Not gonna lie, but my first thought was: Another franchise movie? Are you serious?

But due to the lack of choices in the cinema these days, Mission Impossible 7 was the most interesting thing around, so my friend and I decided to give it a try.

After my encouraging response to yet another franchise movie, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, I thought this should be okay.

Well, it was more than okay, I actually enjoyed it a whole lot, but not as much as Indiana Jones. Perhaps it is because I was more attached to Indy the character than I was with human assassin cyborg Ethan Hunt, but the main culprit of my not-as-enthusiastic response is due to Mission Impossible 7‘s terrible dialogue.

Mind you, the movie hit its action plot points like a pro, but the people are talking like, to quote my friend: “Mansplainers.” To be more specific, “Mansplainer robots”.

Take that opening scene where a bunch of CIA spooks sat around in a top-secret room looking all smug and schemey. It was basically an info dump scene where each of the character was telling us what was happening. They were telling, not showing. It was lazy ass writing. And it was awful.

My jaw dropped, and I turned to my friend. “Nobody talks like that in real life, not even CIA agents!”

Especially CIA agents.

This weird dialogue quirk continued to be distracting throughout the nearly three-hour movie. It didn’t help matters that there was a noisy toddler yelling his head off at random moments during the movie. I don’t know why, but Malaysian parents love taking their toddlers to movies that they shouldn’t be in. I was particularly nervous about the baby sleeping at a young mum’s lap a few seats away, but that infant seemed to regard the yelling, screaming and shooting sounds as a form of lullaby. Can I have what he’s having?

So, anyway, it’s not a bad movie, but I have no idea how it deserved its 96% score at Rotten Tomatoes. Are they saying it’s as good as one of the Lord of the Rings movies? It is definitely not that good.

I have a theory: The deluge of Marvel Cinematic Movies and superhero flicks are making people desperate for something different. Just anything but superheroes. Also, it doesn’t help that these movies have become a tad preachy. People are just so starved for quality, unique, non-preachy cinema these days that Mission Impossible 7 felt like a breath of fresh air.

It’s more like we’re going back to the 90s and early 2000s and that may not necessarily be a bad thing!

This kinda makes me feel slightly depressed for the state of cinema in general — Western movies and television have stopped being fun, experimental and adventurous. It has become politically correct, safe and preachy. I’ve been turning more and more to Chinese and Korean dramas, only because you can still find some originality there.

People just want to go back to good ol’ days where you can just chuck your brain aside and enjoy yourself.

Can we have the old Hollywood back?