Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise’s most enduring position, was hardly ever way more than a reputation. That’s the purpose of him; because the Mission: Not possible franchise’s undercover agent extraordinaire, Hunt can faux to be anybody, accomplish mainly any bodily process, and uncover conspiracies with aplomb. He’s a cross between James Bond and a vaudeville performer. However character was not a part of that package deal, and a backstory was solely superfluous. After the third Mission movie tried to present Hunt a spouse and burgeoning household, the following sequel rejected that subplot, as a substitute asserting that for him, experiencing a standard life was inconceivable.
So it was to my presumably silly shock to study that Mission: Not possible—The Closing Reckoning, the saga’s newest (and rumored to be final) movie, is an almost three-hour salute to Hunt. It’s a outstanding, lore-filled pivot from what we’d been made to consider about our hero for the previous twenty years. Over time, he’s gone from cipher to human being, from a superb showman within the artwork of espionage to a mannequin of the best man. This sense of self-importance, nonetheless, is one which the sequence can’t fairly maintain.
The Closing Reckoning, marking Christopher McQuarrie’s fourth time within the director’s chair, has all the required parts for a strong Mission: Not possible outing. It contains globe-trotting location capturing, wild and miraculous motion stunts, and a dependable ensemble of character actors round Cruise—who, in his early 60s, retains his boyish vitality regardless of lastly sporting a number of wrinkles. However the movie additionally makes a sometimes-dutiful effort to convey cohesion to Hunt’s decades-long assortment of missions. Flashbacks to the primary movie, from 1996, introduce revelations that newer characters are associated to those that died off within the unique installment; monologue after monologue from heroes and villains alike particulars simply how uniquely particular a determine Hunt has develop into.
As a grand valediction to a long-running storyline, the self-reflexiveness makes some sense. However it does depart the movie feeling a little bit too encumbered. There’s much less time for balletic set items if it has to maintain slowing down to elucidate how essential the whole lot is—partly as a result of it’s so intent on catching the viewers up on the trivialities of Lifeless Reckoning, the earlier entry. However even when the plot kicks into the next gear, The Closing Reckoning by no means fairly settles into the cheerfully goofy groove that propelled the franchise towards its peaks.
The Hunt-heaviness stems from the artistic determination that truly saved Mission: Not possible way back: The writers determined to start out creating lasting penalties for his or her protagonist’s actions. The primary Mission: Not possible, directed by Brian De Palma, is a swerving, absurd folly; it introduces a group round Hunt and instantly kills most of them off, thus placing him on the run and throwing a maze of horny triple-crosses his approach. Its sequel, directed by John Woo, was geared towards that director’s aesthetic: It’s lengthy, operatic, and sadly a little bit mild on humor. For the third movie, Cruise (who acts as a lead producer and has at all times performed a significant half in selecting the administrators) introduced within the TV maven J. J. Abrams, who centered the story on Hunt getting engaged and making an attempt to take care of a wholesome work-life steadiness. Mission: Not possible III barely underperformed expectations; coupled with the extreme tabloid scrutiny that Cruise started to face within the mid-2000s, it appeared believable that the complete enterprise may draw to an in depth.
However Cruise and Paramount, the studio behind the franchise, managed to show issues round—after a five-year break. For the fourth movie, Ghost Protocol, the director Brad Hen (who had beforehand labored solely in animation) helped produce essentially the most epic stunts the sequence had seen and filmed them with IMAX cameras, nonetheless a novelty on the time. The preliminary plans to deal with that chapter as one thing of a torch go—with Cruise retiring and the lead position maybe leaping to his co-star Jeremy Renner—had been additionally scrapped. The screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie got here on late in preproduction to assist with rewrites, and he reportedly derided the thought; Hunt couldn’t simply retire and go off into the sundown together with his erstwhile fiancée. His life’s work was undertaking unbelievable feats of espionage. Switching the emphasis again towards the stalwart hero and away from his potential protégé was an excellent storytelling gambit, grafting the actor’s public popularity for mega-intensity onto Hunt’s rising habit to death-defying habits.
Cruise then introduced McQuarrie on to direct the following film, Rogue Nation, and he’s remained within the position since. Underneath him, Mission: Not possible introduced Cruise’s love of pushing his physique past its cheap limits to the forefront: He’d tie himself to a aircraft for Rogue Nation, bounce out of a aircraft from above the clouds for Fallout, and take a header off a mountain whereas driving a motorbike in Lifeless Reckoning. Beneath that dizzying insanity, McQuarrie launched a progressively extra labyrinthine mythology, knitting the installments collectively in methods believable and never, and increasing Hunt from spectacular spy to a extra elemental drive. “He’s the residing manifestation of future,” the director of the CIA, performed by Alec Baldwin, hoarsely cries in Rogue Nation; by Lifeless Reckoning, Hunt has develop into the one potential obstacle to world annihilation by an AI system known as the Entity.
This selection of villain was a topical one—AI fears are cresting solely greater and better within the information. However the Entity additionally helped reiterate how essential Hunt had develop into to the Mission: Not possible model. In spite of everything, even when the state of affairs seems to be insurmountable—whether or not he’s thwarting an murderer or a hyperintelligent machine—Hunt is aware of he can discover a method to pull it off. So by The Closing Reckoning, his nigh godhood is at hand. In preventing the Entity, he’s sticking up for the remainder of humanity, sure; however as the one individual that the world can belief to take action, he’s additionally being heralded as essentially the most succesful of all of them.
I like the Mission: Not possible films, and I used to be nonetheless compelled by The Closing Reckoning, even with its sludgier opening tempo and patronizing reliance on exposition. A sequence that sees Hunt diving into an deserted submarine is among the spookiest and most atmospheric within the sequence; one other, the place he hops from biplane to biplane whereas in battle with one other main foe, is among the most spectacular. However the movie’s triumphalism about Hunt the person left me, to my shock, a little bit chilly. What was most entertaining about Mission: Not possible was by no means the overarching plot; Hunt’s heroism was extra a blinding bout of flamboyance from certainly one of Hollywood’s final stars than the results of some significant backstory. The Closing Reckoning provides him sufficient concluding thrives to make the send-off nearly succeed, however it almost drowns that endeavor out with a continuing stream of thundering applause.
