Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

There’s a scene in Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning where Hayley Atwell’s character, Grace, looks Ethan Hunt dead in the eye, and suggests with stone-faced seriousness that he accepts his destiny and becomes God. Played by Tom Cruise, Ethan could soon gain possession of an incredible artefact that’ll nudge him in that direction. His buddy Luther has invented a gizmo that basically functions as a magic lamp in which he plans to trap the rogue genie that he is after — an AI villain called The Entity. Ethan’s reluctance to handle absolute power, however, is about as believable as something like The Entity being caught and captured in a fancy pen drive. But if there’s one thing that we’ve learnt about him in these last decades, it’s that when he’s given a choice — there’s always a choice — he doesn’t say no.

By the time Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning trudges its way to the end of its bag of tricks, a question looms and it is as large as the aura of Tom Cruise’s Agent Ethan Hunt. Will the eighth and presumably final instalment of the popular action-adventure franchise leave the audience asking for more or have them wondering if they have had enough? The answer is likely to tilt more towards the latter. This mission, a strenuous continuation of what was left incomplete in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, suffers from an excess of expositions - a sure sign that the screenplay has holes that needed to be plugged before being sent out into the world. Almost all through the film, the characters engage in constant chit-chat with the purpose of clearing the air - and the ground - for Hunt’s hunt for the fiendish Gabriel (Esai Morales), who makes no bones about his desire to wrest control of a truth-devouring parasitic Artificial Intelligence called “Entity”, that can wipe out all of humankind by infecting cyberspace and breaching the arsenals of nations that possess nuclear weapons.

ज़रा सोचिए कि जिस ए.आई. यानी आर्टिफिशल इंटेलीजेंस (कृत्रिम बुद्धिमता) को इंसान ने अपनी मदद के लिए बनाया उस ए.आई. की ही नीयत खराब हो जाए और वह इंसानों को अपने इशारों पर नचाने लगे तो…? 2023 में आई ‘मिशन इम्पॉसिबल’ सीरिज़ की 7वीं फिल्म में आई.एम.एफ. यानी इम्पॉसिबल मिशन फोर्स के जाबांज़ एजेंट ईथन हंट ने ए.आई. को काबू में करने वाली चाबी हासिल कर ली थी जो पता नहीं कहां लगेगी। अब इस कड़ी की 8वीं और आखिरी फिल्म ‘मिशन इम्पॉसिबल-द फाइनल रेकनिंग’ में ए.आई., जिसे ‘एन्टिटी’ या ‘वजूद’ कहा गया है, धीरे-धीरे दुनिया के परमाणु शक्तिसंपन्न देशों पर कब्जा कर रहा है। ऐसे नौ देशों पर कब्जा होते ही वह दुनिया को तबाह कर देगा। उसे रोकने का एक ही तरीका है कि समुद्र की गहराइयों में दफन एक पनडुब्बी में वह चाबी लगा कर एक ड्राइव हासिल की जाए। विलेन गैब्रियल चाहता है कि ईथन उसे वह ड्राइव लाकर दे ताकि वह ‘वजूद’ पर अधिकार कर सके। इस बीच ईथन के साथी लूथर ने एक वायरस बनाया है जिसे लगाते ही ‘वजूद’ निष्क्रिय हो जाएगा लेकिन गैब्रियल उसे ले जाता है। अब ईथन और उसकी टीम को पहले पनडुब्बी का पता लगाना है, उसमें से ड्राइव लेनी है, गैब्रियल से वह वायरस लेना है, उसे ‘वजूद’ में लगाना है, सारा डाटा उसमें लेना है और सैकिंड के सौवें हिस्से में उसे निकालना है। इस सारे काम के लिए इनके सिर्फ पास तीन-चार दिन हैं नहीं तो सब तबाह हो जाएगा।

Incredible, incredulous and invigorating… indeed you expect no less, perhaps no more too, from the Mission Impossible franchise. Ever since Tom Cruise landed on our theatre screens in 1996 as Ethan Hunt, he and his insanely successful franchise have captured viewers’ imagination like fire. The fact that India is one of the few countries where the film released before its US outing in theatres is proof enough of its burgeoning Indian fandom. Indeed, the template of the actioner is the same. Impossible we all know is not just another word in the title of the MI universe, it’s the key driver and mantra where the implausibility of it all is what makes it exciting. Those who have seen the prequel Mission Impossible: The Dead Reckoning, know too well who Ethan’s enemy and world’s is, this time over. In a way his job is cut out, and the very first scene establishes so. Indeed, it’s the ‘Entity’ who has taken control of the nuclear arsenal of most countries including India and Pakistan. In another time nuclear threat hovering over our heads may have seemed like a distant nightmare.

It says something about a star, when a close-up of their weathered face becomes the multiplex poster of the last two films of a $4 billion franchise. Whatever one might think of Tom Cruise, it’s saying something that his face is all the advertising these films need. Why should we watch it? Because it has Cruise, who will be attempting something no one else ever has done in a film. The action set-pieces in the Mission: Impossible franchise have always been the focal point, enveloped in a jargon-addled plot whose flimsiness wouldn’t survive the faintest probes of logic. Their function is to only add emotional stakes to Cruise’s daredevilry. Ethan Hunt – should he choose to accept – needs to steal something from a facility impossible to break into, to either clear his name, save a loved one or avert a nuclear disaster.

This is the end
Hold your breath and count to ten
Feel the earth move and then
Hear my heart burst again
For this is the end
I’ve drowned and dreamt this moment
So overdue, I owe them
Swept away, I’m stolen.
You may wonder — as you should — why a review of a Mission: Impossible film begins with a Bond theme song. Adele’s famous lines for Skyfall, every word of it true for what is said to be the final M:I film, were playing in my head as I walked in to watch The Final Reckoning. When I came out close to three hours later, my mind silently screamed: ‘This CANNOT be the end’.