For the final installment of multi-billion dollar film franchises, the question remains - how big will the scope be, and how good can it get? Daniel Craig’s James Bond saga had its end with’No Time to Die’ - its terrific start giving way to the story fizzling out and collapsing under the weight of expectations. Its$ 300 million titanic budget has been eclipsed by MI: FR which may have casually tossed in an extra$ 100 million to finance the frills. The good news is that "Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning" is an excellent global thriller which is a glorious end to Cruise’s vaulting franchise ride.
Grand stunts and superhuman feats of action tinged with poignancy ensure that America headed by Tom Cruise and the first female black US President save the world from themselves Yet Again. Copious references abound to 1996’s first filmic installment. Does it have the simply superb Brian De Palma film’s slick mesmerizing beauty? No. But the two major action set pieces - one in the middle and another climactic - have a simplicity, lurking sense of tragedy and a level of larger-than-life grandeur that makes the heart leap.
Since the supreme flavour of recent years is artificial intelligence, that is the supervillain of this story - a malevolent AI program that plans to take over the world’s nuclear arsenal and wipe out humans. Only one man stands in its way, and only one woman stands in his way. How will it all work out? Will AI succeed with a wiped-out humanity and then create a new species without Putin, Trump & Xi, or will this film’s Zelensky win the war with his ammunition and rides?
’Mission Impossible’ may be America’s answer to James Bond. While Bond films have to contend with much-expected archetypes like a villain to remember, the M: I franchise coolly goofs off on such personality projects in favour of spectacular stunts that underline the title. Cruise climbs nothing less than the Burj Khalifa in’Ghost Protocol’, just as the original film’s two beauteously choreographed set-pieces - the descent into the CIA room, and the fight atop France’s famously super-fast TGV train - are enjoyed to this day.
"Final Reckoning" sticks to this agenda but it also includes a superbly planned story-track involving the character of the depicted first female black U.S president(Angela Bassett in a role that does not lack for emotion in the end). It is a wonderful and brave touch in an action movie. The hero’s descent into and through a submarine is tense and arresting - a veritable journey through a netherworld where there is no lack of doomsday hurdles - if you thought successfully coming out of that cursed vessel was most difficult, wait till you see what lies ahead.
The fight in a subterranean arena where all parties converge is a been-there-done-that shoot-out. Far better is a bare-bones clinch atop sky-borne glider planes that is thrilling in the way a fall to death is repeatedly avoided by the hero holding on with a force that would ripely qualify for a superglue advertisement. This too is given a teasing undertow that toys with what is initially hinted. What is missing is the rip-roaring orchestra music that additionally distinguished the 1996 scorcher. The film has significantly underperformed at the box office in the first week, which is a shame considering it is a solidly good film. How about Tom Cruise’s acting? Did you really come to this film for his acting? For that, go back to’Rain Man’ and then come back for the daredevilry, both physical and moral. Cruise, like gold, is a good conductor for the heat of the movie.
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