ilsa was probably my favorite female protagonist so far. she wasn’t a love interest, and her motives seemed independent from a “love” of hunt. she was morally ambiguous but her motivations & values seemed clear. she also killed arguably the most violent of the antagonists (the bone doctor dude) in hand to hand combat, and she seemed to rescue hunt more often than he rescued her, which was refreshing after so many badass women had damsel moments peppered throughout the series. she really felt like a badass spy, and I loved it. 

<p>I appreciated the white widow’s villainy vibes, when she kissed hunt it actually felt like an act of aggression as opposed to a sexy sexy fun fun hot villain girl vibe. it felt similar enough to when male villains kiss female protags in an uncomfortable sort of way., which made it less irritating to me. the sexualization of female villains, while sometimes it makes sense, is a sexist cliche nonetheless.&nbsp;<br><br>Ilsa stays slaying, and I like that she’s in two movies. HOWEVER the whole thing where luther told her to walk away because her existence would split hunts focus is absurdly annoying. hunt is constantly worrying about his team, so I don’t think her added presence should detract from his focus, especially because other than her there’s just benji and luther (who aren’t really shooters like she is 😭). added notes about ilsa’s character that I find enjoyable: I like that she has a recurring skill set (the motorcycling) and i enjoy that her relationship with her org remains strained, i think that it makes it more logical for her to align with hunts group given she cant trust her own people and they dont trust her. her fight scene with lane was metal AS FUCK and sliding the box under benjis feet so he could breathe was so cool. the rope work and the entire sequence was both well done and just generally insanely cool. exactly what I wanted from her character.&nbsp;<br><br>julia was incredibly cool during this movie, but I do think that her presence there was unnecessary to a degree and felt like a lazy afterthought to up the stakes by putting “hunt’s wife” on the line, even if she was remarried. I think that her little arc into badassery saved her appearance for me, and made that a bit more redeemable&nbsp;<br></p>

<p>RIP lindsey farris. I liked that she seemed competent and badass and I enjoyed the “little sister” relationship. it made sense narratively because ethan is working as an instructor and a mentor-mentee situation raises stakes without needlessly sexualizing yet another female protag. she died super quick though, and that irked me, especially because after that there was zhen lei (who was super cool but didn’t have much screen time) and julia (who was kidnapped throughout the whole movie). julia was MAD cool tho. not only did she kill multiple agents and bring her husband back to life, but she also just legitimately seemed like she handled a crazy situation with a reasonable amount of badassery and a fair dose of terror. her character’s actions make sense narratively and she was a solid character, I just can’t rank her too high because of what her role in the narrative was exactly.&nbsp;</p>

<p>despised the way they ended ilsas storyline, felt like fourth quarter fridging. i understand the narrative need to kill a recurring character to add to the stakes, but it truly felt like they were killing ilsa and swapping her in for a more damsel-esque model, which was absurdly annoying and punctuated by the fact they they offered grace the choice in the scene immediately following ilsas death. is it a rule that they can only have one woman on the team at a time? because it felt that way. killing benji would’ve fit just as well, probably would have been more emotionally provocative as he’s a more “lovable” character. ilsas death was a poor resolution for an otherwise pretty solid character.&nbsp;</p>

<p>jane was a super cool female protagonist but the reason why she ranks where she is is because they did the thing where they had the only female protagonist fights the only female antagonist so that they can avoid having to make a decent fight scene where a female protagonist beats a male antagonist. I also didn’t like that the agent who died who she was “avenging” confessed his attraction to her as she was dying. it could’ve been left ambiguous whether they were lovers, friends, or just very close colleagues. for example, ethan avenging one of his friends (benji, luther) wouldn’t be crazy, why couldn’t she just be avenging a friend like that??</p>

literally ALL the women DIED 😭😭😭 whatever, let’s focus on the meat of the movie. the team was actually pretty balanced initially. of course, then everyone died except hunt and claire and jim. claire, of course, was jims wife (which felt unnecessary) and ended up being a bad guy (on jims side). I think she was poorly written, and I wasn’t a big fan of the way she was handled in the storyline, but my main beef was with the fact that it seemed like jim deserved a more drawn out, dramatic death, and her death was almost a tossing aside of what could’ve been an interesting character. it was almost symbolic for how the movie as a whole handled her character. carelessly, lazily, as if she was an old t shirt tossed under the bed, not even worth hanging in the closet&nbsp;

I HATED this fucking movie. I think that many people would consider it tolerable, but their handling of nyah almost made me quit the mission impossible watch I had planned. I think that just watching the movie would make it clear what my qualms with it were. instead of writing a compelling villain, the writers hit the antagonist with a healthy dose of misogynistic and thinly veiled innuendos suggesting sexually motivated aggression/ violence in a lazy attempt to create a terrifying villain. what was more striking to me was the way that nyah was exploited by the “good guys” and expected to do ~what needed to be done~ to save the world. hunt was supposed to be a good guy, and his reluctance was supposed to make us absolve him of guilt, but I’m pissed. I know what you’re thinking— hunt had no other choice, they were saving the world! the issue is that the circumstances that made that necessary were deliberately written by the writers. the writers chose to create the a) expose a woman to sexual violence/ abuse or b) world ends scenario. it’s made extra gross by the fact that nyah has been manipulated by the IMF into trusting hunt because they slept together!! the whole writing here rubbed me the wrong way. it could’ve been redeemed by continuing her character arc in other movies, giving her some development and more strength (like a luther role) but they didn’t do that.&nbsp;