I’m someone who has only the vaguest of ideas of what the Mission: Impossible franchise entails. I’ve never watched any of the films starring Tom Cruise and was never a fan of any iteration of the television shows. In fact, when a character in the movie talks about disavowing the IMF, my first thought was to wonder how it had anything to do with the International Monetary Fund.

I decided to watch this instalment of the series however because it garnered some truly impressive reviews and because it was directed by Brad Bird who is most well-known for The Incredibles. As it turned out, I don’t think that the film lives up to the reviews. It is a thoroughly conventional action thriller that stays well within the bounds of standard genre tropes.

At the same time, Bird’s mastery of space and his ability to fill it with colour is much in evidence. The Burj Khalifa scene is superb and Bird is able to fully convey to the audience both the terrifying height and where everything is in relation to everything else amidst all the action. Another example is Mumbai at night, where the myriad colours manage to be both riotous and aesthetically pleasing.

As for the plot, the kindest thing that can be said of it is that it contains no contradictions and no blatant holes. It remains unfortunately wildly implausible as appears to be par for the course for super-spy thrillers. The most ridiculous of these is having an Indian media mogul employ obsolete Russian military satellites to transmit television channels.

I’m also upset that despite being billed as a movie about the IMF team being disavowed and cut off from their usual resources, the film proceeds to completely ignore that premise. Ethan Hunt’s team still manages to zip around the world on private jets, obtain an advanced supercar and of course play with all manner of gadgets, all on a seemingly unlimited budget. It would have been much more interesting if the team had been forced to improvise and use more low-tech solutions.

The heavy use of gadgets is particularly irksome since movie uses them as a recurrent source of humour. The Marvel movies may have found a way to balance humour with action without sacrificing tension, but this film doesn’t strike that balance. Instead of seeming cool, the gadgets actually look silly. Compare the cleverness of the low-tech and completely plausible reversible jacket disguise to the ridiculousness of the over-engineered movable screen illusion. The former tells the audience that the team members are competent professionals. The latter sends the message that they are nerdy idiots.

All this means that while this movie is genuinely spectacular and entertaining, it is also completely forgettable. Just one more entry, albeit an above average one, in Hollywood’s commercial hit-making machine.