The action in this 'Mission' delivers

 

  I enjoyed Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning (2023) but grumbled about the movie's two-hour and 41-minute length. And that was only Part I. 

 The second chapter, Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning, takes two hours and 51 minutes to conclude an epic battle between the IM force and The Entity, a hunk of super-AI intelligence that lingers from Part I and threatens to wipe out all of humanity. 

   Length and story aside, it’s unlikely that the audiences that flock to Final Reckoning will be discussing the dangers artificial intelligence poses to human life as they leave the theater.

   What will they be talking about? If you said “stunts,” you’re right on target.

    More on that in a moment.

   Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie begin Final Reckoning in a wobbly fashion, using flashbacks from previous movies as refreshers but also generating a bit of confusion.

   Once the movie settles in, the story becomes a springboard for a couple of major set pieces — one involving a sunken Russian submarine, the other centering on an airborne battle between Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and Gabriel (Esai Morales), the movie’s primary villain. 

   Gabriel wants to rule humanity by controlling The Entity; Hunt wants to save humanity by destroying The Entity. The aerial action takes off with each character flying a biplane in a fight that's augmented by an antagonistic history between Gabriel and Hunt to which the screenplay alludes.

   Both nerve-wracking sequences are executed with  exceptional skill and without benefit of CGI. As Hunt plies the freezing depths of the Bering Sea to find a device needed to fulfill his mission, the sub threatens to roll off a steep ocean precipice into even deeper waters. Unmoored torpedos slam against the sub’s interior and threaten to clobber Hunt as he conducts his search.

   The aerial antics find Hunt hanging from the struts of his plane and executing high-flying moves that make you wonder how they were done.

    Forget dialogue, Dead Reckoning is at its best when it allows action to speak louder than words. And keep this in mind: Each of these set pieces functions as a mini-movie: goals are set, obstacles arise, and a resolutions are reached.

    Much of the IM cast returns with notable contributions from Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, technician supreme. Hayley Atwell portrays Grace, a thief who has become part of Ethan’s crew and who flirts with the role of love interest. Ving Rhames returns as Luther Stickell, a character who serves as the voice of the franchise, offering an ode to Hunt and those heroes who, as he puts it, “live in the shadows.”

   Angela Bassett adds gravitas to the far-fetched plot machinations. As the president of the US, she must decide whether to trust the roguish Hunt or listen to the generals who want her to unleash nuclear Armageddon, part of the screenplay's growing accretion of risk. 

     The movie’s mildly ambiguous ending could signal the conclusion of a series that’s in its 30th year. Or it could suggest that there’s more to come — with or without Cruise in the lead. Cruise’s once boyish face shows the beginnings of jowls. At age 62, he may have had enough. 

    Whatever decision Cruise makes, it’s a good bet that audiences will follow. Sure, much of Final Reckoning proves uneven, but with this level of excitement, complaints seem beside the point.

A love of Springsteen changes his life

Blinded by the Light takes an upbeat, energetic look at how a young Pakistani man awakens to life.

At its best, Blinded by the Light is the exuberant movie that Yesterday should have been. In director Gurinder Chadha's lively look at the influence of popular music on an impressionable young man, a Pakistani student (Viveik Kalra) finds his life transformed when he discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen. Timid and dutiful, Kalra's Javed opens the door to what he regards as a richer life and begins to live in what you might call "The World According to Bruce."

Springsteen's music does what only music can do: It awakens Javed's dormant sensibilities and tells him that the world contains much more than he knew or imagined. He's not just listening; he's experiencing a revelation.

Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) brings a light touch to the movie's developments as she sketches in Javed's romance with a young woman (Nell Williams) he meets at school and his friendship with the young man (Aaron Phagura) who turned him onto Bruce in the first place.

Based on a memoir by Sarfraz Manzoor, Blinded by the Light uses Springsteen's music to help Javid fully understand the limitations of life in the bland town of Luton where he's sometimes bullied by neighborhood toughs and where his stern father (Kulvinder Ghir) has difficulty finding his footing after being laid off from the GM plant where he toiled for 16 years.

Ghir's Malik has no use for the poetry that Javed begins to write. He wants his son to arm himself against deeply ingrained British prejudices that he believes must break Javed's heart. But one of Javed's teachers (Haley Atwell) encourages the young man to keep searching for his voice. The year: 1987.

Kalra holds the screen with Javed's new-found avidity and his unshakable faith in the vision that Springsteen's music -- liberally used throughout -- opens for him. It's refreshing that Javid doesn't aspire to be a musician. He doesn't want to be Bruce; he wants to see like Bruce. He aspires to reach the level of feeling that he hears in songs such as Born to Run. Music empowers him, almost as if he's riding a wave created by Springsteen's liberating energies.

It's all very naive, of course, but this kind of naivete is precisely what the movie's remembering and, ultimately, celebrating.

Before Blinded by the Light ends, Chadha kneels too deeply at the altar of sentiment and she sometimes indulges a level of corniness the material doesn't require but Blinded by the Light survives those impulses and asks us to share its appreciation for Springsteen's music and, by inference, the magic music can work in the hearts of the young.