Tom Cruise delivers another triumph of manual labor and willpower in “MI:7”

For the second year in a row, Tom Cruise saves the world in cinema to save the cinemas of the world. In 2022, “Top Gun: Maverick” pulled Hollywood out of the swamp after the pandemic, now the seventh part of “Mission: Impossible” should fix it. The first forecasts expect a record start for protagonist Cruise. “Dead Reckoning” is divided into two parts, the successor will follow in June 2024 – if the currently looming double strike of the screenwriters and actors union in Hollywood allows it.

So far, the blockbuster summer is winding down: the fifth installment of “Indiana Jones” has done only moderately at the box office worldwide. The superhero movie “The Flash” – accompanied by scandals involving protagonist Ezra Miller – became a debacle. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” are just in the starting blocks.

The series “Mission: Impossible”, originally based on two TV series, has long been emancipated since the first part in 1996 from another, the most famous secret agent in the world. Ethan Hunt is no James Bond campaigning for the crown and kingdom out of a sense of duty.

The task force around Hunt with the resounding name Impossible Mission Force (IMF) is a start-up of agents: diverse, unconventional, disruptive. And completely without erotic ambitions. Her appeal always lies, as the title implies, in mastering what seems impossible to master. A great theater of illusions, in which one spies, masks and infiltrates.

“It is impossible to find us,” the crew of the submarine “Sevastopol” claims in the opening scene of the new part. But we know: as soon as impossibility is spoken of here, it is already over. And soon the seemingly invisible high-tech vehicle is found, its occupants floating dead in the water. Images that are remarkably reminiscent of the Titan accident in June.

Other contemporary elements also resonate throughout the film: a war no longer being fought cool but rather hot, with an artificial intelligence known as the “entity” at the center. In a learning mode that makes ChatGPT look like an abacus, she grasps for dominance over the digital world. Stopping the entity requires a golden key, made in two parts that snap together to form a cross – just one of many Christian allusions.

In the first two hours of this 164-minute mega-movie, which is as confusing as it is somewhat redundant, the most important question arises: who the hell has half the key? As soon as it is clear who is operating on whose behalf and why, other alliances are forged and new knives are drawn. It’s not absolutely necessary, but it helps to have seen the previous two installments, also directed by Christopher McQuarrie.

For an action hit, there’s a lot of talking, tactics, telling. Words can probably disguise the fact that an abstract AI as an opponent is even paler than the human opponent Gabriel (Esai Morales). The well-known IMF team around Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), on the other hand, is so well attuned to each other that despite the serious tone of the film, they keep the number of laughs high.

The trio of women is very strong: thief Grace (Hayley Atwell), arms dealer Alanna (Vanessa Kirby) and agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). Not only do they shine with underhanded charm, but their clout also makes any macho thing look old.

“MI:7” seems like a long, extremely elaborate (estimated cost: $300 million) magic trick, in which the audience is first kept happy with amusing banter. For example, with an escalating pursuit through Rome. Or a facial recognition confusion game at the airport. It’s like the movie is waiting for the big bang.

It comes to the end. However, it does not follow organically from the plot. A wrinkled Ethan Hunt, who seems to have a bad toothache in many scenes, even thinks for a moment whether he should take this action. It seems like the entire movie is built around this one stunt, previously billed as one of the craziest in movie history.

The situation: Hunt has to whistle happily through the Austrian Alps to reach the Orient Express. And precisely the IMF team, which can otherwise spontaneously sneak into the most exclusive places, has no access this time. The machine that makes the handy, lifelike face masks that give access everywhere is on strike.

The most obvious plan, of course, is this: Hunt has to parachute from a mountain onto the train while riding a motorcycle. This stunt is sensational. And in a few seconds. Tom Cruise jumped 500 times from a plane and made 13,000 jumps on his motorcycle. So after more than 100 years, cinema returns to its origins, to its attractions.

The toughest slapstick comedian of the 1920s was Buster Keaton. “The Great Stone Face” did all his daring stunts himself. The audience had to feel that their own sweat was flowing, their own life was at stake. Keaton’s most famous film The General (1926) is a cascade of insane train stunts.

The finale of “Dead Reckoning – Part One” also features a train crash and a bridge explosion. It is not only a tribute, but also the triumph of manual labor and willpower over complicated but often soulless computer effects.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is now in theaters.