What If: Michael Bay Directed a Mission Impossible Movie?
Written by Cameron Geiser
A funny thing happened while watching 6 Underground last year during quarantine. As I sat and found myself quite enjoying this Michael Bay movie, untethered from his robotic machinations of the last decade and a half, it was like meeting an old friend for the first time in twenty years. He’d aged a bit, for better and for worse, but within this admittedly bonkers action movie, Bay had returned to hints of his former glory. It wasn’t the most solid film structurally speaking, the writing wasn’t much to write home about either- but the sheer intensity of his style and commitment to pure sensationalism over everything else reminded me of Bay’s best films, namely The Rock, and The Bad Boys movies. The thrill of the action sequences gave me pause, as the last film to elicit this guttural sweaty palm reaction was the last Mission Impossible movie. Which got me thinking, “What if Michael Bay directed a Mission Impossible movie?”
The Mission Impossible movies are all essentially heist movies with the added flair of Tom Cruise risking life and limb for spectacle and awe. This paired with the decidedly old school filmmaking mentality where Cruise and company pull visuals, stunts, and choreography from everything from Buster Keaton, to The French Connection, to Alfred Hitchock’s oeuvre broadly; all this adds up to one of the stranger Blockbuster film series of our time. So, how would the film series, and Bay himself, benefit from him directing this film? First we’d have to establish where the film series is when Bay jumps in, because as these films have progressed they have relied increasingly on the story elements that develop from movie to movie. Next, I’ll detail the set-pieces that I think would be not only entertaining, but fit the accompanying character progression that I’ll have noted as well. Lastly, we have to acknowledge the elephant in the room, and that’s getting Bay and Cruise to play nice.
This may not be as far fetched as it seems at first glance. The first five films of the series all had different directors, and the first two were written by Robert Towne (you know, the guy that wrote Chinatown, which is considered by many to be the best screenplay of all time). It’s really only the last two films, Rogue Nation and Fallout, where Christopher McQuarrie has taken over as the writer-director of the film series as it currently stands. In the immediate future, McQuarrie is set to write and direct the next two films in the series, the seventh and eighth films. Naturally, we know nothing about the next two films other than the fact that we’ll be seeing them over the next couple of years. Thus, it’s speculation time. There are a few things the series will always do, or at least always seems intent on doing, so we can predict some structure and guess at some big character moments and plot momentum over the course of these two films. However I won’t be diving too deep on the seventh and eighth films all that much, mostly I’ll be focusing on what will motivate Hunt going into the Bay Mission Impossible. I’ll be positioning Bay’s film as the next in line in the series, being the ninth, and in this version, the final film of the series.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has evolved over the course of the film series. He’s gone from egomaniacal adrenaline junkie and self obsessed action hero, to a confident but quieter action hero, with markedly improved empathy, who occasionally misses the mark with age. So, I’m going to assume that some big things happen in the next two films when it comes to the core cast. This may seem brutal, but I think Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) should betray the IMF and end up dying in the seventh film due to Hunt choosing to save Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) in a split second decision that will twist the knife, as they say. For the eighth film, I’d have Luther be killed by that film’s villain (whoever they end up being) in the first act, with Benji making the difficult decision to quit the IMF at the end of the film. So, by the time the ninth film rolls around, Ethan’s essentially on his own again, older and racking up some seriously close calls, and on his biggest mission yet.
So what do you do with a film series that is hell bent on out-doing each previous instalment with insane stunts that Tom Cruise actually does himself? You outdo them. I submit the most insane idea for the last Mission Impossible movie, actually sending Tom Cruise into space. I’ll explain. For the major stunt and heist sequence of the film, we need to get Ethan Hunt to the Villain’s base of operations, on the moon. Obviously, the moon base set-piece will need to be on a stage with as much elaborate practical effects possible. That being said, I think by the time this film’s production date rolls around, we could probably find a way to actually strap Cruise into a rocket that’s modified for the movie and have a liftoff from ground to orbit that’s actually him, physically being launched into space for this sequence. Think the getaway plane sequence from Rogue Nation- but dialled up to Bayhem levels. Other than that, I think this film has to have the highest stakes of the series, the destruction of the planet. Our Villain is a maniac who believes that by making the planet inhabitable for humans, he’s actually resetting the globe, his way of “Setting humanity free from the shackles of governments and war, inequality, racism, sexism etc”.
He’s an idealist whose gathered a small group of people that he’s deemed worthy of transitioning into the “Earth’s New Dawn”, which is his organization’s name. They plan on watching the Earth’s demise from their Moon Cocoon and then traveling back to repopulate the earth once it’s safe. Now, personally I think casting Keanu Reeves as the film’s Villain against Tom Cruise’s embattled Ethan Hunt would be a lot of fun. Keanu Reeves has the stature and acting ability to pull off someone that seems like they could be the leader of a “New Age” cult, while also being able to competently fight Ethan Hunt in hand to hand combat. Oh and to help Ethan get to the Moon, he’ll successfully convince Benji to help him one last time. This is the big spectacle of the movie, but I want to build the tension from the moment the film begins.
I haven’t written out a whole script here, but there are a couple of things I’d love to see in a Mission Impossible movie. First, the film should open on a white knuckle motorcycle chase that evolves into a car chase that could rival what they’ve accomplished in Fallout with the chase scene in Paris. Personally, I think executing this chase scene in Rio, Brazil from the top of the “Christ, The Redeemer” statue and moving down the mountain and through the cityscapes to the oceanside would be phenomenal, especially with Bay at the helm. The context can be figured out later. Oh, and I also would love to see Hunt do a smaller scale heist before the moon base, by breaking into a submarine holding crucial information, or persons of interest.
All that’s well and good, but how does Michael Bay do all of his Bayhem while maintaining a working relationship with star of the show, Tom Cruise? The two have considered working together before, but they’ve butted heads on one aspect of production specifically. (Michael Bay talked about working with Tom Cruise). The article linked just now is a short piece of an interview that Michael Bay participated in where he said that He’d like to work with Tom Cruise, but that he wouldn’t let Cruise have as many rehearsals for his stunts.
“We’ve talked about. But I told Tom to his face ... I said, ‘Tom, I know you rehearse your stunts over and over, but I like sloppy stunts.’ So that would be the rub working with us - I wouldn’t let him rehearse as much.”
This may actually work with our Mission Impossible movie pitch. The idea that Ethan Hunt is getting a bit older now, not always coming out of every leap of faith unscathed anymore; this could actually make Bay’s instincts to get sloppier, messier takes a more story inclined approach for the character by the time the ninth film rolls around. Leaning into Hunt’s increasing vulnerability as the films have naturally progressed in this way would only gleam a more satisfactory finale to the film series when it comes to the story in my opinion. There’s a few things that need to be in place overall, however. I strongly believe that Christopher McQuarrie should be kept on as the screenwriter for this film. Bay needs a competent guiding hand to keep his worst instincts at… well, you know. As long as Bay’s allowed to flex his filmmaking style and get creative with it, I’m all for it. Michael Bay is a Maximalist Filmmaker after all, and his Mission Impossible movie should reflect that. His visceral and saturated love of violence should play well into any of the action set-pieces, but the Mission Impossible series is all about it’s quiet scenes of absolute tension when everything goes wrong, and Bay could learn a thing or two from that as well.
As far as ending the series goes, at some point, we know Tom Cruise won’t be making more of these, and given that there are two more films before even reaching this one, I don’t think it would be out of contention to consider going out with a bang! Cruise may not want Ethan Hunt to take on the mantle of the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) Director as a way to end the series, but I’m not sure if he would want the whole IMF to be disbanded entirely without him either? Ethan Hunt basically IS the IMF at this point, there may be a way to merge those ideas and have him be a sort of spectre in the world, someone that moves information around suggestively in old school spy ways? Pushing the people with “the right stuff” to seek truth, stop those who would imperil others and the world? They could do a few different things with the actual ending for Ethan Hunt. I highly doubt they would choose to have him die in the film- but maybe there’s a way to do that with class too? In any case, this dovetails into the title of the film I’ve come up with. Mission Impossible 9: Into The Black, both as a reference for the space travel to the Moon and back, but also doubly meant as ‘Into the Unknown’, or traveling into uncharted territory story-wise.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.