(Mild Spoilers)
A few things are guaranteed when you see a Mission Impossible movie. Tom Cruise does an insane, breathtaking stunt, his character Ethan Hunt gets a mission, and Cruise is gonna run.
The money running shot in the latest film, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, is one of the more beautiful of the series.
What’s more important is Hunt is running towards a devastating moment. It’s not the pursuit of the MacGuffin (the object the characters are chasing) that’s driving the character to run. Emotion is.
This one comes on a night in Venice. As the camera glides besides him, Hunt hightails it from a decadent party where white candles line the ground. Lorne Balfe’s heavily percussive score fits well with the warmly lit image of Cruise running a helluva lot faster than most of us can. The music, the camera, and the man sprinting are subconsciously telling the audience: Pay attention!
This is what action filmmaking is about. Action movies shouldn’t be cgi machines clanging into each other because it looks cool. They should driven by characters.
The plot of an action movie is always the heaviest lift. Time is limited so character beats have to happen fast. It’s a magic trick to convince an audience that these are real people up there when they’re doing incredible things like Tom Cruise racing across the roof of an airport in Dubai. How can you relate to that?
An answer, and for my money, the best answer is to infuse the story with metaphor. Make it representative of something real and timely right now.
The filmmakers behind Dead Reckoning Part One absolutely nail this by making the villain of the movie an AI called The Entity.
AI is everywhere because it will obviously kill jobs. Anything that will make a bottom-line lower is embraced by business. I mean, the goal is to make money after all. And you make more when you spend less.
So any executive, and this is really a disgusting part of capitalism, would be negligent if they didn’t explore the benefits of something that will create more poverty if it helps the shareholders get richer.
AI is a real, present-day fear and danger. It can place most of out of work at any time. Which is why I always kick myself for not becoming a barber. Hair’s always gonna grow and you can cut it anywhere.
The entertainment industry is currently an anxious maelstrom about AI for many reasons. There’s talk about background actors selling their likeness to be recreated by AI and used in perpetuity without compensation. Studios want to use it to plan the story beats of a series or movie without writers.
You can’t use a streaming service without AI as the algorithm is always there suggesting what to watch next. Doesn’t matter what it is as long as you keep watching. Don’t go out into the real world or anything, just stay logged in.
Tom Cruise is on record as being opposed to movies going to streaming before hitting theaters. So it’s no surprise the villain, in what has become his signature series, is something that pisses him off. Cruise knows he’s a better actor when he’s motivated by something primal.
Dead Reckoning Part One has Ethan Hunt on a mission to kill a false god with designs on being the real one. The Entity’s voice is provided by the character of Gabriel played very well by Esai Morales. Gabriel in the Bible announces God’s will to man as he does to Daniel. He serves the same function here. A mathematic code can’t do their own monologuing so we need Gabriel.
The key to accessing the Entity is literally a key. And, wait for it, it’s in the shape of a cross. Two halves fit together to make the end of humanity. Man, movies are fun.
New Jersey’s own Christopher McQuarrie directs and co-writes the screenplay with Erik Jendresen. McQuarrie has been with the series since 2011 and with Cruise since 2008, as a writer and producer on Valkyrie. They clearly work well together as the films get bigger and stay riveting for their running time.
The Mission Impossible series took a bit of James Bond turn with the fourth film, Rogue Nation. The pictures are fun in a way the James Bond films used to be. The Impossible series is more consistent, funnier, and more satisfying than Bond films in their current state.
At the center of all the mayhem is Tom Cruise. He’s starred in and produced all seven films with an eighth on the way. Cruise is, by all accounts, a hands-on producer. He’s involved in every storytelling decision and every line of dialogue. Cruise’s will is what is driving this series.
That will to entertain takes him flying off a mountain on a motorcycle in the picture’s marquee stunt. It’s an astonishing piece of business framed beautifully in an overhead shot and layered over with near silence so the moment can be fully taken in.
Cruise’s stuntwork is a throwback to Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Jackie Chan. He’s clearly upped the adrenaline for the modern age. But you have to think that, like Tom, Buster Keaton would have no problem jumping off a mountain on a motorcycle too. That’s entertainment.
People say going to the movies costs too much. But not when a guy is putting his life in danger for your amusement. Then your $13 ticket doesn’t seem so bad. You might even spring for the popcorn and soda too.
And you should spring for the popcorn because movie theaters make most of their revenue from concessions, not tickets. So buy a bag of Sour Patch kids the next time you go to a theater. We have to beat the AI.
Dead Reckoning Part One is an absolute blast. The film’s ending is satisfying but not a cliffhanger, which is just a cheap trick. Cruise, McQuarrie, and company don’t need those when you have the actor jumping off actual cliffs in your picture.
See this movie on the biggest screen possible and lookout for the fun nod to The Great Escape too.
