The possibly final chapter of the legendary 'Mission: Impossible' film series has arrived in theaters. We recall the long journey of beloved characters and bid them farewell to a well-deserved rest. Or does Tom Cruise still not need a send-off?
The best parts of the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise have always offered the viewer not only a spectacle but also iconic confrontations between Ethan Hunt and various antagonists: former mentor Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), infernal corporate Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Professor Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), grim agent Sidorov (Vladimir Mashkov), and, of course, renegade Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).
'The Final Reckoning' detritivizes the villainous role, and for the first time in the series, Ethan Hunt fights not a human but the Entity – an artificial intelligence gradually seizing control of superpower nuclear arsenals. One can notice a slight imprint of a crushed insect on the wall – Gabriel (Esai Morales), who was previously allowed to kill Hunt's beloved, but by the finale his influence fades, and he becomes another unsuccessfully escaped prey of Tom Cruise.
God from the Program
The Entity is the most uninventive and uninteresting representative of the Artificia rationalis family. It yields in charisma to GLaDOS from Portal and SHODAN from System Shock, cannot boast a sinister origin like the digitized consciousness of a paralytic from the anime series 'Cowboy Bebop' or Alt Cunningham from Cyberpunk 2077, its plan is absurd, and it is harder to believe in than Skynet's scheme, yet the Entity is exactly the evil that the finale of a great franchise deserves: it is the finale itself, they have identical operating principles.
The Entity is the sum of all quantities and the last station for Ethan Hunt. It appeared in the franchise only due to the fashion for neural network alarmism, but it has another task: to unite the 'Mission: Impossible' film family, learn from them, and loop the story. That is why 'The Final Reckoning' lays out a smorgasbord of fan service before the viewer.
Do you remember the 'Rabbit's Foot' project and hate Hoffman's smirk? Now they remind Ethan and you through oblivion that there was no victory in the third part. Do you like the analog 'accessories' of the series? Then the message from the US President will be played on a self-igniting cassette. Do you want to believe that people like Hunt can be met on the street, bumping shoulders? Then you will be parted in the fail-safe manner of the film 'Ghost Protocol'.
Such a Different America
Undoubtedly, objects of cult and fetishization were present in every episode, but 'The Final Reckoning' does not just sell – it speaks to the viewer artlessly and sincerely, leaves subtextual metacommentaries: the future and present are a fair sum of human and artistic decisions of the film crew, Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise, Reggie, Simon Pegg, McQuarrie, and many others. The second of the two most important messages is that the world still needs Ethan Hunt, and therefore the actor who played him, and it is impossible not to believe this. Tom Cruise is the main American star, and the key word here is 'American'.
He has come a long way from the heir of Ben Braddock and a distant ancestor of heroes of American teen comedies of the 2000s in 'Risky Business', anticipated the fashion for bloodsuckers in 'Interview with the Vampire' and the aggressive male movement in 'Magnolia', polished the image of an innate blind careerist in 'Jerry Maguire' and 'Rain Man', put on the suit of good guy Ron Kovic and went with America to the front to lose. It seems that only the masks of his main creation – 'Mission: Impossible' – allowed him to stop.
Actors who are the voices of a generation, over the years and kilometers of film, as a rule, become more sophisticated, 'thinner', and melancholic, or break off a serious dialogue and live out their days, earn money, go to evening shows. Tom Cruise, however, like a fuse, attracts more and more attention with every second approaching the end, the explosive substance, he becomes even louder and more radiant – this is his way of fighting against the passing time.
Therefore, 'The Final Reckoning', while not being the strongest film in the franchise, summarizes Tom Cruise's life, and along with it, the glossy experience of the American's showcase face. 'A fate affecting all living things', a man capable of defeating God, a peacemaker in an era of political medievalism. 'Mission: Impossible' is the boundary that confirms by its existence the impossibility of returning to the past.
Paradoxically, the sum of all decisions in no way ties in with the smaller units, the addends. The cultural experience of an American, as well as a representative of any other nationality, does not always make him who he is, but the refusal of a nation or a person from themselves means a lot. We vaguely remember previous key American archetypal roles of Tom Cruise, because there is one dominant and final one – Ethan Hunt.
New Don Quixotism and the Tireless Ethan Hunt
Having spurned the past, 'The Final Reckoning' cannot weave the franchise's story into a single thread. The three-hour film, in its first third, deserves to be called the worst example of Hollywood screenwriting and the most puree-like structure in Tom Cruise's entire career, on par with the thriller 'Lions for Lambs' and the Universal reboot of 'The Mummy'.
Christopher McQuarrie is a deft trickster but a mediocre director and screenwriter. His creative path is not films, but moments. 'Do you remember the helicopter scene?'; 'How about the motorcycle duel between Hunt and Elsa Faust?' – McQuarrie was lucky to become Tom Cruise's squire and forever forget about the murmur of dramaturgy.
If we are to define the director's latest work, it is a 'film within a film', whose action segments are akin to complex dance numbers in Bob Fosse's musicals. Naturally, the film does not leave the viewer without short breaks for three-minute hand-to-hand fights, but one should not expect revelations in combat equilibristics from the eighth part, such as the iconic bathroom brawl with Henry Cavill.
However, 'The Final Reckoning' has exactly two half-hour surprises: underwater and aerial. The first unequivocally elevates the film to the rank of the most creative blockbuster of the last ten years, and the second elegantly hints: the adrenaline glacier of the series is inexhaustible. This refers, of course, to Ethan Hunt's infiltration of the sunken submarine 'Sevastopol', stuffed with nuclear warheads and crew corpses, as well as the pursuit of Gabriel on a small biplane. Can two flawless scenes, successful situational humor, high stakes, breaks for spirited fisticuffs, and a fearless actor justify the chaotic exposition, foul-smelling script, and three-hour runtime? They can, and they have pulled this off far from the first time.
'Mission: Impossible' cannot exist otherwise. It is always a driven, foaming horse, living examples of unprecedented courage, exceptional people performing feats. Ethan Hunt, like everything happening on screen, deliberately abstracts himself from the ordinary person, his routines and worries, which allows the inflated budgets to be recouped, but, at the same time, does nothing to eliminate the above-described problems, solutions to which were very successfully avoided by Hunt's intelligence 'grandfather', a Briton with dazzling manners – James Bond.
Referring to Ian Fleming's novels about the agent, Italian post-structuralist Umberto Eco uses a concept such as deja vu, implying a photographically precise exposition of something already well known to readers. Bond still has to do a great deed, but he does not rush from one overcoming to another, because he is allowed to live. The agent smokes cigars, drinks expensive alcohol, gambles, flirts with young girls, visits resorts, and is in no hurry.
The long-awaited Bond film 'No Time to Die' is coming soon. We figure out what it turned out to be.
Open materialFleming's creative manner migrated to cinema, where it was taken to absurdity. For example, in 'Goldfinger' (1964), the hero played by Sean Connery, after unsuccessfully spying on the antagonist, is captured and sits motionless until the very end. He is helped to save the world from a financial crisis and a possible war between China and the US by the timely seduction of a woman. To achieve the same goals, Bond and Hunt lean not only to different methods but also to non-overlapping lifestyles.
However, it was not James Bond who climbed the Burj Khalifa, scrambled up a rope to a helicopter, and held his breath for six minutes. Gradually, cinema comes to the conclusion that a secondary trait can become primary and ontologically irreplaceable. Unfortunately, the awarding of the Stunt Oscar is criminally postponed to 2028, and therefore Tom Cruise and his film crew have to settle for well-deserved declarations of love from all over the world.
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