Ethan Hunt Can't Die, It's A Mission Impossible

I caught the latest and supposedly final instalment of Tom Cruise at his unbelievably agile best in Mission Impossible Final Reckoning last week. So essentially the whole movie is about how Ethan Hunt is firstly to blame for everything and secondly how he can’t die.

The crew from part 1 of the finale is all there including the French speaking Chinese lady who kicks ass. She has some of the most curt and cutting lines in the film, all in short, sharp Parisian tongue. And surprisingly the movie has a few jokey moments that had the audience laughing.

The bad guy Gabriel played by Esai Morales is wonderfully evil. I like how the directors Chris McQuarrie did close ups of Esai’s face at the opportune times to show to dastardly expressive he is. There’s one scene when the old planes dogfight that Esai elevates with a smile in the middle of the aerial madness. So nuts it's good.

The flashbacks from past films are lovely, spliced in as Ethan gets lectured on his shortcomings. Yes they tell a complete story where Final Reckoning is concerned but they remind us how good we’ve had with the Mission Impossible series. Tom Cruise has been phenomenal with all the daredevil stunt work. But one thing for sure - there’s no way he did the underwater outside submarine stunts of course, because no mortal can survive the pressure and temperature of the Arctic Ocean at such depths.

I found the other cool bit of this instalment was the re-introduction of a side actor from the very first Mission Impossible film. He didn't quite have a big role in no1 except for going to the toilet and finding a knife vertically embedded on his work desk (the knife also reappears in Final Reckoning!), but William Donloe (played by Rolf Saxon) is surely important in this one. Well done scriptwriters. Loop back and tie a beautiful bow.

Three hours of great fun. And of course the ending isn't cast in cold hard stone. I expect someone to steal something glowy and have this whole rigmarole of epic adventure start again some years from now. Rinse, repeat, recycle Hollywood.

What was a tad annoying from the start of the film which I caught at GV Plaza cinema 2 was the perpetual red dot on the screen, like a dead pixel that caught my eye each time the brightness dimmed. (It's in Tom's lovely long locks of hair below his left ear) And a lot of the movie is dark. I have written to GV about this glitch.