Spoiler Space: Tom Cruise and Ethan Hunt refuse to die

Because of the extreme, often practical stunts that Cruise and select co-stars have committed to film (and then heavily marketed) since Ghost Protocol, the series has a different relationship to death than the cool, slick spectacle of Bond or Wick. Because M:I wants us to feel, first and foremost, like what’s happening on screen is real, was done by real people and therefore suggests a real risk of death, Hunt lacks the steely-faced composure of his action peers—any post-III entry in the series involves Tom Cruise being battered, tossed, and slammed by bigger guys or hefty machinery, like a world-saving ragdoll with endless stamina. 

If he were to die during the course of this, it’s difficult to imagine it happening in as dignified and romantic a way as Bond or Wick experienced a couple years before. Because Cruise and McQuarrie have worked to make Ethan’s adventures confront the likelihood of death in every action set piece for four straight films, it will always be more dramatically exciting for Ethan to live than die; because Bond and Wick belong to myth-like, genre-infused legacies bolstered by their franchise’s explicit visual and tonal styles, it’s more interesting for them to expire than Hunt.

But Ethan’s ultimate fate in the field of duty is ultimately decided by one person: producer and star Tom Cruise. After nearly 30 years playing Ethan Hunt, Cruise authorizes every decision made regarding the franchise, and therefore is hyper-aware of how these films reflect on his legacy. The stronger a presence that Cruise’s movie-making machine has taken in the series (he is arguably more of an author than director and co-writer McQuarrie), the more these films feed into that dubious “last movie star” moniker, which is a more active influence on how Cruise decides Ethan’s fate than in similar franchises. 

Bond and Wick died because their deaths are more meaningless. Audiences knew they’d never see Craig as Bond again, and that soon he’d join the other actors who retired the role. After only four films and a largely hinted-at backstory, Wick’s existence was more mythic and ghost-like than the flesh-and-blood Ethan Hunt. Cruise’s classic movie-star credentials are still valid but, in today’s fragile Hollywood climate, could cash out at any time, and the narrative that Cruise and McQuarrie have built around the series—that Ethan is the only person standing in the way of global obliteration, and Tom Cruise is, similarly, the only person standing in the way of the theatrical experience’s collapse—has a double meaning of “this won’t survive without him.” By tying his vitality as a movie star to his character, Cruise needs Ethan to appear vital, triumphant, and able to overcome the odds. He may not be such a naked narcissist as to contractually ensure that he never loses an onscreen fight, but one clear benefit of constantly raising the physical stakes in the M:I series is that Ethan’s survival increasingly makes Cruise appear, if not necessarily strong, then undeniably alive.

This benevolence extends to the supporting cast. After Ethan’s oldest friend Luther (Ving Rhames, the only actor to appear in as many M:I films as Cruise) dies to save London from a bomb early in The Final Reckoning, Ethan adopts an unofficial but rigid “no more sacrifices” policy. The deaths of Ethan’s teammates have textually haunted him in many series entries: There’s the murder of his entire Prague team at the start of Mission: Impossible, the jarring and upsetting brain explosive that takes out Keri Russell’s briefly seen character in III, and the lamented demise of Ethan’s only human equal Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) on a Venetian bridge in Dead Reckoning. Ethan takes these deaths incredibly personally. His mission is to save as many people as he’s capable of, and despite the clear, sincere loyalty that his disciples feel towards him, he feels responsible for getting them into danger in the first place. 

Ethan would die a million times to save his friends, and the finale of The Final Reckoning makes it seem like death is certain for one of his team. Tech guru Benji (Simon Pegg) is bleeding out while he gives hacking instructions to pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell). Meanwhile, returning face William Donloe (Rolf Saxon) only has 10 seconds to get his wife Tapeesa (Lucy Tulugarjuk) and special forces turncoat Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) away from a bomb he’s deactivating before one of its detonators goes off. But if Ethan and Cruise really do depend on each other, then the fate of these colleagues/co-stars also stems from Cruise’s need for Ethan to live; whatever happens to Ethan’s friends reflects back onto him, and whatever reflects onto Ethan reflects onto Cruise. The blanket survival of our heroes in The Final Reckoning is rousing and satisfying, but it is also calculated; when a recorded message from the late Luther insists to Hunt (seconds after the Entity has been defeated) that we are, in fact, masters of our own fate, he should have specified that Ethan is the master of everyone else’s as well. The Final Reckoning is a unique response to the question of “how to kill an action hero,” as more than James Bond or John Wick, the film admits that the action hero is just an extension of the action star, and their fates remain fused.

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