Set to Cruise control, 'Mission: Impossible-The Final Reckoning' soars
Come for high-caliber stunts, stay for the soulful touch.
When it comes to the Mission: Impossible series, there’s a surefire recipe. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team are tasked with saving the world, all while being chased and hunted by good and bad groups of people. The odds are stacked against them, which heightens the suspense. Their bosses don’t even trust them, even though this world-saving work has been repeated in seven movies. The job usually gets done using unconventional and death-defying methods, but with a certain cost.
How Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise compose these Missions is anything but conventional, a trait that stretches back ten years and four films. The Final Reckoning is the latest and longest adventure, a movie that places an exclamation point on the stellar series. While Hunt could go on fighting the good, dangerous fight forever, there’s a certain tipping point where even the craziest stunts become too expected and lack the sizzle of a genuine surprise.
Don’t let my slight restraint fool you, though. The eighth Mission: Impossible film delivers two of the riskiest stunts ever achieved on camera, a feat that only one man would even attempt. Cruise is something else, a greater Hollywood asset than most due to his willingness to put everything on the line. He hangs and dangles from a small airplane as it spins and soars through the sky. That’s him submerged in a deep water tank filming an extended sequence that may suck all the oxygen out of your chest while watching from the safe confines of a movie theater.
If there’s a motorcycle scene, helicopter chase, or just an all-out sprint across an exotic piece of geography, Cruise has done it and then some while personifying Hunt for 30-plus years. The saying, “only he or she could play the role,” gets thrown around a lot, but the soon-to-be 62-year-old movie star and Oscar nominee honestly does fill out the shoes of cinema’s most incredible spy to a tee. Sorry, James Bond, but Hunt has you beat.
The plot picks up from the last film, Dead Reckoning, where Esai Morales’s villain is after a sacred key that unlocks an artificial intelligence power source that could… wait for it, change the entire complex of reality and destroy many lives with wars that are conceived outside the realm of the human mind. For instance, imagine being able to launch a submarine missile at another country’s hub without the knowledge of either side knowing who fired first. With A.I. playing such a massive part in our modern society and only growing stronger with each passing year and technological invention, using it as a central plot device in the final two Mission films is a wise play.
McQuarrie, who took an already sharp series of movies and somehow made it better, doesn’t allow that plot seasoning to take over the main course of delight in these movies, though. It’s a catalyst for Hunt and company (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Hayley Atwell) to evade danger and do outrageous things. All you need is a villain who always seems to be one step ahead of the heroes, and a great cast to make the whole operation run like a Swiss clock.
If there’s one thing the Mission: Impossible movies do well, it’s stock their roster with great hitters. Shea Whigham’s agent isn’t just another badge trying to bag Hunt and throw him in prison. There’s more to his story. Atwell’s new team member isn’t just another pretty face. Rebecca Ferguson’s departed British agent wasn’t just a heel-turned-ally during her three-film stint in the series. Henry Czerny’s Kittredge isn’t just a perfect voice to throw around when narration is required. Angela Bassett adds power to every line of dialogue that comes out of her mouth. Holt McCallany and Nick Offerman are always good screen presences, adding luster to the cinematic situation.
Credit Rhames (and McQuarrie’s writing) with adding a signature soulful touch to this, The Final Reckoning. While one could argue that the film is a touch dense in the middle and relies on a trustworthy but well-known method, there’s a heartfelt note attached to this swan song number. You feel it in the first half, and the impact becomes greater during the climactic plane sequence. Creating amazing stunts is one thing; making it count is harder to pull off.
I’ve always considered these movies the Fast and Furious films with a much higher IQ. Each series goes after the same thing, but the M:I joints have a more stellar finish to their intelligence. As my friend Landon Burris said after the screen, it’s ridiculous at a very high level. Cruise and company try to pull off things as realistically as a team of humans can in a movie, but there’s a well-rounded purpose: Pure entertainment. Nothing more, and never less.
See it on a giant screen. IMAX is the destination, but a crowded house will do just fine. Appreciate Cruise, whether you disagree with his life choices or religious beliefs. The last time I checked, he wasn’t ranting awful things in public or hurting others. He wants to enrich cinema and keep the movie theater experience alive against all odds. His mission is similar to Hunt’s missions in the movies: While the rest of the world and time seem to think he’s finished, one man believes otherwise. Thanks to an unstoppable Cruise control, Mission: Impossible-The Final Reckoning is one helluva ride.
Seriously, I want Rhames to narrate my life story. That guy is the best.