Impossible should never have become full of science fiction

THE Mission: Impossible The films franchise has always tried it, well, impossible. We saw Ethan Hunt of Tom Cruise get on Burj Khalifa, have a motorcycle game to prevent the spread of a bio-dente weapon and hang the side of an airplane. Even the most anchored entry, Brian Depalma 1996 Mission: ImpossibleStar cruise jumping from a helicopter exploding on a train in the chunnel. But with the previous film, Calculation of deathsand this year’s follow -up Final calculationThe series has completely jumped on the territory of science fiction with an AI villain called the entity. It has the power to control everything related to the Internet, to manipulate digital information to meet its needs and potentially destroy humanity with global nuclear annihilation.

The end of the entity is an Ethan Hunt mission has no choice but to accept. But as a fan of this series from the start – hell, I even gloriously like the opera of John Woo Mission: Impossible 2 – I can’t help but see the passage to real science fiction as a huge error. It’s both Account Films far too heavy and impenetrable (Final calculation Blister at three o’clock!), And they don’t have much to say about the AI ​​beyond a Terminator– Extinction scenario. But perhaps the worst of everything, the change towards science fiction inadvertent (or perhaps deliberately) transforms Ethan into a kind of Messiah. Apparently, only the biggest son in Scientology can save us.

Best MID The films are those that do not get bogged down in the subtleties of the plot mechanics. It is a trend that really started with the JJ Abrams produced Mission: Impossible 3which was based on a standard macguffin (the “Rabbit’s foot”) and a power of the mean performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman to send Ethan and his galloping team to the world. With Ghost protocolThe director Brad Bird used his experience in the animation and love of the silent film to transform into a cruise into a modern Keaton buster, going from one set developed to another.

The series has found a new life when the writer / director Christopher Mcquarrie jumped on board Nation thug, Who introduced the enigmatic of Rebecca Ferguson Ilsa Faust. Mcquarrie previously compared her approach to franchise as something like the Jazz action film, where he and Cruise would develop ideas of pieces and build a story around that. At the same time, they also sought to develop the inner life and the dynamics of Hunt’s team more than previous films. The intrigue, once again, was mainly a vehicle to reach these pieces of spectacular action sets and the moments defining the character (which were often one and the same thing).

Mcquarrie has mainly repeated its success formula with 2018 Mission: Impossible – Pamipwhich was remarkable for presenting a sequence of parachuting at high altitude in real time. But with The calculation of the deaths of 2023He faced the limits to try to improvise a film during his shooting. The production was considerably delayed by the pandemic, and the film also had to go through several times. Unsurprisingly, it has also become more and more complex and heavy of the plot.

This film could not simply treat AI of the entity as another MacGuffin intrigue, but it has practically become an anchor of the momentum of the film. We had to learn what the entity was, why she could be bad and also present new characters who were devoted to her ambitions. The final film looks like a meli-melo of ideas trying to chain a few notable action sequences, such as this aforementioned motorcycle jump. The prolonged production also led to Ilsa Faust, who was immediately replaced by the grace of Hayley Atwell, an expert thief who is so sketched that she does not even have a last name.

I had hoped that McQuarrie, Cruise and Co-Scenarist Erik Jendesen would learn from the negligence of the last film and refocus on the characters and the action we love The final calculationBut unfortunately, things become even more convoluted. We are presented with a world where the entity has already taken control of most information systems, can easily reshape digital reality at will and is taking over nuclear weapons around the world. There is no hope that Ethan Hunt, who should seek the source code of the entity in a casting Russian submarine and try to prevent it from destroying humanity (while trying to survive the apocalypse in an underground data bun). And if all this seems tiring when you read it, it is even more difficult to swallow when you sit through the three hours of the film.

Once the film In fact Starts to move around halfway, it offers some of the most complex sets we have seen to date. Hunt dive into arctic waters also feels claustrophobic as some of the best scenes of The abyssAnd it is always exciting to see Cruise hang on the Bi-Planes during the culminating pursuit. I just want it to have done something interesting with AI at the center of history, instead of giving us a basic ass Terminator / Wargames scenario. We are told that the entity has inspired a cult sequence and that it can completely reshape the idea of ​​truth, but we do not really see how it affects the people of the world.

It is a special shame since Mission: Impossible The series has always been a real human effort, one might think that Mcquarrie and Crew would actually have more to say about the impact of AI. Fans want to see a practical cascade work accomplished by a film star desperate with attention. Now with real world of real world threatening to Dumb at the bottom of the creativity act And Recycle existing contentTransforming AI of the film into a simplistic villain seems to be total waste.

The final calculation Far too much time is also waste the virtues of Ethan Hunt as a Savior of humanity. No government can trust, no elected leaders – just a man who never follows orders. The only man who abandoned love and bleeding for an ungrateful world. Even people whose life he has in ostensibly ruined cannot help but love him.

THE Mission: Impossible The franchise has always been a vanity project for Cruise, but it also balanced its ego by working with talented directors who pushed it as well as the series in new directions. Now, in his fourth film with Mcquarrie, and perhaps his last main character, Cruise cannot help reminding us how much he suffered. And it is as dull than another villain of the AI ​​of the end of the world.