Mission Impossible 8: Final Reckoning: Firing on More Than All Cylinders

Well, as much as I really enjoyed the seventh Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise (MI: Dead Reckoning) when I streamed it on Paramount Plus this past May, and said I'd be back soon with a review of Final Reckoning (which was Part 2 of Dead Reckoning), which was opening soon in theaters and I intended to see ... well, the beaches on Cape Cod were just too tempting.

But I did manage to see MI: Final Reckoning tonight on Paramount Plus, where it started streaming yesterday, and I thought it was great, for all kinds of reasons.   Here, without spoilers, are some of them:

• As the eighth and (at this point, at least) the final Tom Cruise MI, Final Reckoning did a fine job of bringing into play elements from the previous seven movies.  I guess my favorite was bringing back the Phelps story, which made this eight-movie arc even more a direct descendant of Mission Impossible on television, where of course the story was born with Phelps in command.
• I said in my review of Dead Reckoning that the enemy being AI made Ethan Hunt more modern than Bond (at least so far).  In every Bond movie, an evil human being has been the prime enemy.  There were evil humans to be sure in Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning, but the worst of the villains indubitably is an AI.   Thus not only did Final Reckoning delve into Terminator territory, you can throw in Tron, and while we're at it, War Games and lots of other literally bloodless arch-villians as well.   
• To be clear, as I've been saying in lots of places these days, I'm not concerned about AI replacing us, destroying us, or anything that's been a favorite of fiction at least since Karel Čapek's R.U.R more than a century ago.  And I like those fictions a lot -- but they're fictions.  And as far as fiction about AI goes, I prefer Asimov's robots/androids, who sometimes do us harm, but also do us a lot of good.
• Final Reckoning has some powerful star power.  Tom Cruise's Ethan Hall is a truly memorable character, because he's well written and as well as well acted.  Same for the MI team, both in Final Reckoning and the previous MI movies.  And I have to say Angela Bassett as US President was superb, as well all as all the other heroes and villains that play out a taut story in which millions if not billions of lives are at stake.  (It was also great to see Tramell Tillman -- Severance! -- in charge of a crucial vessel at sea.)
• And the action scenes are first rate in every natural environment on Planet Earth, that is, land, sea, and air.  In those scenes, Hunt is every bit as impressive as Bond.
• I'll just also say that in the midst of all this action, Final Reckoning has a deep and impressive moral core.

If I have any disappointment, well, Cruise has made clear that this is his last Ethan Hunt story.  I hope he changes his mind.  And gets the recognition he -- and everyone associated with this movie -- amply deserve.

See also Mission Impossible 7: Dead Reckoning: Well Beyond Bondian ... Mission Impossible 6: Fallout: Better (These Days) Than Bond ... Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

Zero Day: Thrilling Enough, But Not That Much Like Today

I binged the six-episode Zero Day that went up on Netflix.  Herewith my thoughts, with no major spoilers to warn you about [except in the very last paragraph].

First and foremost, the acting was outstanding.  I mean, with Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, and Connie Britton in major roles -- not to mention Matthew Modine and Angela Bassett with slightly less screen -- how can you go wrong.   From the point of view of the acting, every scene was a real pleasure to watch.

As to the story ... well, I've heard this limited series touted, in more than one place, as strikingly similar to what we've been seeing and hearing on our cable news stations, laptops, and social media these days.  Of course, any plot about a terrorist attack that kills lots of people, and the government veering towards fascist tactics to find the culprits, and stop this from happening again, resembles our times.  But actually, it resembles what George W. Bush and the Congress did with the Patriot Act after September 11 (mentioned in Zero Day) far more than it resembles today.  And that's because our current swerve towards fascism has nothing to do with a terrorist attack.  It stems from the voters of the United States electing to office a President whose every other pronouncement is out of Joseph  Goebbels's handbook.   So yes, although high-tech digital prowess and at least one billionaire are part of the action in Zero Day, the heart of the story is something else.

And that heart, which we've also seen in other movies and TV series on various screens, is a pretty good narrative, with affairs, difficult family relationships, politics reminiscent of what Jack Bauer had to deal with in 24 and prevalent in House of Cards, all done up nicely with a few real newscasters, a house on the Hudson, and of course the nation's capital.   So, if you're looking for a thriller brought to you by flat-out great acting and a decent-enough storyline, I'd recommend Zero Day.  But don't expect anything searingly relevant to what's actually going on today.  De Niro's character is named Mullen, and he gives a report to Congress in the last scene.  A nod to Mueller and the report he gave to Congress in Trump's first administration, right?  But that was long long time ago, in terms of the speed with we've slid and are still sliding into fascism right now.