I was a bit surprised that the previous Mission: Impossible movie apparently under-performed at the box office. I don’t see why. These movies are fairly consistent in quality, and they’re all just a whole lot of fun. Maybe they don’t stick with the audience as well as other movies, but it’s not like the Jurassic Park/World movies that somehow think people really care about things like a can of shaving cream and old characters that had minimal personalities to begin with. But Tom Cruise, he always knows how to put together an exciting adventure for Ethan Hunt and his IMF crew involving globetrotting, impossible stunts, and twisty-twirly plots that will almost certainly not go the way anyone plans it to.
Meanwhile, there is another Jurassic World movie coming out later this year.
Picking up not long after Dead Reckoning, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his pals Benjy (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) are in hiding, trying to figure out how to find and defeat the Entity, a computer algorithm that seems to have gained sentience and is reeking havoc across the world, possibly looking to take control of the planet’s nuclear arsenal to nuke all life on Earth an somehow survive the experience. Everyone wants to control the Entity, particularly rogue IMF agent Gabriel (Esai Morales), all of whom want to use the Entity to their own ends. Ethan alone wants to simply stop the thing and then make sure no one gets it. He has the possible solution in the form of a “poison pill” Luther worked up, but Luther seems to be dying anyway, so Ethan will have to carry on without his longest companion.
To that end, Ethan has to assemble a team made up of Benjy, former thief-turned-IMF agent Grace (Hayley Atwell), Gabriel’s former assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff), and a defecting IMF agent named Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis) who comes along because who wouldn’t help out Ethan Hunt given the chance? But not only does Ethan need to worry about Gabriel, a guy who is just as talented and resourceful as Ethan himself, but there’s still Russian special forces, members of Hunt’s own government, and the Entity itself making demands. Ethan will need to go deeper (underwater) than he ever has before while his team has to do their own things with the usual complications. Can Ethan defeat Gabriel, the Entity, and do so while saving the world all at once?
Here’s the thing: this is a Mission: Impossible movie. There’s going to be plenty of stunts and exotic locations, the masks come into play, and whatever plans Ethan and his allies come up with will meet complications that will require on-the-spot improvisations. Ethan will have to do his own thing, but he’s bound to meet all kinds of allies that will prove helpful when he needs them, and the world will be saved at the last possible moments. All it really takes is for people to put their trust into Ethan and help him as much as he needs it. It’s a standard movie for this franchise, and it’s fun. Yes, like last time, the Entity is not much of an adversary, and I’m not even sure what anyone thinks they can do to control this thing, but here we are.
That said, given the title, is this the final Mission: Impossible movie? It has plenty of call-backs, and even some returning characters from multiple previous movies. But is this the end? Without saying too much, it doesn’t have to be. There’s room for more if Paramount wants to take it that way, and I know I will almost certainly see another one. This is a movie that basically runs of Tom Cruise’s ability to provide a fun action movie, and he can probably do that as long as he finds himself up to the task. The biggest issue here isn’t whether or not this is the last Mission: Impossible movie or not, but how much the Entity works as an adversary. And honestly, it doesn’t that much, but that’s what Gabriel is for this movie anyway.
Grade: B
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