Yesterday we went to watch Fallout at the theater. My wife’s got some sort of deal that gets us in for $5 a person (of course, we’re also going at 3:30 in the afternoon) as well as some kind of break on the eats and drinks. Probably still at least $25, which is much more than the cost of the Blu ray, which I’ll most likely purchase anyway, for the extras, but there’s a certain je ne sais quoi about begin in a theater and for that price, it’s worth it.
I’m going to assume anyone reading this has seen the last one, Rogue Nation. No spoilers for Fallout, but likely for Rogue Nation. They got most of the old team back (what happened to Brant? maybe Renner was busy) including Hunley, Ethan’s ‘nemesis’ from the CIA. Interestingly, the CIA still plays a part in the nemesis action. Where’s the NSA all this time? No KGB either, though, I suppose I’m out of date in that regard.
I liked the increased small moments of humor. There’s a great scene where Luther and Benjie silently ‘argue’ over why Benjie has to put on a mask and risk his life. There’s a chase scene where Benjie is directing Ethan’s pursuit of a bad guy, except gets his lefts and rights mixed up and has no idea that Ethan is running along the tops of the building instead of on the ground. Then Ethan has to leap out of a window and I like how he pauses for a few moments as if thinking “I’m too old for this shit.”
That being said, I never felt any tension at all during the flick. My wife watched a number of the scenes behind her hand (what’s up with that anyway, when you peak around the edge?), but I couldn’t be bothered with elevated heart rate or concern since they always make it out alive and in one piece. Though rare, there were times in the original TV series where things did go terribly wrong.
Another thing I really liked about the TV series was the ability for them to have smaller stories. Each MI has to have bigger and better TEOTWAWKI, which gets fatiguing. Not to mention rather hard to believe, that the MI force only has one team operating capable of TEOTWAWKI missions. I understand that the ginormous budgets of the MI series demands TEOTWAWKI, so I wish they’d consider smaller budgets that would allow smaller… disasters. Things not on such an epic scale. I find redshirts boring as well; why not let us get to know someone, then have them die? Or be so messed up (physically or psychologically) that they can’t continue.
Or, what I really wanted to see, was an episode where they listen to the mission briefing, then shake their heads and say “fuck this!” and then there is a montage of them having a great time at a beach resort.
