Enjoyably Stupid

A few weeks ago Netflix got “Fast X”, the tenth film in the increasingly daft “Fast & Furious” series. Then, last week, Netflix also got “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning”, the seventh film in the increasingly daft “Mission: Impossible” series. In both cases, these were billed as the first part of the final part of the series. (As I said, increasingly daft.)

Being a sucker for a suitably daft action film, as well as having seen all the previous films in both their series, I proceeded to watch them. And they are, as might be expected, both enjoyably stupid.

In fairness, I must note that “Fast X” is not the stupidest film in the series. The previous film, “F9” featured a scene where our heroes decided to take a car into space (no, really), and that just can’t be topped for stupidity. Not that they didn’t try – between having an omniscient villain, another nuclear submarine (because one can never be enough), and the return of a character who very definitively died earlier in the series, there’s a lot here to mock.

But I was particularly amused by the scenes in Rome. It’s always more fun watching a place get blown to hell when it’s somewhere you’ve actually been, and so that was great fun. And with the characters playing automotive football with a giant bomb on the streets of Rome (no, really), what could be better?

Seriously, if you like these films, you’ll probably find this one a worthy entry. And if you don’t, the tenth instalment in the series is probably not the place to start.

Meanwhile, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” is likewise enjoyably daft. By this point there’s a very clear formula to the films, and this one follows it to the letter, with perhaps the fun wrinkle that Ethan goes rogue before he even properly starts his impossible mission. But there’s the usual fakeouts, hijinks, action scenes, and loads of intense looks at the camera. Oh, and of course lots of running. Good stuff.

I had two favourite scenes in this one. Top of the list, in terms of daftness, was when they found themselves once again on a runaway train – our villain set things up by killing the crew, opening the throttle fully, and then destroying the brakes.

On a steam train.

Now, I’m no expert on this, but I’m reasonably sure that the reason steam locomotives have a huge tender of coal, and someone whose job is to shovel that coal into the engine isn’t entirely decorative. That is, if you stop feeding the engine with the fuel that it needs to keep going it is quite likely to, well, stop going. So in short order that runaway train would… not be running away.

But I was particularly amused by the scenes in Rome. It’s always more fun watching a place get blown to hell when it’s somewhere you’ve actually been, and so that was great fun. And with Ethan finding himself handcuffed to another character, and forced to keep moving to ever-smaller cars, what’s not to like.

Seriously, it was highly amusing watching these two films in close proximity, partly because they mostly chased down exactly the same streets and destroyed all the same landmarks in most of the same ways, but also because the films were made at more or less the same time – the people of Rome must have really loved having their city shut down for weeks for one and then the other.

As with “Fast X”, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” is a case where if you enjoyed the previous films you’ll probably like this one. If not, the seventh film in the series is not the place to start. But I enjoyed it, and I look forward to the “final” part of the series.