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Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
N.Y. museum exhibition celebrates the ‘Mission: Impossible' franchise
Advertisement Tom Cruise, a wall text notes, was a fan of the series, which helped lead to the franchise. He better have been. Beside starring in all the movies, Cruise has produced them and served as perpetual-motion muse. Does the Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Installation view of "Mission: Impossible — Story and Spectacle." Thanassi Karageorgiou Other franchises are about a character — James Bond, say, or Indiana Jones — or the comic books that inspired them. The 'M: I' movies are about the franchise's star. Try to imagine these movies with anyone other than Cruise starring in them. Would most people even recognize the name 'Ethan Hunt,' his character? 'Sir,' Alec Baldwin's Impossible Missions Force secretary, tells the British prime minister in the sixth movie in the series, 'Mission: Impossible — Fallout' (2018), Advertisement Alec Baldwin in "Mission Impossible: Fallout." Chiabella James 'Story and Spectacle' isn't quite all Tom, all the time, but pretty close. That's all right, too. The snaggly smile, the endless energy, the well-mannered relentlessness: Resistance is futile. Among the 130+ items and displays in the exhibition are two brief video interviews with Cruise. 'I never do anything half way,' he says in one. 'My whole life, like, I'm in .' He's being modest. There's no 'like' about it. Think of the exhibition as an extended advertorial for the franchise — or, better yet, as a set of ex post facto trailers. Call it 'The M: I Experience.' That's all right, too (do you see a theme here?), since the show is very well done and quite entertaining. Happily overstuffed, the exhibition space is a black-box interior, like a cross between a warehouse and casino (always put your chips on Hunt). A Honda motorbike hangs from the ceiling. So do several Cruise mannequins. More than 40 screens show clips from the movies or behind-the-scenes explanations of various bits. Most of the screens are small, keeping the visual effect from being overwhelming, though several are large. The action is pretty much nonstop, not unlike the movies. Display of costumes from "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning" in "Mission: Impossible — Story and Spectacle." Thanassi Karageorgiou Each 'M: I' gets its own section. The one constant is that each movie's Advertisement There are many, many props, handsomely displayed and all the more engaging for so many of them being so deadpan silly. They include a selection of fake passports (Ethan Hunt gets around), computer paraphernalia, several pairs of sunglasses (which aren't really sunglasses, of course), wristwatches (ditto), ID badges, a very high-end Technics turntable, a plutonium orb (don't ask), a sonic glass breaker (you never know when one might come in handy), not one but two mask-making machines (masks being a franchise trademark), and several masks. The masks, it must be said, are not the franchise at its best. Display of dossiers from "Mission: Impossible — Fallout." Thanassi Karageorgiou Deserving special mention are the gloves Cruise wore in 'Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol' (2001) while Stunts get a lot of attention in the exhibition, and rightly so. They are 'M: I' at its most 'M: I.' They're also Tom Cruise at his most Tom Cruise. In one of the interviews, he mentions Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and airplane wing walkers as inspirations. Looking at the accompanying clips, one sees how clearly he belongs in that lineage. Maybe even he marks its culmination. As the editor of the Guinness Book of World Records said earlier this month when The Academy announced Tuesday that Cruise will be one of four lifetime achievement Oscar winners this year. The other three are Dolly Parton, receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, choreographer and actor Debbie Allen, and production designer Wynn Thomas. Advertisement Cruise previously had four nominations: two for best actor ('Born on the Fourth of July,' 1989, and 'Jerry Maguire,' 1996), one for best supporting actor ('Magnolia,' 1999 — he should have won, actually), and one for producer (' Might another nomination, or even Oscar, lie ahead? The Academy has added a category for stunt work, starting with 2027 releases. Depending on what movie — or movies — Cruise stars in two years from now, consider him the sentimental favorite in that category. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — Story and Spectacle At Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Queens, N.Y., through Dec. 14. 718-777-6800, Mark Feeney can be reached at
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The repetitive, decadent end is nigh in Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning
For almost 30 years, we've watched as Tom Cruise's daredevil secret agent Ethan Hunt has dangled from helicopters, scaled dizzying heights, and ripped off who-knows-how-many rubbery masks. But now, as the series' villains so love to say, it's all coming to an end. We bid goodbye to Ethan and his buddies at the IMF (Impossible Missions Force, not to be mistaken for the International Monetary Fund), their high-gadgets and Byzantine heists, and those interchangeable globe-trotting plots that always seem to involve the team being disavowed and going rogue. For one last time, the world finds itself faced with the threat of nuclear war, and its only hope is one lucky adrenaline junkie and his willingness to risk life and limb for our amusement. Some kind of recap is probably in order. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning (originally titled Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part Two) is a direct sequel to the commercially underperforming Dead Reckoning Part One, which introduced a global bogeyman in the form of a media-manipulating, truth-warping 'parasitic AI' called the Entity. It was an unusually topical threat for a series that had, in previous entries, kept itself to the world of nominally apolitical post-Cold War spy fantasy. Most of Dead Reckoning involved Ethan and the IMF team trying to get hold of a MacGuffin-esque key and keep it out of the hands of the Entity's human minions, who were led by the mystery man Gabriel (Esai Morales). The Final Reckoning picks up some time later. The Entity has infected the internet with misinformation, sowing geopolitical discord and inspiring a doomsday cult. Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), who was last seen as a steely CIA director in the terrific Mission: Impossible—Fallout, is now the President of the United States. Ethan, who is still in possession of the key, has been lying low in London while the ailing IMF computer wizard Luther (Ving Rhames) works out a plan to destroy the Entity. Said plan will, as one exposition-spouting character puts it, probably lead to the 'total eradication of cyberspace.' The alternative, favored by the U.S. government, is to try to control the Entity, which was already revealed in the earlier film to be an American cyberweapon run amok. One can safely assume this is a very bad idea. Laying on the callbacks, flashbacks, and flash-forwards, The Final Reckoning moves at a hectic pace, but takes a while to set up the stakes. Ethan and the IMF crew—perpetually worried Benji (Simon Pegg), recent addition Grace (Hayley Atwell), and antagonists-turned-recruits Paris (Pom Klementieff) and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis)—must find a Russian submarine that sank in the Arctic, use the key to recover a hard drive infected with an earlier version of the Entity, and use said hard drive to wipe out the AI before it manages to take control of the world's nuclear arsenals, all while trying to outmaneuver Gabriel, who's fallen out of the Entity's good graces and developed some megalomaniacal plans of his own. Or something like that. Brian De Palma's stylish Mission: Impossible established the series as an auteur sandbox, transforming as it was passed from one director to another, but the later entries, all capably helmed by Christopher McQuarrie, have turned it into an showcase for Cruise's crowd-pleaser philosophy, a stunt-filled star text that appears to resist a serious ideological reading. (Unlike with James Bond, there has never been much of a conversation about what values Ethan Hunt might represent.) The plots are all easy to confuse, not only because they tend to be filled with double-crosses and disguises, but because past a certain point they are all basically the same plot. It's this recycled plot framework that has allowed the Mission: Impossible movies to develop something like a thematic throughline. The villains of these films are arms dealers, double agents, Machiavellians, extremists who want to bring about the end times. They represent some kind of collective cynicism or nihilism that the series has, increasingly, connected to the idea of a technology-dependent civilization. What the IMF represents, as the opposing force, is some individualistic mix of ingenuity and foolhardiness, or whatever illogical drive has repeatedly led Cruise to perform his own stunts. They may have their own arsenal of high-tech, sci-fi gadgetry, but, as one of the series' more reliable tropes dictates, the gadgets usually end up breaking down, necessitating some improvisation on the part of our heroes. McQuarrie and his co-writer, Erik Jendresen, aren't operating in ignorance here. They play with analog nostalgia (Ethan's signature self-destructing briefing comes on a VHS tape this time around) and anxieties about digitization, and make some strained attempts to connect the plot and characters of this film to earlier entries in the series, going all the way back to the first one. This inspires a little too much dialogue about self-actualization and destiny, which is mostly lost in a script that comes to involve a lot of invented techno-babble, various governmental intrigues, and a doomsday vault that contains all of the world's accumulated knowledge. Not that most of us are really watching these films for the story particulars or simplistic subtexts. It's the awesome setpieces that have made Mission: Impossible into something of an institution, and though The Final Reckoning doesn't top any of the series' highs, it does deliver its share of spectacle. Ethan's trip into the lost Russian sub—a largely wordless sequence that involves some really elaborate rotating sets—is a standout, as is the over-the-top climax, which combines a ticking atomic bomb, improvised surgery, and sleight-of-hand with an extended biplane duel (something we don't really get enough of in today's Hollywood movies). There are, as before, gnarly brawls, suspenseful close calls, narrow escapes, death-defying leaps, shenanigans involving parachutes, and knife fights. Over and over, Ethan Hunt keeps asking for one more chance, a little more time, a little faith, like an addict whose fix is saving the world. Sure, it gets repetitive, and as one of the most expensive productions in history (the reported budget was around $400 million), it inevitably smacks of an imperial industry in decadent decline. But somewhere into the nearly three-hour runtime, the movie passes that crucial point where a critic stops taking notes and decides to simply enjoy themselves. The end is nigh, and it's mostly a good time. Director: Christopher McQuarrie Writer: Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk Release Date: May 23, 2025 More from A.V. Club Doctor Who does Eurovision in space Deborah plays angel and devil in Hacks' latest twofer There goes Foo Fighters' new drummer
Los Angeles Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Esai Morales is the bad guy in ‘Mission Impossible.' He's embracing it
Esai Morales is on a death-defying mission to make Tom Cruise's life impossible, yet again, in the latest installment of the 'Mission: Impossible' action film franchise. Titled 'The Final Reckoning,' the movie was released Friday. Morales reprises his role as Gabriel, an assassin liaison set on carrying out a dangerous mission for Entity, an artificial intelligence system gone rogue, whose capabilities render it a danger to human society. This role dates back to the first 'Mission: Impossible' film in 1996, as a murder Gabriel committed was the impetus for Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to join the Impossible Missions Force. 'I have to look at Gabriel as the star of his own movie,' said Morales in a video call. 'I play these characters with as much humanity as I can.' Although for most of the franchise Gabriel is presumably dead, audiences are introduced to Morales' character in the 2023 summer flick, 'Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.' Besides shouldering responsibility as the main antagonist, which involves risky stunts opposite veteran adventurer Cruise, Morales also made franchise history as the first Latino lead in the action series. The Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican actor is best known for his role as Bob Morales in the 1987 Chicano film 'La Bamba' and as Jesus 'Chucho' Sánchez in 1995's 'Mi Familia' — both of which been added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. Morales is also known for his roles as Joseph Adama in the 'Battlestar Galactica' prequel spin-off of 'Caprica,' as well as Camino del Rio in Netflix's 'Ozark' and villain Deathstroke in the DC 'Titans' series. 'The thing I love about 'Mission: Impossible,' with Gabriel, is that you don't know he's Latino,' Morales said. 'It doesn't focus on race. It focuses on the race to get the key!' Likewise, the release of the last two 'Mission: Impossible' films was a dash to the finish. Directed by Christopher McQuarriel, filming spanned five years with some stops along the way due to the COVID-19 pandemic, plus the 2023 strikes by members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America. Additional costs due to inflation brought the total budget of the Paramount Pictures movie up to $400 million, making it one of the most expensive films of all time. Morales considers its release a momentous occasion — and a 'graduation' of sorts. 'All those obstacles are like the pressure that creates a diamond out of coal,' he said. 'I hope that the audiences feel what I felt and continue to feel when I watch the film.' This interview has been edited for clarity and shortened. How did you prepare physically and mentally for the role in 'Mission: Impossible'? I was asked if I was physical and I said, 'Actually, yeah.' I love playing tennis so my conditioning is really good. During the pandemic, I [would sneak] into the ocean at dusk and I would swim at night for hours at a time. It was kind of scary. Then [I got] to London and met some of the finest stunt people who do fighting, acrobatics, knife fighting, boxing. The thing is to get your reflexes in shape, because sometimes you have to do take after take and you don't want to gas out. Mentally it's a lifetime of preparation. It's not like I can study the life of Gabriel, so you apply what you can about your own character and characteristics under imaginary circumstances. Some of it comes from the ether… from the ether going after Ethan [laughs]. It's an instinct and a lifetime of seeing movies, including the 'Mission: Impossible' movies. They work hard. One of the most comforting things they instill is [that] 'we're not gonna leave until we get it right.' Cruise is known for his gutsy live-action scenes. What was it like to join him on these scenes? It's thrilling. I couldn't think of anyone else whose hands I'd want to put my well-being in, because look at his track record: He's still alive and extremely healthy, and he doesn't take these things lightly. He's extremely strict about safety. Life is inherently risky. If you're gonna take other risks, it's best to take them with people that have survived and thrived for decades doing the same. There's a death-defying scene up in the air that was being teased a lot in this press run. What was going through your mind as you were up there? After the initial prayers and thanking God, the universe and the angels, who and whatever has kept me alive and blessed me with an amazing life so far... You've gotta let go and let God, as they say. What impact has this franchise had on your long-term career? It's a blessing. I got the job during one of the most trying times of my life — and everyone else's. I hope it's not all downhill from here. I'm just grateful because I got to work on something at this scale, with these kinds of collaborators. I am hoping that the work I continue to do leads to meaningful roles and characters that enhance the human condition for having watched it. I wanna do things that make people feel good about being human. Even if I'm the bad guy, somebody's gotta play the bad guy. Right? But is Gabriel really the bad guy? Not in this actor's eyes. For me, I have to look at Gabriel as the star of his own movie. Wars are not fought by people who feel they're gonna lose them. So I play these characters with as much humanity as I can. How did the COVID-19 pandemic and Hollywood strikes impact production of this film? I am on the board of SAG-AFTRA. I did feel the impact of both COVID-19 and the strikes. I mean, it was not easy, it was not fun. It's still not easy. We still have to deal with new media or new technology, speaking of AI. The production stuck together. When you struggle with adversity, it makes you stronger. You consider yourself an honorary Chicano, particularly because of your role as Bob Morales in 'La Bamba.' What memories come to mind when you think back to that role? So many, but the incredible irony or synchronicity or synergy that a role with my [last] name on it would be one of the most remembered. They'd say, 'That has your name all over it.' Well, this [role] literally did. When people wanted me to focus more on Ritchie, I wanted to bear witness and lend my pain to the role of Bob [Ritchie Valens' brother]. I don't know where my career would be without that film and a few others. When you have the ability to be with the person you are portraying, first of all, it's an extreme amount of pressure because they're there and you're not them. And it's like you're gonna pretend to inhabit their being and their life. You don't wanna mess up. But [Bob and I] were able to bond and have a few beers and really kick back, and I was able to absorb Bob's biorhythm. I absorbed his Mexicanismo, [the same way] Anthony Quinn portrayed 'Zorba the Greek.' [Whenever] he went [into] a Greek restaurant, plates would crash in honor of him and his portrayal ... and he is a Mexican Irish actor. I think a lot of people forget that you're Puerto Rican because you play the Mexican role so well. I'm proud to be Puerto Rican, but I'm so secure in it that I don't feel like I have to wear my banner on my head. I just want my work to speak for itself. We have to embrace that which has toughened us and has given us character and has given us something a little extra yearn for and live for. There are many Latinos in sci-fi films. I'm thinking of you in 'Caprica.' There's also Diego Luna and Adria Arjona in 'Andor,' Zoe Saldaña in 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' Pedro Pascal in 'The Mandalorian,' Ricardo Montalbán in 'Star Trek ...' What do you think of space roles introducing Latino actors to new audiences? How about to their own audience? We make up 25% of the movie-going audience, at least. It's a wise decision to include people that in the past were overlooked. We were overlooked. So to put in all the great people is serving your market and representing them. It's long overdue but extremely welcomed. Is outer space the gateway to more Latinos in mainstream roles in rom-coms or action? I would like to see that. I would like to see us play more central characters, people that we can grow to learn, grow to love and feel for, because I think that's what movies do. They let you inside the heart of your lead characters. And you just can't help but to love them, you know?
Irish Examiner
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Tom Cruise: It takes decades to prepare for Mission: Impossible stunts
Film star Tom Cruise has said it takes 'decades' to prepare for extreme Mission: Impossible stunts. Speaking at the global premiere for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in London, the actor said he wants his stunts to engage his audiences emotionally, and does not want people to 'just watch the movie'. Cruise, who has become known for performing extreme stunts in the franchise, including scaling Dubai's Burj Khalifa skyscraper and riding a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff, returns for the eighth instalment as Ethan Hunt, a highly skilled agent who works for the Impossible Missions Force (IMF). Speaking about how he prepares for his stunts, Cruise told the PA news agency: 'I have to tell you, look, it takes years, decades to be able to prepare for something because I've been flying aeroplanes and studying aerial photography for decades. 'I learn when I'm shooting something. I learn a little bit and I keep trying to expand upon that knowledge.' Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the new film sees Cruise hanging off a plane, jumping off buildings and underwater in a submarine sequence. He added: 'So, aerial sequence all the way back to 40 years ago, and now I fly aerobatics. I fly aerobatic jets, helicopters. I fly everything. 'I'm learning these skills and then I'm applying it to cinema. So it's also just understanding the aircraft, the camera, what kind of cameras can we have? 'How's the aircraft going to behave with that camera? How am I going to create motion in space that will create an emotional reaction with the audience. Tom Cruise poses on top of a biplane at Leicester Square Gardens in London (Ian West/PA) 'I want that emotional engagement, I don't want you just watch the movie. I want you to experience it. So that's a lot of physical, mental, but a lot of other things, technical things, that go into developing something like this. 'There's a lot of studying a lot of learning. 'I don't ever coast through anything. I want the challenge and I see beauty and privilege in my art form that I get to do, like the underwater sequence, the amount of engineering that I have to study and learn, and many, many layers of skill involved.' The new film sees Ethan and his IMF team take on the Entity, an advanced, self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) first introduced in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I, which now plans to destroy the world by hacking into countries' nuclear arsenals. At the start of each film, Ethan is offered the choice to accept a new, high-risk mission, putting his life on the line to stop crime and hostile forces. Cast and crew attend the global premiere for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning at Leicester Square Gardens (Ian West/PA) Speaking about the power of choice, Cruise added: 'It is the heart of Mission (Impossible). Should you choose to accept the very first mission? It is a choice of that individual. So it is inherent. 'That's one of the things that I loved about the Mission: Impossible franchise. They don't just say, this is your mission and you have to do it. It's like should you choose to accept? So there's personal responsibility. 'All of us, whether we realise it or not, we're making choices, even to not do something or not take responsibility for something. 'I think that adds a whole other emotional layer to the characters and each one as you're going through it, and how we introduce these characters again, you're seeing each of them making a choice. 'Those choices build society, build cultures. We all have that.' Tom Cruise poses at the premiere at Leicester Square Gardens (Ian West/PA) Throughout the franchise Ethan is joined by expert hacker Luther Stickell, played by Ving Rhames, who is the only other character aside from Cruise, to appear in every Mission: Impossible film. Hot Fuzz star Simon Pegg also returns to play field agent Benji Dunn, alongside thief turned agent, Grace, played by Hayley Atwell. Newcomers to the franchise include Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddingham, who plays Admiral Neely, and Severance star Tramell Tillman who plays submarine commander, Captain Bledsoe. One of the scenes in the film sees Cruise attempt to move through a submarine that has crashed and begins to rotate underwater from the weight of the water that is being let in. Speaking about the stunt, Director McQuarrie said: 'It took two and a half years to build that set. It's a 360 degree rotating, 1000 tonne, steel, submersible gimbal and an 8.5 million litre tank, all of which had to be built from scratch. Director Chris McQuarrie and star Tom Cruise at the global premiere in London (Ian West/PA) 'It was all being built behind my trailer. So every day when I came to work, I was just watching it grow. And you can't plan what you're going to shoot in there, because we understand from having done so many of these sequences, the physics just hits you in the face, and whatever you thought you were going to do, that goes right out the window. 'So, we had a plan, and knew that plan wasn't going to happen. And it wasn't until we got in the tank that we knew what the sequence was going to be.' Aside from all the action, the film is also about 'our hope for humanity' McQuarrie said. He added: 'The story was was just people connecting with other people and remaining connected and not losing their connection. And that that's what you feel emotionally in the story. 'It's less about me saying bad technology and more about wanting to remind people what life is really all about, and what really connects us is not technology, but emotions. 'It's about our hope for humanity. It's about hope for and our belief in the ultimate goodness.' Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning will be in cinemas in the UK on May 21.
The Onion
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Onion
What To Know About ‘Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning'
Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning , the eighth installment in the series, is expected to be another box-office smash. The Onion shares everything you need to know about the film. Q: Who is directing? A: Christopher McQuarrie with a gun pointed at his head by Tom Cruise. Q: What stunts does Tom Cruise pull off in this one? A: He manages to deliver several monologues about a computer villain called 'the Entity' while maintaining a straight face. Q: Isn't Tom Cruise a Scientologist? A: No. He's Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt. Q: Who is the movie for? A. The Final Reckoning is great for everyone, whether you're a male age 18 to 24 or a male age 25 to 40. Q: What's the mission this time? A: To make $800 million at the box office. Q: Why did the film have such a high budget? A: McQuarrie insisted on using real innocent victims for each explosion. Q: Is Clark Gable in it? A: No, Clark Gable unfortunately continues to be dead. Q: What new vehicle have they decided to stage an elaborate chase sequence with? A: Let's just say that if fans aren't ready for a recumbent bicycle, then they better get ready. Q: Should I ask Sara if she wants to go see it with me? A: Yes. She might say no, but the pain of rejection will be nothing compared to the pain of not knowing. Q: Is this the last Mission: Impossible film? A: It's the last one with non-CGI Tom Cruise. Q: What's Tom Cruise's next project? A: Based on probability, dying in a helicopter crash.
