Tom Cruise is a lot of things: movie star, Scientologist, popcorn enthusiast, the worst nightmare of an IKEA living room section. But one thing he’s not, no matter how hard he tries to be, is God. Though you wouldn’t know that by watching “Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning,” the latest and potentially last film in the long-running “Mission: Impossible” franchise.
For 35 years, Cruise’s super spy Ethan Hunt and his rotating, crackerjack team of rogue agents have been saving the world from annihilation time and time again, skirting death by a hair each time. Ethan’s ability to thwart his enemies at every turn through sheer will and cunning is bested only by his unyielding compassion. If he cares for someone, he will go to the far reaches of the Earth to save them. Sure, these movies might have plenty of silly, rubber masks and more explosions than you can count. But beyond all the visual shock and awe, it’s Ethan and his cohorts' bleeding-heart humanity that makes the “Mission: Impossible” films so affecting. Even at the end of the world, these characters will sacrifice themselves for — as the Impossible Mission Force slogan says — those they hold close and those they’ll never meet.
