MISSIONARY ZEAL

Spoiler alert

Having just saved the world from its greatest existential threat (“the Entity”) in Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, it seems Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has slunk off into retirement—at just about the worst possible time—as Israel and Iran engage in what appears to be a hot war. Still, given the almost Jesus-like status he’s attained after making so many impossible missions possible, you suspect he’ll return when the time is right—say, thirty seconds to midnight (which, looking at my doomsday clock, is right about now).

Mind you, Hunt must suffer from the same frustration as Mr. Incredible, who once said: "The world always gets back in jeopardy. I just want it to stay saved! I feel like the maid—I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for ten minutes?"

And certainly, as far as Scientology recruitment videos go, I’ve seen far worse than the latest Mission: Impossible installment. Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, for example—starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix—was rubbish when it came to inspiring future thetans. A total failure in that regard. Final Reckoning is far more rousing in promoting the promise of immortality to those who give their lives so selflessly to saving the world, as Ethan Hunt does—a true popcorn bodhisattva, delivering his message of salvation with missionary zeal. This is no permanently depressed Daniel Craig desperate to close his chapter on the Bond franchise. Hunt, like Cruise, is planning on living forever.

Of course, whether he likes it or not, Cruise is fighting his own battle with immortality, as his features inevitably age (though far less than most, thanks to L. Ron Hubbard’s secret serum), and his death-defying feats take on a slightly more camp quality. I’m also starting to wonder if there isn’t a sort of erotic element to the masochism Cruise puts himself through for these films—a kind of celluloid equivalent of auto-erotic asphyxiation, performed in front of the entire world as a way to get off.

But don’t get me wrong—I’m a fan of Cruise, admiring his dedication and determination to make entertainment at any cost. Even though our current reality is far more compelling—and frightening—than any Mission: Impossible script, Cruise and his team face the unenviable task of manufacturing jeopardy in an age when the world resembles a cross between Mad Magazine and a Thomas Pynchon novel.

As I walked out of the cinema after nearly three hours of exposition (mostly delivered by a lank-haired Simon Pegg, who now resembles a cranky tramp from Gloucester), some old fella looked at me and said, “They could’ve done that in 80.” (By which he meant minutes.) To which I replied, “Cruise takes longer to get it up these days. He needs time to build to his climaxes.”

One moment I did find sublime, however, was when Hunt—busting his lungs to reach the surface of the ice—is momentarily caught in a bardo between life and death, kissed by an angel of death (Michelle Monaghan) that transitions into a kiss of life (Hayley Atwell). It was the closest the film came to a Lubitsch touch. And considering the rest of the movie felt like watching kids in a sandpit narrating their own play action, I appreciated it—as I did the “Chicken and Chips” sign in the background of the final scene in central London: the one moment of realism in the entire film that I could actually relate to.