Vanity, thy name is Tom Cruise.
It has become increasingly obvious — ever since the Burj Khalifa climbing sequence in 2011’s masterfully entertaining Ghost Protocol revived the series — that Cruise’s increasingly flamboyant stunt sequences were becoming the tail that wagged the dog.
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| Upon reaching the entrance to a huge underground server farm, Ethan (Tom Cruise, center) and his comrades — from left, Paris (Pom Klementief), Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Grace (Hayley Atwell) — find the place curiously quiet. |
All tail, and no dog.
This slog is overcooked and overlong, its incomprehensible, so-called “plot” no more than techno-babble dialogue interludes between Cruise’s determination to prove that he “can too still do this stuff” in his 60s, in an escalating series of laughably ludicrous action sequences that are leagues beyond any viewer’s willingness to accept.
The Christopher McQuarrie/Erik Jendresen narrative doesn’t merely stretch credibility beyond the breaking point; it makes no effort to feign any level of credibility.
“This new movie is a gargantuan accomplishment,” Cruise boasts, in the production notes. “Very elegant, very layered and incredibly epic.”
Elegant? In your dreams, Tommy.
This is what happens, when unchecked ego calls the shots.
I worried, when 2023’s Dead Reckoning concluded, that McQuarrie and Jendresen had written themselves into an irresolvable corner, with their all-powerful AI “Entity” poised to infiltrate and corrupt every aspect of world-wide civilized society.
As this film opens, that worst nightmare has come to pass. The Entity’s “deep fakes” have obliterated world-wide public trust in all news sources, politicians and government officials. People riot in the streets of every country’s major city; violence and anarchy are the order of the day.
Worse yet, The Entity has seized control of five of the world’s nine nuclear missile stockpiles, and is doing its best to break into the remaining four ... one of which is our good ol’ USofA, which it’s certain to absorb within three days.
(Why three days? Who could know such a thing, with such precision? Don’t ask.)
Impressionable, cultish “true believers” eagerly hope The Entity will destroy everything, in order to create some ill-conceived new world order. (Like there’s life after nuclear annihilation???)
There’s simply no coming back from the doomsday scenario depicted in this film’s first 10 minutes ... despite the fact that — somehow — Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his Impossible Missions Force team will save the world, because The Script Says So.
Ergo, Cruise and McQuarrie — who also directs this film, as he has the previous three — rely entirely on breakneck momentum, to lurch from one preposterous action sequence to the next, rather than even attempting to develop genuine suspense with a reasonably crafted linear narrative.
The result is an insufferably loud barrage of soulless visual cacophony: an unforgivably protracted, boring, senses-shattering 169 minutes of mayhem.
The through-line, such as it is:
As the previous film concluded, Ethan managed to snatch both halves of a crucifix-designed key from Gabriel (Esai Morales), The Entity’s malevolent “human operative.” That key will unlock the compartment that contains the AI’s source code, within a paperback book-sized external hard drive ... a compartment that happens to be on a sunken Soviet submarine hundreds of feet beneath the Arctic Circle.
Ethan’s colleague, the ever-ingenious Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), has fabricated a thumb drive-size “poison pill” which — when inserted into the source code — will destroy The Entity. (That’s a leap.)
However, given that it has infiltrated so much throughout the world, doing so would turn everything off ... which, as numerous people keep reminding us, would destroy civilization in an entirely different way.
On top of which, D.C. spy agencies don’t want The Entity destroyed, because they’d prefer to control it. As would Russia, China and so forth.
Not much of a solution ... and yet Ethan and his team nonetheless struggle toward their goal, along the way getting stymied and/or pursued by Gabriel, Russian adversaries and White House spymasters Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), Briggs (Shea Whigham) and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis).
Ethan’s core team members — Luther and the resourceful Benji (Simon Pegg) — have been augmented by thief and master pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell), introduced in the previous film. Early on, they’re joined by former nemesis Paris (Pom Klementieff), originally allied with Gabriel, but now willing to help the good guys.
And what a letdown she is. Klementieff’s Paris was a fascinating character and relentless force of nature in Dead Reckoning. This time out, she’s reduced to Ethan’s pet thug, with no personality whatsoever: an attack dog who occasional spouts mordant or mildly witty one-liners. In French.
That’s symptomatic of another of this film’s many failings. Time was, Ethan and his team relied on constant input from each other. This storyline repeatedly separates them, with Ethan grabbing primary camera focus, while the others offer tactical support elsewhere. Thus isolated, this script sets up thoroughly ludicrous “plans” that rely on ultra-precise, split-second timing between Ethan and the far-away others, despite no reliable communication ... not just once, but twice.
Both times, it’s absurd.
Both times also involve interminably protracted sequences of Cruise derring-do: first the lengthy underwater recce of the sunken submarine, as Ethan hunts for the source code hard drive; then second, the much-ballyhooed skirmish with Gabriel in a pair of brightly colored biplanes flying at (as the press notes helpfully inform us) “170 mph, 10,000 feet above sea level.”
Uh-huh.
Everything is backed by a monotonous, obnoxious and painfully loud synth “score” by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey, who pay only token homage to Lalo Schifrin’s iconic TV theme (mangling it in the process).
Cruise also spends a lot of time running and sprinting, which has become a laughable cliché in this film series. And, as was the case with the beach volleyball game in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, we also get a shamelessly gratuitous exercise interlude that allows Cruise to show off his still-buff bod.
At times, the action comes to a dead stop while Ethan gravely delivers a sage proclamation. Cruise apparently attempts — and fails to achieve — a level of solemnity akin to Moses returning with the twin tablets. It’s hard not to laugh.
Credit where due: the creepily claustrophobic underwater sequence, within the sub, is impressively staged by production designer Gary Freeman and visual effects supervisors Robin Saxen and Alex Wuttke. But it goes on and onand on, far past the “safety zone” of time that Ethan was warned about, before hitting the water.
Cruise and McQuarry also deserve points for delivering strong female characters, and not just Gracee and Paris. Angela Bassett is excellent as Erika Sloane, returning from 2018’s MI: Fallout, and now newly installed as the U.S. President.
(Two Black female presidents, in the space of slightly more than one month? More Hollywood wish-fulfillment? And although G20 is low-rent cheese compared to this blockbuster, it’s a helluva lot more entertaining.)
Hannah Waddingham, beloved from television’s Ted Lasso, is persuasively spit-and-polish as aircraft carrier commander Admiral Neely; Katy O’Brian similarly shines in her brief performance as Kodiak, a crew member who helps prepare Ethan for his underwater sortie.
Bringing back Rolf Saxon — whose William Donloe was conveniently away from his desk, during Ethan’s vault descent way back in Cruise’s first 1996 Mission entry — also is a clever touch.
But that’s all it is: a touch. Saxon’s engaging performance can’t make up for this film’s many flaws.
Perhaps worst is the way McQuarrie and Jendresen tarnish the events in the seven previous films, by implying that — the entire time — Ethan was played, or a pawn, and now is responsible for what might end life on Earth as we know it.
So ... what? We’re supposed to feel guilty for having enjoying (most of) those earlier films? That’s mean-spirited and tasteless.
At an estimated budget of $400 million, this is one of most expensive films ever made.
Which only goes to show, at the end of the day, that money and ego are no substitute for quality.
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