Year of Release: 2023
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Frederick Schmidt, Cary Elwes, Mariela Garriga
Genre: Action, Adventure
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 8
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Synopsis and Review
After the critical and commercial success of "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", the collaboration between writer/producer/director Christopher McQuarrie and actor/producer Tom Cruise continues with another installment of the franchise. This time around Ethan Hunt is reunited with Eugene Kittridge, his original boss from when he started working for the IMF. He and his team are dealing with a superlative enemy this time around, an Artificial Intelligence engine, who is keen on dominating the world, with the only thing to stop it being a key that unlocks access to its original code. The key which is comprised of two halves has to be joined in order to be fully functional. A series of players want to get access to the key, as they all wrongly think the key allows them control over the AI entity. This entity has a nefarious individual making its bidding in the shape of Gabriel, one of Ethan's previous adversaries. As they go through the process of retrieving the key, Ethan has to enlist the help of Grace, an expert thief who was brought into the situation to also make sure the key reached Gabriel's hands. However this time around the mission will cost his team a heavy toll.
Since taking over the "Mission: Impossible" franchise with "Rogue Nation", Christopher McQuarrie has been able to not only reinvigorate the series with ever more daring scenarios, but he's also been able to bring a sense of spectacle and elaborate action set pieces that keep getting better and better. This film is no exception, with the director allowing for its lead actor and character to have more time to both uncover what originally brought Ethan Hunt to the IMF, as well as go through a painful moment which profoundly impacts him and the team itself. This moment further humanizes all the characters a bit further, but the script smartly also maintains a sense of humor and levity that has also been a staple for this series and for this group of characters. The script smartly places the team at odds with AI, which is something on everyone's mind, but it does so by tying it with very human opponents and ones that have a personal history with Ethan Hunt's character. And that is a very smart concept, since in the past when other films have tackled nefarious AI engines, such as D.J. Caruso's "Eagle Eye" for instance (or even the AI that assists the Umbrella Corporation in Paul W. S. Anderson's "Resident Evil" series) , that enemy is always an abstractly rendered notion, with an accent or a distorted sound glitch (a la Siri). Ultimately embodying the villainous traits in a character such as Gabriel, gives the series another foe with an agenda of its own, even if at the end this character is also another puppet. The action set pieces are impeccably shot (the chase scene in Rome is formidable), and the cast assemble is once again top notch. Tom Cruise manages to carry Ethan Hunt with a bruised sense of existence for all the losses he has experienced, and he gets great support from Haley Atwell, the always fantastic Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby and Henry Czerny. The production team is also fantastic, including Fraser Taggart's cinematography, Lorne Balfe's score, Gary Freeman's production design and costumes by Jill Taylor. A very entertaining film from a solid writer/director.
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