Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

It has been nearly 3 decades since Tom Cruise suspended himself from the ceiling inside a CIA vault and stole classified data of the US government from a computer. That set the stage for death-defying stunts in subsequent films in the franchise. As Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, and hangs from a plane, fighting his opponent and nemesis Gabriel while defying gravity, one wonders if the tried and tested template of the MI series is finally wearing off. The 8th and presumably the final in the series, Mission: Impossible- The Final Reckoning, picks up from where Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One ended. AI and its threat to world peace loom large and Ethan Hunt is beckoned by the US President to come and save the world. Entity - the villainous Artificial Intelligence, threatens to encrypt the data system of Nuclear-empowered countries across the world and detonate bombs across the world, which can start World War III and erase mankind. It is up to Ethan to find a solution and save the world in a matter of four days.

So. That ending. If your jaw is still somewhere on the floor after watching Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, you are not alone. There’s no denying it: the final act of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and especially its ending has left us with more questions than answers, even though it is supposed to be the full stop in this venerable spy-thriller franchise. Let’s dive into Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning plot, ending, which is explained here, the cast of this Tom Cruise-led film, and more. The movie finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his crew of IMF (Impossible Missions Force) agents discussing how to deal with the Entity, an all-powerful and all-encompassing artificial intelligence that has gone rogue and sentient. Now, it threatens the destruction of humanity by taking over the global cyberspace.

Unlike most action-adventure franchises, Mission: Impossible has often thrived on expressing how hard it works. It’s the opposite of effortless. Nothing looks easy; nobody is smooth and sophisticated; not a frame seems bereft of blood, sweat, madness and tears. A large part of its allure is rooted in this utter lack of vanity, this desire to be open about its working-class spectacle. Tom Cruise, arguably the most majestic of modern superstars, hasn’t been afraid to channel this ugliness as Ethan Hunt. His stunts over the years — including a (literally) breath-taking underwater quest and an acrobatic mid-air brawl in the latest instalment — feature all sorts of cosmetic imperfections: the rippling of skin folds, awkward facial contortions, wide-eyed terror, garbled gasps, desperate lunges. The miracle was always how real and impossibly human he looked.

If there was one film that had an enormous amount of pressure to turn out to be impressive it was director Christopher McQuarrie’s Tom Cruise starrer Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning. It’s the last film from the globally admired and successful franchise and hence, fans from all across the world were counting on it to be good. The film is the continuation of the previous one from the series Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning. At the end of it, secret agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) gets hold of the special key from Gabriel (Esai Morales) from the Orient Express. The key holds the key (pun intended) to control the Entity, which has started negatively affecting the world. Meanwhile, the US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) asks Ethan to help the government in controlling the Entity. She doesn’t want him to destroy the Entity as she believes it can destroy cyberspace.

It’s Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) who saves the world from The Entity, a disastrous AI creation that’s about to fall into the dirty hands of Gabriel (Esai Morales). On screen, it’s Tom Cruise, all by himself, who saves director Christopher McQuarrie’s story-less adventure from nosediving like his planes do in an action sequence. Cruise is still watchable at 60+ especially since performing his own stunts continues to be one of the main attractions of the franchise. Mid-air heroics as Ethan grasps to hold on to a plane or two and aqua thrills as he gasps for breath underwater, are the two adrenaline pumpers of writers Bruce Geller, Erik Jendresen and McQuarrie’s rudderless tale. An acceptable add-on is a finale that runs on four high-drama parallel tracks. Hunt chasing planes and Gabriel is intercut with a seriously wounded Simon (Benji Dunn) as he instructs Grace (Hayley Atwell) and team to simultaneously patch him up and detonate a bomb. On the third line is another team taking care of another blast-ready part of The Entity and the fourth is at the White House where Madam President (Angela Bassett) plays the great American fantasy of a woman, that too black, showing who’s the boss taking the right decisions in the nick of time. To save humanity, of course.

Over the course of nearly three hours, Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning goes from dull and ponderous to exhilarating and emotional and back again so seamlessly that when it finishes, you’re exhausted but also inspired and grateful that a 62-two-year superstar is willing to hang off the side of a flying plane just to entertain you. This film might not save cinema, but Tom Cruise will risk death trying. And there is something noble about that. Once again, as agent Ethan Hunt, Cruise is saving the world. Early in this film, we are told, truth is vanishing, war is coming. An artificial intelligence called the Entity has taken control of the internet and of nuclear sites around the world (including India). The fate of every single person on the planet depends on Hunt (enabled by his trusty team) being able to lock two devices together, which will somehow disable the Entity (these look so basic that I wondered if the Entity is as intelligent as everyone thinks it is).