3.5 stars out of 5
In the Mission: Impossible films, protagonist Ethan Hunt famously disguises himself with rubber masks. At age 61, Tom Cruise is starting to look like he’s always wearing a rubber mask. But by gum, he can still crank out an entertaining action spectacle. And despite the return of writer/director Chris McQuarrie, if you had any question at all about who was in charge here, the opening credits spell out that this is A TOM CRUISE PRODUCTION starring TOM CRUISE.
The story is actually somewhat relevant to modern life. No, really! An artificial-intelligence “Entity” is gaining sentience and if a rogue nation (eh? eh?) got control of it, that would be really bad. The MacGuffin here is a really chintzy-looking key that can turn off the Entity, because the Entity was built without keyless ignition.
Of course Hunt’s IMF buddies Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are back. They talk a lot about what good friends the three guys are and how important they are to each other, but this is film 7 and there still is no real chemistry. Love interest/sharpshooter Ilsa returns for her third consecutive M:I flick. Former IMF head/now CIA director Kittridge is back for the first time since the original movie in 1996; I guess Alec Baldwin was busy. Among new additions, I always like seeing Shea Whigham but mostly here he just gets to run around an airport like 1970s O.J. Simpson. Esai Morales is a good baddie but I became a bit annoyed, as there are flashbacks, and I’m thinking, oh maybe he too was in a long-ago M:I installment. He was not.
As always, fun action sequences, including one on a train (though if it has to literally be the Orient Express, at least have Cruise wink at the camera), a thrilling car chase in Rome (with a surprisingly prominent Fiat in yet another M:I movie shamelessly hawking BMWs), and some nifty motorcycle work. The in-between stuff certainly could’ve been trimmed, with the overall running time clocking in at 2 hours, 40 minutes. But maybe the Entity helped write the script?
Jack Silbert, curator