Belated reviews: Mustache Impossible: Fallout
Add to favoritesThe sixth installment of Paramount’s Mission Impossible movie franchise is out – Mission Impossible: Fallout, or, as it is known, MI:6, finally catching up to the name of the fictional James Bond’s real life organization. Seeing as the movie released just last week, this review is not exactly belated, but it feels like it is – This is one of the hottest, most anticipated release in a long time – at least for me.
I had to know. I was balancing on tenterhooks at the edge of my seat on pins and needles, waiting with bated breath to find out – why that mustache was so goshdarned important.
For those of you who don’t know, there was a supersized-drama behind the scenes around one of the main actors. Henry Cavill, better known for his role as Superman, had a critical role in the movie. Once he was done flying around as the caped superhero in the 2017 Warner Bros. movie, Justice League, he started prepping for his role in MI:6. However, once the studio got wind of the crappy crappiness of the Justice League movie during its preview screenings, they decided to re-shoot some scenes. For this, they had to bring back the lead actors, including Cavill. Unfortunately, Cavill did not come alone. No. MI:6 era Cavil came with a decidedly unSupermanny mustache.
Mission Impossible: Fallout | Paramount Pictures People in Superman’s world consider glasses to be a near-perfect disguise. Using facial hair may result in even Superman failing to recognize himself, leading to an identity crisis.
Warner Bros. essentially said “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to shave off that mustache”.
Paramount chose not to accept it.
One proposed solution was for Cavill to shed his lip garden and for Warner Bros. to pay around $3M for adding a fake mustache for MI:6, either via CGI or via actual make-up. The MI:6 director, Christopher McQuarrie, scrapped that plan, saying that fake mustaches would be unconvincing.
Let me say this again. The people behind Mission Impossible – a franchise that infamously relies on agents whipping up prosthetic masks to perfectly mimic a completely different person, irrespective of height/size/mannerisms – said that a fake mustache would be too much of a stretch.
Mission Impossible 3 | Paramount Pictures So, one of these two is Tom Cruise? Sure, I’ll buy that. As long as there’s no mustache involved.
In the end, Caville played the costumed superhero with his full blown mustache. During post production, CGI was used to give him a digital shave, and presumably to edit out the muffled laughter from his co-stars. And that’s the story of the most expensive mustache in movie history; incidentally a more entertaining story than the Justice League.
The resulting CGI upper lips were truly cringe-worthy – turning Cavill’s naturally handsome face into an uncanny valley nightmare. This was arguably one of the lowest points of the Justice League movie.
Man of Steel, Justice League | Warner Bros. And then there are those who feel that the digital mustachectomy was so bad it distracted attention from the (oh, so many) other ways in which Justice League sucked.
So, when Mission Impossible: Fallout finally launched on the big screen, I had to watch it as soon as I could. I was not disappointed – it was slick, stylish, smooth and finely layered into a visibly ordered structure.
And the movie wasn’t bad either.
I mean – yes, the plot was cliched, simplistic, predictable and formulaic – but the riveting action sequences and the fast pacing fully met my expectations from the franchise. So that’s a solid thumbs up from my side.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to the focus of this review. The mustache of legends. For all you naysayers who said they could have chopped down the bush and helped out Justice League – let me assure you, that it was absolutely impossible.
In Fallout, Henry Cavill plays Special Activities Operator August Walker, who starts out as an impulsive, muscular jock who stares at characters with menacing nonchalance. Half of his character is entirely represented by that mustache.
Mission Impossible: Fallout | Paramount Pictures Intent stares contributed another 18-20%.
The face of a demustached Cavill may be ideal for a superhero with boy-scout morals, but it would have broken down instantly in the role of an impetuous, ham-fisted, reckless agent who’s unimpressed by the Impossible Mission Task Force.
And don’t tell me he could have pulled out his acting skills to make up for the mustache deficit. No! From what the director implied, remember that Henry Cavill doesn’t have the acting chops to play “Henry Cavill with a mustache” unless there’s a real mustache hanging onto his face.
Don’t get me wrong; He’s perfectly capable of handling the role he was given in the movie – the franchise is not notable for its Oscar baiting performances, after all – but the mustache was a big part of selling that character.
In fact, once you see the movie, you may actually hate Justice League a tad further, if that were possible. The audacity of it all. How could they ask anyone to cut down that glorious mustache? Just look at it.
Mission Impossible: Fallout | Paramount Pictures Spoiler alert: If you don’t want to spoil a key plot twist that reveals itself towards the middle of the movie – or in the first 15 minutes if you’re paying attention – skip this paragraph.
Oh, I meant THIS paragraph. Jump on to the next one. As the plot moves forward, the role of the mustache becomes more and more important – It turns out Cavill is the rogue agent/antagonist of the movie. The movie had to seriously up its game in terms of screenwriting, and credibly give depth to the character to make him believable as a ruthless anarchist who had been secretly masterminding a deep operation from within the CIA. Either that, or it had to take a shortcut and glisten an impressive mustache instead. The screenwriters were busy developing an unlikely romance sub-plot, so the mustache was the inevitable choice. In the final act, half of Cavill’s face is burned off, and a giant hook tears into him as he falls off a cliff into an exploding helicopter – not exaggerating, by the way. But viewers are not explicitly shown what happens to his mustache, so I fully expect to see it in the sequel.
The mustache’s performance was so powerful, so deep, that I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the first oscar nominated role from the franchise. I am quite confident that no other mustache would have performed as well in this role – no offence to Tom Selleck.
In the end, it worked out well for everyone. MI:6 got to keep the ever-so critical mustache in its movie, we got one entertaining movie out of the whole thing, and Justice League fans got to pretend that the movie would have been good if only it hadn’t been for the mustache issue.
Note: The image used as the Featured Image for this post – is a very creative and hilarious fan art I found online. If anyone could direct me to the original artist, I need to credit him/her and obtain permission to use it here. 🙂 You can check out the full poster here.
