Cruise chooses to accept his ‘mission’ in life
In a way, Tom Cruise has become the David Blaine of action movies: we keep breathlessly wondering which stunt will be his last.
In these often troubled times, it’s almost a relief that Tom Cruise can, every other summer, help us forget the existence of terrorism, foreign infiltration, compromising political dossiers and black ops — at least for a few hours.
Just kidding. Mission: Impossible – Fallout provides much more of the same intrigue and mind-bending espionage that the Cruise franchise has specialized in since its inception in 1996.
It takes place two years after the events of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, in which arch terrorist Solomon Lane (Nathan Harris) was captured; his organization has now splintered into The Apostles, vowing to sow chaos and disorder through the recovery of several bowling ball-sized plutonium samples which Cruise and his team must try to track down. But you know what? The details of this McGuffin mission are fairly hard to follow and even harder to summarize in a movie review. Suffice it to say that there are some really cool fight scenes, some really cool action scenes, and a few splashes of humor here and there so we don’t take it all too seriously.
Heli exciting: Cruise takes a helicopter ride in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
The formula is still a sustainable fit for Cruise, even this far into the franchise. This being the sixth installment, the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) has settled down to its core group of Ethan Hunt (Cruise), gruff but lovable munitions dude Luther (Ving Rhames), panicky field technician Benji (Simon Pegg) and lethal MI6 agent Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson). There’s also former CIA director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) around to lend a helping hand. Added to the mix is a Special Activities operative named Walker (Henry Cavill), sent by CIA director Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) to keep an eye on Hunt’s rogue IMF, which has a snickering reputation for being a “Halloween operation,” because of their habit of slipping on rubber masks to go undercover.
(In fact, the makeup and mask thing couldn’t help reminding me of another man on an undercover mission these days, Sacha Baron Cohen, whose TV series, Who Is America?, exposes the dark underbelly of American fear and racism in the Trump Era. His specialty? Hiding in plain sight as a fellow traveler, often wearing wigs, makeup and rubber prosthetics. Ethan Hunt could learn a few interrogation tricks from this man.)
Christopher McQuarrie returns as director and scriptwriter, and if the plot of Fallout is a little bit by-the-numbers, there are fresh stunts to keep the faithful glued to their seats. Without revealing too much, the adrenaline flows in such abundance during the action scenes that the audience feels constantly elevated. Let’s just say that Fallout blows the last 007 entry, Skyfall, to smithereens. A brawl in the Grand Palais of Paris turns a white-walled public bathroom into a shambles of broken porcelain, smashed sinks and, eventually, a shower of brains as Hunt and Walker try to capture a plutonium buyer named John Lark who does not want to go quietly.
Later, a ricocheting car and motorcycle chase through downtown Paris shows us that Cruise can still careen a speeding BMW R nineT at impossible angles. In fact, part of the selling point of M:I movies is that the actor still does many of his own stunts, including some impossible-seeming cliffhanging towards the end, some excellent HALO skydiving, a bit of helicopter dangling, and even some really fast, um, running. (Cruise reportedly broke an ankle while leaping off one rooftop.) In a way, the actor’s become the David Blaine of action movies: we keep wondering which stunt will be his last.
It’s a strategy that pays off, as Mission: Impossible – Fallout earned the best opening box office numbers of its franchise history, something like $59 million on opening weekend. Could it be that people are simply seeking an action movie that doesn’t involve superheroes or cartoon characters? Well, Mission: Impossible does require a suspension of disbelief in the laws of physics, something usually reserved for superheroes, and the lengthy road stunts sometimes recall the best parts of Captain America: Winter Soldier. And in terms of character depth, there’s not much here beyond the typical Disney or Pixar fare. Maybe even less, emotionally speaking. (At one point, Luther has to explain Ethan’s heavy emotional baggage to Ilsa, something to do with his wife’s death long ago and his role in it, and I guess it’s technically necessary to spell out this back story, because we’ve long ago forgotten it, and otherwise, we don’t really have any idea what drives Mr. Cruise/Ethan Hunt onward, over and over again.)
Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg return as IMF operatives Luther and Benji.
Another possibility behind the Mission: Impossible success is that people are trying to get away from the constant political news in the US. But that doesn’t check out, because the plot of Fallout is chock full of references to secret dossiers prepared by British agents (hello, Christopher Steele!), intelligence agencies that are called into question (hello, CIA and FBI!), shady contacts and possible avenues of treason (hello, Trump White House!). So, escaping the news is not really the mission here.
No, what it amounts to is believing wholeheartedly in a plot that’s as labyrinthine and full of subplots as the ongoing “Russia witch hunt,” because at least we know there’s an end point to the Cruise story: you know that something will be resolved, in the usual last-final-seconds fashion, and that world peace and order will be (at least temporarily) restored, and maybe something else even more precious will be preserved. Call it the power of Hollywood mythmaking.
* * *
Follow me on Instagram (@scottgarceau, @thegarceaus) and Facebook.
