Within the first minute of the latest
Mission: Impossible film, Tom Cruise is sprinting across the screen. Within the first two minutes, Tom Cruise is walking across the top of an airplane. By the time one hundred and twenty five minutes have passed Tom Cruise has done so many unbelievable things and taken so many insane chances as Ethan Hunt that it's a wonder he's alive and ready to go on any more missions at all (is that a spoiler? Please). Currently, Tom Cruise is a mere four years younger than Jon Voight was when the first
Mission: Impossible was released almost twenty years ago. Cruise realizes his time as international super spy and man of mystery is running out (why do you think he's so eager to get a jump on the next installment as he's indicated in the press rounds for this film?). Cruise knows his body won't be able to continue doing outlandish stunt work forever and he knows that the time is coming where watching him run, jump and shoot would be more funny than thrilling were he still to be relying on this franchise into his sixties. Cruise has maybe two more
Mission films left in him and that's if they're more prompt than they've ever been with these movies. This perspective isn't brought up to be a downer or to make audiences more aware of the fragility of time, but simply to say that we won't always have the opportunity to walk into our multiplex and see a Tom Cruise action picture. Cherish this. That Cruise himself clearly pours so much effort and heart into making these movies and that he continues to choose directors who want to make them as authentically as possible while bringing their own unique style to the proceedings is also reason to be appreciative. While there have been, are and always will be movie franchises similar to
Mission: Impossible, what makes Ethan Hunt different from James Bond or even Jason Bourne is his ability to grow. Hunt is wholly Cruise's character whereas Bond has a roster of representatives and Bourne has to deal with not really knowing who he is himself. Hunt, through the arc of Cruise needing this franchise just as much as it needs him, has come to represent our most intimate connection with Cruise, the actor, given it's the only character he's portrayed repeatedly. Under these circumstances, Hunt's arc from young upstart agent to desperate family man eager to escape his fate to a man who's now accepted what he's meant to be only makes each new installment all the more interesting-and
Rogue Nation is no exception.
