By Dwight Brown
NNPA Film Critic
(***1/2) If there’s one thing that we’ve learned over the 30-year history of this franchise, it’s that the missions aren’t so impossible when Ethan Hunt is in charge and Tom Cruise takes the wheel.
Frankly the last chapter, Dead Reckoning Part One, was good but not great. So, this, possibly the final episode, needs to be stellar if all involved want to go out with a bang. To leave nothing but good memories behind. Are they up to it? Hell yeah!
The stakes are high. An AI god called the Entity is plotting humankind’s annihilation. The key to the defeat of this artificial intelligence monster lies somewhere below the frigid Bering Sea. Hunt is determined to save humanity. He’s aided by his old troupe of covert operators, Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg) and the latest addition Grace (Hayley Atwell), a former lover and a pickpocket, slight-of-hand magician. The diabolical and power-hungry mercenary Gabriel (Esai Morales) is set on blocking his path and hastening his demise.
There are hitches, fits and starts. But once Ethan starts his quest, nothing can stop him. Not the angry agents who trail him, Briggs and Degas (Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis). Nor a former adversary, Paris (Pom Klementieff), who joins his fight. There are others who will help him, like the President of the United States (Angel Basset). Meanwhile, time is ticking away and there’s never enough of it. Could the world go kaboom? Hunt pleads, “I want you to trust me one last time.”
What viewers expect from the jump is a huge action scene. Then all of a sudden that Mission: Impossible theme song will play, and the rest of the mind-boggling, covert operations will ensue. Instead head screenwriter and director Christopher McQuarrie, with actor/producer Cruise looking over his shoulder, starts with intriguing scenes laced with retrospective glimpses of all the franchise’s movies. In quick bursts (think Oppenheimer), M: I’s most famous stunts flash across the screen. A young buck Tom Cruise repelling down from a ceiling, tethered by a cord and landing inches from the floor. A numbing green dust bomb thrown in an office full of executives. Hunt on the sides of the many high rises he’s climbed or descended in his career. The nostalgia is cumbersome, but sweet. It shows the depth of the series and its legacy.
The gorgeous footage (cinematographer Fraser Taggart) becomes more and more entrancing as the film progresses. Most noted are the balletic underwater sequences when Cruise looks like he was coached by Circ du Soleil. A range of blue colors, with mesmerizing lighting are displayed as Hunt attempts a dive that defies the imagination—and logic too. Dude, can you really descend that deep, lose an oxygen tank, then ascend to the surface that fast and not die from decompression sickness (DCS) or arterial gas embolism (AGE)? Some of the film’s stunts are so superhero silly. Stretching reality. Yet you stick with Tom because you know he’s such a badass he’ll make you forget the improbable parts and love the good ones.
Cruise still runs like he’s the frontrunner on the last lap of an 800-meter NCAA track and field meet. He does it for miles. An obvious illusion at times. But always invigorating. That said, his stunt work peaks in a prop plane chase scene. He’s climbing from the axel, onto the wing, into the cockpit while he’s in the sky and the plane is navigating around mountains and valleys. The stunt is all the more fascinating because Morales, as Gabriel, and his demonic ruthlessness add to the danger. Their final fight is worth the price of admission. All of it builds to the culmination of years of battles, pursuits, escapes and the saving of the innocent that marks a seemingly never-ending quest for justice that just might be ending.
McQuarrie has directed the final four chapters of a storyline that started back in 1996 with the vision of the legendary director Brian De Palma. There have been other directors in between them, but this latest filmmaker has learned to take the action and challenges to new heights. As encouraged by Cruise, this film is global in scope, encompassing many nations and a cast of international characters that defy any anti-DEI mandates. All kinds of people are the enemies and saviors, and somehow that feels so right. Notably Greg Tarzan Davis’s role gets an upgrade, and the Inuit actress Lucy Tulugarjuk plays a pivotal character.
The pounding musical score intensifies the drama and ups the adrenaline factor (composers Max Aruj, Alfie Godfrey). Two hours and 49-minutes roll by as fast as a locomotive because Eddie Hamilton the editor cuts the scenes down to the bone. All on view, from submarines to think-tank rooms and icy terrain, look wondrous because production designer Gary Freeman has a super eye. And so do set decorator Raffaella Giovannetti and costume designer Jill Taylor.
Many actors in his position and in this kind of film would be slaves to their stunt doubles. It’s likely that Cruise’s stunt double was on a long coffee break for most of the filming. That’s a hallmark for Tom’s entire Mission: Impossible journey. But don’t get it twisted. He’s also a top-notch actor who can grind more emotions out of a scene than most. He’s a champ at lifting his fellow actors up. In the past, he helped some co-stars shine so much they went on to win Oscars®: Paul Newman, The Color of Money; Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man; Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men; Cuba Gooding Jr. Jerry McGuire.
Every set, stunt, argument, accusation, revelation, wrinkle, escape and pummeling help this film build to a monumental climax. An epic ending where multiple subplots peak at the same time. Where staving off annihilation in the most crucial way overshadows all that came before. It’s magnificent. Magnificent in a way that makes action/adventure fans collectively say, “Wow!”
If this is the end, what a way to go. An impossible mission that’s made possible and thrilling by a brilliant crew and a moviestar extraordinaire.
Visit Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.
