Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, the main character of the M:I movies, is more of an American James Bond than a Sherlock Holmes, this time around, the film-makers have given him a very definite Dr. Watson in Simon Pegg.
I had seen headlines that suggested their characters made put the movie in the "bromance" category, but was not expecting a Holmes-Watson relationship. Not at all. And yet, there it was. Ethan Hunt is all about action and not necessarily brainwork, but his Dr. Watson, Simon Pegg's character Benji, is a total Dr. Watson. Bringing his own particular skills to the partnership, doing the less main-character tasks, being appropriately astonished as needed -- you could totally see Simon Pegg playing John H. Watson, M.D. after seeing Rogue Nation.
The climax to my Watsonian thoughts about Pegg exploded, however, when . . . .
************ GIANT SPOILER ALERT! ********************
BAIL! BAIL! BAIL!
Benji had an explosive vest strapped to his chest by the bad guy and had a earpiece feeding him dialogue to speak to Ethan. Yes, a complete borrow of the Moriarty technique from season one of Sherlock. No way were the writers not thinking of Watson when putting this movie together.
And like I said, a pretty fair Watsonian actor at that.
Cool. I guess that scene falls under 'great artists steal'?
ReplyDeleteLooks like we may not get Mr. Holmes, but MI is playing on all the screens. :-/