If you thought Tom Cruise had reached his peak in terms of mind-blowing stunts, wait until you see the latest Mission Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
The eighth installment in the Mission series picks up where Dead Reckoning left off. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is still on the hunt to destroy the artificial intelligence entity called “The Entity” before it destroys the world.
The Entity is rapidly taking control of the world’s nuclear weapons, one country at a time. As the world map turns red, signaling the countries lost to The Entity, we find ourselves in the UK, one of the only countries left to be conquered.
I could explain more about The Entity and the mission, but to be honest I got confused after the first twenty minutes and when the exposition hit one hour, I was none the wiser. Let’s just say there’s two elaborate keys that fit into each other to become one (we knew this from the previous movie) and this key fits into a small USB-like tube that contains the source code. The source code is the only way to extinguish the Entity. Unfortunately, the USB-like tube is located at the bottom of the sea in a sunken submarine, of course it is.
Ethan and his team of Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), Paris (Pom Klementieff) and Grace (Hayley Attwell) devise a risky plan that includes Ethan diving to the ocean floor before taking to the skies.
As my brain tried to keep up with the death-defying action on screen I pondered:
- There’s absolutely no denying that Tom Cruise is a phenomenal athlete. He’s simply mesmerizing when testing his body to the limit;
- The second and third hours (yes, the movie is nearly three hours) are well worth the price of the ticket. It’s incomprehensible to think that the stunts are real and being undertaken by a 62 year old;
- The movie includes several throwbacks, a love letter to earlier stunts and gives a wink to Top Gun through the aircraft carrier and dogfight in vintage biplanes;
- The underwater scene, with Titanic undertones, is fascinating thanks in part to new technology that produced a well-lit facemask allowing us to see Cruise’s face. Unbelievably this is soon outdone by the biplane sequence;
- The movie touches on power, greed, loyalty and stresses that our lives are the sum of our choices;
- Talking about choices, I applaud the producers for using unbranded underwear, you’ll understand when you see it;
- If you see the movie on VMAX I suggest sitting up the back as the first hour of closeups are very in your face. Some of this is claustrophobic and hard to take for anyone like me who can’t stomach handheld, “shaky cam” camerawork.
- If you have a medical condition, be warned this first hour also contains strobing.
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