
Three
61-year-old Tom, is "copying" Jackie Chan?
Perhaps the creator of the "Mission Impossible" series and Tom would not have imagined that the stunt shots and action scenes that this series made them proud of would also become the focus of controversy.
As mentioned above, since 2011's "Mission Impossible 4", "Tom's stunt shots personally completed" and "global landmarks and attractions check-in" have become selling points for movie promotion.
Is this propaganda "familiar"?
"Difficult stunt shots" + "shooting in big cities around the world", Jackie Chan movies in the 90s also operated like this.
The most typical masterpiece is "Who I Am", not only went to Elephant Mountain in South Africa, but also jumped on the Willemswerf Building in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to achieve that thrilling scene.
And now the shooting method of the "Mission Impossible" series is also learned from Jackie Chan's set, but the arrangement of stunt shots is more professional and more difficult, and the filming cost of the movie is high, which is also difficult for "Jackie Chan movies" to achieve.
It is no wonder that some netizens ridiculed: 69-year-old Jackie Chan can no longer be moved, and 61-year-old Tom Cruise is still desperate.
In this film, the arrangement of several action scenes is considered by netizens to be an imitation of the "Jackie Chan movie" (plagiarism?). ）。
For example, the car chase scene on the streets of Rome.
The director firmly believed that Tom could operate the steering wheel with only his right hand, so he handcuffed his left hand with Hailey's right hand.
The small yellow car Fiat 500 heads driven by the two are small but full of horsepower, and because the weight is too light, the chassis is unstable, and the wheels are easy to slip when playing the steering wheel on the streets of Rome, which makes the process of drag racing thrilling.
In Pige's opinion, the difficulty and completion of this car chase scene are very high, and the main creator must have put a lot of effort into the choreography.
But some viewers will inevitably think of "Who I Am", there is also a thrilling car chase scene in the film, and the male protagonist's hands are also handcuffed.
In the end, Tom could only remove the entire steering wheel because his hands were handcuffed to the steering wheel, and this plot was considered to be "copied" from Jackie Chan's other movie "Rush Hour".
Another action scene in the film is Hunter fighting the villain Gabriel on a speeding train.
This is a recreation of the hand-to-hand combat on the moving car in 1996's Mission Impossible.
In order to shoot a realistic texture, the crew insisted that most of the shots were shot in real action, which added pressure to the safety and security of the shooting site.
This action scene is indeed very touching in the movie, and the audience is awe-struck by Tom's professionalism.
But at the same time, some people feel that this is the reproduction of the action scene on the train at the end of Jackie Chan's "Police Story 3": the same hand-to-hand combat, the same in order to avoid the oncoming street signs, and dangerous.
What's more, these action scenes also intentionally added some funny elements, originally intended to make them more vivid, but destroyed the serious and cold tone of the movie, making the style of "Mission Impossible 7" inconsistent with the previous works, and the temperament of spy war films disappeared.
Four
A feast, was reconciled into "gruel"?
"Mission Impossible: Fatal Reckoning" was originally a complete story and the "finale" of the "Mission Impossible" series.
But director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom wanted to tell a lot of stories and couldn't be crammed into a movie, so after careful research and discussion, it was decided to split into upper and lower episodes.
This kind of operation of splitting the movie into upper and lower episodes and releasing them separately takes a huge risk, because the story of the upper part is not finished, which is easy to cause dissatisfaction among the audience.
And to take apart the original complete story, it is necessary to fill in more content, so that the upper and lower parts can be independent of each other, which is a very test of the screenwriter's creative level.
There have been many cases of failure in the past, such as 2014's "Taiping Wheel (Part I)", which was ridiculed by the audience as "watching a 129-minute trailer", and word of mouth also collapsed.
This led to difficulties in the launch of the later "Taiping Wheel (Part II)", and fans were no longer willing to pay attention to the movie.
The shortcomings exposed by "Mission Impossible 7" are largely due to the operation of splitting into upper and lower episodes.
Just like a bowl of porridge is divided into two halves, if the rice is not enough, you can only add water, and finally mix into two bowls of gruel.
The finished film we see, just like this bowl of "gruel", the pace is slow, the story is long and boring, and only the action scenes remain at the original level.
This is Pigo's perception of "Mission Impossible 7", slightly disappointed, and dare not predict whether it will eventually recover its cost, but fortunately, "Mission Impossible 8: Fatal Reckoning (Part II)" is the last work, or hope that this IP can have a perfect ending.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Blood Dan Xin
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