In case you were wondering, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, which is supposed to be the last movie in the hugely successful franchise, is the eighth instalment. The series began way back in 1996 when Tom Cruise was a fresh faced 34-year-old. Fast forward 29-years and he is now a not so fresh faced 62-year-old (soon to be 63), who looks incredibly good for his years but has clearly “lived” a bit. Much like his character in this franchise Ethan Hunt. While he can still dangle off planes and deep sea dive and hold his own in a screen fight there comes a point where you have to think “put it away Tom”.
A lot of time in this movie is spent telling us how great he is. Indoctrinating us into the church of Crusie if you will. To ensure we remember his dedication to the franchise the opening sequence sees a montage of his “best bits” play over an almost seven-minute monologue from Angela Bassett as the President of the United States, mainly telling us how wonderful and appreciated Hunt (and by default Cruise) is. Cruise seems keen to let us know that he’s still “got it” and less than 30 minutes into the film his shirt is ripped open (as part of the plot of course!) to show off his abs. To further showcase what great shape he is in (and enhance the plot of course!) he spends a significant portion of the movie is nothing but tiny swim shorts.
Naturally he incorporates several death-defying stunts (which he does himself don’t you know) into the plot as he saves the world yet again. That’s the film in a nutshell. It’s a few scenes intercut with Tom Cruise showing us how brave and daring he is. And it’s worn very thin.
There is a plot but it’s a very convoluted story about some AI overlord – The Entity – taking control of the nuclear codes around the world. You don’t have to understand it. You just have to understand that Tom Cruise is here to save us all. It is a deification he has been selling for 30 years – he is our saviour. Or that is what he wants us to believe.
Don’t get me wrong – I love a good action movie. But for a bombastic big screen blow ’em all up spectacle to work there have to be high stakes. A viewer needs to believe that the hero might not make it out alive or – in an absolute worst case scenario – fail. But Tom Cruise never fails and always makes it out with not a strand of his perfectly coiffed hair out of place and it’s become boring.
It’s not an age thing. It’s an ego thing. When 78-year-old Cher struts on stage in her sheer sexy bodystocking from her 1989 video Turn Back Time it doesn’t feel desperate. It feels like she is celebrating and embracing her legacy and looking fantastic doing it. When Tom Cruise dangles from yet another airplane instead of being a thrilling call back to scenes we all know and love it feels tiresome at this stage.
In an attempt to keep us on the edge of our seats he takes it out of the skies (and away from dangling off clifftops or buildings – two other Cruise favourites) briefly and takes us underwater for a deep sea diving stunt that by all accounts was very dangerous to film. Doing the stunt put him at risk of hypercapnia, which is when you have too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in your blood.
However the end result is one of the most tedious parts of the film. It goes on far too long and isn’t as thrilling as I’m sure it read on paper. It is scenes like this that contribute to the almost three-hour running time of the movie when it could easily have been an hour shorter. Tom spends so long showing off his stunt abilities that he forgets audiences also require a coherent plot and resolution in order to make for a satisfying experience.
Tom Cruise used to be an actor. A pretty good actor. While, since his breakthrough in Top Gun, he has been a “movie star” he used to push himself and his craft in films which demanded more of him than just flashing a cheeky grin and clinging to a building without a safety net below to break his fall.
He has been nominated for three acting Oscars – the first for his role as Ron Kovic in the 1990 biographical anti-war film Born on the Fourth of July (1989). However his last acting nod came a quarter of a century ago for his supporting role in Magnolia. His most recent nomination wasn’t for his thespian efforts however but rather was as a producer on 2023’s Top Gun sequel Maverick.
He has created such a persona in Tom Cruise that he has become a character in himself. He is no longer playing roles – he is playing Tom Cruise. And it must be as exhausting for him to keep it up as it is for the likes of me to have to watch it. He needs to step away from the action hero stuff and remind people he is more than just a highly paid stuntman who is running out of steam and becoming a parody of himself.
Content Source: www.express.co.uk