Opening this weekend:
Or, rather, of which one particular, superior human is capable: Tom Cruise, as hero Ethan Hunt. Toward the end, Ethan crawls around outside the cockpits of two different biplanes--changing planes in mid-flight!--to grapple with the bad guy (Esai Morales). It's one of the more spectacular airplane stunt sequences since the finale of 1977's Capricorn One, but it makes the Marvel movies seem like gritty realism by comparison.
Mind you, by this time we've already seen Ethan enter a wrecked Russian sub at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean to retrieve some gizmo; he needs it stop a rogue AI program from launching a nuclear holocaust, so no pressure. He then rises to the surface without a wetsuit.
And it isn't just his physical prowess, of which, at 62, Cruise can be justly proud. Ethan is also morally superior. Canoodling with his leading lady (Hayley Atwell) in the decompression chamber after his arctic dip, he asks what human could be trusted with the power to control the world's nuclear arsenals, and the wide-eyed, worshipful woman unhesitatingly suggests that he's just the right guy. Ethan demurs, all modesty.
It's been a while since a star has treated himself to quite this shameless a Stations of the Cross tour. The opening credits announce this eighth film in the series as "A TOM CRUISE PRODUCTION," and the producer certainly shows reverence for his leading man.
But as usual when he plays one of his hyperconfident man of action roles--he can be excellent when he plays desperate, out of his depth pipsqueaks, as in Rain Man or A Few Good Men--at some level I can't take Cruise seriously, despite his obvious great capabilities. He's youthful in the wrong sense onscreen; other stars, say, Henry Fonda or James Stewart, had a boyishness which they never lost, even as they added the gravitas of maturity. But try as he might, Cruise always comes across like a kid dressed up in his dad's clothes.
To be fair, this movie and its predecessors aren't really any sillier than most episodes of Bruce Geller's Murphy's-Law-defying TV series (CBS; 1966-1973). But that show played it cool and laconic, with long, dialogue-free sequences of sneaky spy mischief, propelled by quiet, tense, repetitive musical cues and almost no backstory. The movies are loaded with heaving psychodrama and bombastic music and extended fight and chase scenes, often featuring Cruise doing his adorable little stiff-armed, wind-up-toy run, right up the middle of a conveniently empty road.
It's certainly fair to complain that Final Reckoning, which clocks in just a little shy of three hours, is way too long and drawn out. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a script he wrote with Erik Jendresen, the movie is exceedingly well-made on a scene-by-scene basis. But cumulatively, it's too much, and with its heavy, Gotterdammerung atmosphere and plot elements that recall movies like Fail Safe and War Games, it's a little lacking in humor, too.
There is excellent acting here. Angela Bassett brings a moving authority to the role of an intelligent, decent, responsible President of the United States. The French actress Pom Klementieff is amusing as an assassin turned ally; Katy O'Brian from Love Lies Bleeding makes an impression as a Navy diver, and vets like Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, Janet McTeer, Rolf Saxon and Nick Offerman, among others, are always welcome.
But the audience is probably most grateful of all to Simon Pegg, who works hard to lighten things up. And Lucy Tulugarjuk, even though her lines are in an Inuit language, connects with the audience pretty much every time they cut to her.
One last snarky shot at a fellow sexagenarian who is possibly holding up better than I am: For all the care lavished on the film in general and the star in particular, Cruise's hair somehow got away from the filmmakers here. It's long, and it seems limp and spiritless; at times it gives him almost a Shemp Howard look. When he's struggling to hang on to the airplane and his face and hair are rippling in the wind, it offers the only other significant laughs in Final Reckoning, albeit likely not on purpose.
