Christopher McQuarrie and the Marvelfication of 'Mission: Impossible'
A summary of the evolution of the spy franchise under different filmmakers from the 1990s to the 2020s
This summer sees the release of two highly anticipated espionage films featuring a diverse ensemble of character actors. For me, I am most eager to watch the Wes Anderson one – The Phoenician Scheme. For most, their eyes are on Tom Cruise and his merry band of spies in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the seemingly final entry into the decades long spy franchise. Despite the longevity of the M:I series, people cannot get enough of Cruise’s insane stunts, as he saves the world for the eighth time. And yet, many people groan at the prospect of another Anderson film. Discourse online has seen people criticize Anderson’s intricate, dollhouse style which has become pronounced in late 2000s. He has become repetitive, they say. He has not made a “real” or “emotional” movie since Moonrise Kingdom. People fail to connect with the melancholia bubbling underneath the pristine surface of an Anderson film. But people have no trouble connecting to repetitive adventures about an unkillable spy saving the world from spy-turned-terrorists.
Producer-star Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie receiving consistent universal acclaim from critics and audiences alike since their director-actor collaboration in 2015’s Rogue Nation seems an impossible task for many a franchise, especially one that started in the previous century. Usually, franchises lose steam (mostly with critics and ardent cinephiles, not necessarily with the box office) after the third or fourth entry. M:I continues to be relevant with its promise of death-defying centerpiece stunts. There have been memorable stunts before, such as the iconic Langley wire suspension scene in the first film, but Cruise’s scaling of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in 2011’s Ghost Protocol was something else. Shot on IMAX cameras, it was truly a far bigger spectacle than previous entries. Since then, Cruise and McQuarrie have made it a point to market the new M:I film with a death-defying stunt. Trailers and featurettes showed Cruise dangling from the side of a cargo plane in Rogue Nation, skydiving over Paris in 2018’s Fallout, and riding a motorbike off a cliff in 2023’s Dead Reckoning. These sequences are all the focus of everyone’s raving – but what about the rest of each film?
BEFORE MCQUARRIE: THE ESTABLISHED AUTEUR ERA (1996 – 2000)
It’s hard to believe or imagine M:I without its big action stunts. But once upon a time, there was something else quite distinctive in these films. It was the style of the individual filmmaker, the auteur — if we are to believe in the theory. Brian de Palma being the first director of one of the most iconic film series is strangely hilarious to think about. This is the same De Palma who came into prominence during the ‘radical’ New Hollywood era of the 1970s, along with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola. Imagine if Michael Mann directed the first Fast and Furious film. De Palma’s style oozes so much in the first film. His trademark psychological thriller narrative and suspenseful direction, reminiscent of his earlier and most celebrated works like Carrie and Blow Out, is on full display. We can see this in the early Prague sequence where the IMF spy team members are killed off one by one by a mysterious perpetrator. There’s a Hitchcockian menace to this scene, something that De Palma is clearly influenced by. There’s the violent elevator shaft death of a character played by a then-recognizable actor like Emilio Estevez, not unlike the ‘premature’ shower death in Hitchcock’s Psycho or De Palma’s own homage to it, Dressed to Kill. The explicit deaths of the team members also evokes the brutality of deaths in Carrie. We see Estevez’s face get impaled, another becomes bloodied by a gunshot, and another is brutally stabbed in the gut.
The rest of the film deals with uncovering the mysterious identity of the traitor in the original IMF team. Something that’s missing in the later films, especially in the McQuarrie era, is the sense of paranoia and dread between Hunt’s team members. Characters presumed dead come back alive to Hunt’s shock and team allegiances are put into question. This paranoia-fueled narrative is effectively visualized by De Palma’s knack for unusual yet intriguing camera angles and shots. De Palma’s signature split diopter shots turn what would have been standard shots into visually stimulating images that enhance suspense and relay information simpler than using more cuts and camera movements (Fig.1). Most action and thriller films of today’s generations do not employ this type of shot. Another signature element in De Palma’s style, albeit more commonly used by other films than the split diopter, is the Dutch angle. This angle is often used by filmmakers to create a sense of unease, as it tilts the camera to create a slanted image. This angle is most memorably used in the Prague restaurant scene (Fig. 2) where Hunt is accused by his IMF superior Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) of being the traitor.
Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo is another director with a distinct visual style, although far less subtle in his capacity for visualizing thrills. Where De Palma excelled in creating an atmosphere of dread, Woo takes a more explosive approach in his images. Whereas De Palma is an influential figure in the New Hollywood movement in America, Woo is an influential figure in the action genre in Hong Kong. With beautifully shot action films like Hard Boiled and The Killer, Woo is a filmmaking legend all the same which makes his hiring as the director of the second film in the series an inspired choice. No matter what negative review or Razzie Award is thrown at this film, it still goes fucking hard. Woo’s style admittedly sticks out like a sore thumb. Everything is in slow motion, there are a lot of Asian-inspired hand-to-hand fight scenes, and the Australian exteriors are all sunny, unlike the cooler interiors of computer rooms and office buildings associated with the spy genre. Even the narrative itself is less concerned about the intricacies of intelligence agencies than it is about a love triangle between Ethan Hunt, the antagonist Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), and the love interest Nyah Hall (Thandiwe Newton). The film is not particularly deep nor does it have a complex narrative like the first but Woo combines sexy melodrama with big, dumb action fun through visually pleasing camera work.
Even with the later casting of attractive actors like Pom Klementieff, or Tramell Tillman and the entire submarine crew in Final Reckoning, the M:I franchise has never been as sexy as Mission: Impossible 2. What can you expect when Marvel dominance in blockbuster filmmaking style has led to sexless films? When someone brings up this film, I think of Cruise’s long hair flowing in the wind as he scales the Grand Canyon, romances Newton in Spain, and outruns bad guys on a motorcycle in Australia (see Fig. 3). Cruise's haircut is simply sexy and Woo makes sures the viewer’s eyes can register its majesty. The sexiest sequence in the film, and possibly the entire franchise, is the flirtatious meet cute between Cruise’s Ethan and Newton’s Nyah in Spain. Many people seemed to be turned off by this apparent attempt at turning the character Hunt into a spy sex icon like James Bond, but God forbid someone takes a new direction in a sequel.
The action sequences too are noticeably more bombastic than those of De Palma’s film. There’s a lot more practical explosions and vehicle chases and crashes. And, of course, in typical heroic bloodshed fashion, there are more gunfights and wire-based martial arts (the latter of which would never be found in huge quantities again). Released a few years before the shaky cam and quick cuts of the Jason Bourne spy films that defined mainstream American action films in the 21st century, the film’s action remains clear. Woo’s signature use of slow motion is key to the film’s shots making a lasting impact. Shots last for a few seconds, instead of a few frames like in Bourne films, allowing the viewer to take in, to feel, insane car crashes, visceral dropkicks to the chest, and shots that could only be described as Ethan “aura farming”, The shot of the white dove flying away from a burning hallway shot during the scene preceding the climax (Fig. 4) is a classic example of the Woo style in action cinema. No other filmmaker is as obsessed with doves as Woo whose Christian faith informs his decision to put them in shots during climatic moments. There is an earnestness and uniqueness among filmmakers in his view of doves as a representation of “purity and spirit”. His imprinting of this signature shot of doves makes a commercial blockbuster, such as this film, have its own voice. Something that blockbusters today seem to shy away from, in favor of shots that are more “realistic” or “logical”, shots that seem to only do the bare minimum in providing information through standard shot and reverse shots.
BEFORE MCQUARRIE: THE FIRST TIME FEATURE FILMMAKER ERA (2006 – 2011)
In contrast to the experienced auteurs he picked for the first two films, Cruise went on to choose first-time live action feature film directors for each of the two succeeding installments: J.J. Abrams (from television) and Brad Bird (from animation). Among the two directors, Abrams has the most distinct visual style, but not necessarily for the best. Many have noted Abrams’s excessive use of lens flares in his images throughout his filmography. Mission: Impossible III features some of those (Fig. 5), although not as excessive as in his later Star Trek films. However, there are other elements in his style that do not get as much attention and are far more bothersome: his usage of quick editing, shaky handheld camera, and constant camera movements. Whereas Woo maintains clarity in action scenes with his use of slow motion, steadier camera, and wider angles, the Abrams action scene is one that thrives on fast cuts and close-up angles that make his action feel nauseating rather than a visual spectacle. It’s a style that has been unfortunately common in many mainstream American action films, as started by the Bourne films. To the film’s credit, despite all the messy action, there is a grit to the Abrams style. Characters here are often bloodied and the use of oversaturated colors make the unpleasant intriguing to look at, look no further than the opening scene (Fig. 6).
In contrast to Abrams’s abrasive style, Brad Bird has a “restrained” visual style in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. He doesn’t go for the bold explosions of Woo and the saturated colors of Abrams but he excels in a precise editing rhythm and sound design choices and steady camera movements. Perhaps owing to his animation background with classics such as The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, Bird maintains a visual clarity in his set pieces, allowing for better tension. The Kremlin hallway scene (Fig. 7), is a good example of Bird’s directorial skill. This scene may lack the high wire act of the hallmark Langley scene of the first but it packs just as much tension. Note the silence in the hallway. There is no score, as is custom for many film scenes today. There is no dialogue, even. The characters communicate information and emotion through hand gestures and eye movements. The sound of a water droplet echoes through the silence. Humor is even found in the perplexed reactions of a security guard and the sight gag of Agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) standing in the way of their fake background camera. But the scene everybody remembers from Ghost Protocol is the Burj Khalifa sequence where Tom Cruise really scales the side of one the world’s tallest buildings (Fig. 8). Much has been said about this death defying stunt; it’s a spectacular sequence with its use of sound and the vertigo-inducing cinematography. From then on, stunts would be the thing the series is best remembered by most people for.
Released to unanimous acclaim from both critics and audiences, Ghost Protocol was truly the start of a new era for the franchise. However, impactful the Burj Khalifa scene is, another series-defining trait subtly crept through the fourth film. It was not in the visuals but in the written word. For the first time ever, an M:I film began incorporating recurring characters beside Ethan and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames). The continued inclusion of the characters of Benji and Ethan’s wife Julia from the previous film isn’t a bad thing. In fact, both actually lend or are given some pathos to the narrative. Benji undergoes a character arc, beginning as a tech nerd and transforming into a gun-wielding field agent. Julia may only appear at the ending sequence, but she is a reminder of Ethan’s inability to become both a family man and an international spy. Furthermore, her character’s supposed death haunts new team member William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) who is racked with guilt for failing to protect her. The same ending sequence too did not only look to the past with Julia’s return, but also looked towards the future. The closing scene sees Ethan walk into the night as another mission is given: investigate a new villain in the organization The Syndicate. They would become the villain in the following sequel Rogue Nation. The first three films felt independent of one another. Even if Ethan and Luther appeared in all of them, they never seem to reference past events. Someone can pop in any of those films in whatever order and become focused solely on whatever happens within the running time. Each film had its own style and mood. What a privilege to have standalone sequels these days. Beginning with Ghost Protocol, the M:I franchise succumbed to Marvelfication.
REIGN OF THE MCQUARRIE: THE MARVELFICATION ERA (2015 – 2025)
Marvelfication is the phenomenon where every film series has relied on the knowledge of previous films to understand the film one is currently watching. Of course, it is named after Marvel, particularly the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise The MCU reached box office success with 2008’s Iron Man and hinted at a larger universe, teasing new characters and plot points. Perhaps a defining trait of mainstream American cinema during the decade of the 2010s is this obsession with Marvelfication. Every major studio wanted to have their own interconnected universe. Sony tried with the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man. Universal planned to re-envision their classic monsters through the Dark Universe. Warner Brothers had Marvel’s comics rival DC start their “extended” universe with Man of Steel, but not before trying with Green Lantern. Marvel’s own parent company Disney also began releasing a new wave of Star Wars multimedia.
Having begun to work on the series as an uncredited writer on Ghost Protocol, I blame Christopher McQuarrie for the Marvelfication disease coming to Mission: Impossible. In my opinion, this Marvelfication is what has sadly defined the franchise once he had taken over as director for later half of the series. Now, I would not claim that McQuarrie has not made a good film. On the contrary, his first two films in the series Rogue Nation and Fallout are quite good, the latter even being a series highpoint. But I find this Marvelfication an unfortunate trend that has taken over American cinema. And especially more unfortunate, at least for me, that a franchise that began being helmed by two visionary filmmakers with distinct visual styles eventually ended with something as blandly directed and even worse written as Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning, an unfortunate attempt at Marvel-style “grandeur”.
I identify three symptoms of Marvelfication evident in the M:I franchise under McQuarrie: the self-mythologization of characters and narrative, an “anonymous” visual look (a more subjective one), and the interconnectivity of the narrative (the most obvious). The first symptom is perhaps not as bad as the others but it does create the conditions necessary for the egregious impact of increased narrative interconnection. Rogue Nation has the first instance of self-mythologization and it even happens early on in the film (Fig. 9), as the credits continue to roll. Here, a young IMF agent posing as a record store employee tells Ethan having heard stories about him and doubting their veracity, before handing him his new mission. It reveals how Ethan’s past exploits as a secret agent has apparently made him a folk hero in the IMF agency. There’s nothing wrong in creating hype around characters but there’s something about secret agents being talked about the same way as other characters do with superheroes I find corny, or even downright evil, if you want to problematize the heroic portrayal of Western spies in media. Ethan has been turned into this paragon of human virtue, like an unstoppable messianic Marvel ubermensch. Tonally, this self-mythologization makes the series feel like it caters to younger children. It treats spies, who are morally dubious figures by design as they rely on deceit and extralegal tactics for the interests of their state, as pure do-gooders. There are no more gray areas for these characters, no more flaws that would make them interesting.
For all my complaints about self-mythologization in Rogue Nation, I must concede that the film does look great with its warm, summer orange tones. I suspect Robert Elswit returning as the director of photography for this film, plays a huge part in the film being pleasant to look at. Unfortunately, the Oscar-winning, six-time Paul Thomas Anderson collaborator did not return to the franchise on the next installment Fallout and it shows. As much as I enjoy this film to a great degree with its thrilling action sequences, there’s always been this nagging feeling in my brain that everything looks quite bland, with the exception of the IMAX camera-shot footage. Standard blocking, earthy or muted color grading, dull yellow lens flares, low contrast lighting. Fallout does not look visually striking or appealing, adapting the second symptom of Marvelfication I identified: an anonymous visual look. This look is defined by muted colors and realistic lighting which attempt to make the films more “grounded”. If one is to look at the mainstream Hollywood films of old (before the mid-2010s), one notices how vibrant the colors are and how light and shadow contrast to make a striking image. But filmmakers these days seem to prefer a “realistic” look to the detriment of the beauty of staged images. One unfortunate example in Fallout is the underground tunnel scene where the shots have a blue-green or brown hue that makes everything look like shit (Fig. 10). It is not too dissimilar to the apartment scene in the Marvel film Spider-Man: No Way Home. Fallout may feature a more dynamic shot composition than its Marvel counterpart, with the former featuring a hallway that adds a one point perspective to the image. However, contrast this image with another interior ensemble scene in the earlier Ghost Protocol or an underground scene from Skyfall and you can see how far the franchise (and mainstream Hollywood films, in general) have fallen in terms of lighting and coloring (Fig. 11). Note the hiring of cinematographers with close collaborations with auteur or visionary filmmakers, such as Elswit for Ghost Protocol and Roger Deakins for Skyfall, during the early 2010s, coincidentally before the onslaught of bland cinematography in the mainstream.
This trend of bland cinematography continues into the vastly overrated Dead Reckoning, my personal choice for the weakest entry in the franchise since the third film. To McQuarrie’s credit, he does attempt something new with cinematographer Fraser Taggart by recreating De Palma’s distinct Dutch angles for many of the scenes. However, McQuarrie is no De Palma. In the seventh film, he tends to overuse Dutch angles, robbing them of their unnerving effect on the viewer, the individual power of each shot diminishes. Key to McQuarrie’s failure to emulate De Palma is his constant unstable camera movement and odd editing choices. There is something off in the tempo of his movement; the camera moves too slow or has this aimless hovering style. De Palma keeps it steady, allowing us to absorb the impact of the actors’ line deliveries, such as in the restaurant scene in Fig. 2. We feel we are trapped with them. McQuarrie having the camera hover feels like we’re ghosts watching the whole film, detached from the action. This is apparent in the Abu Dhabi airport scene where various characters are framed using a Dutch angle, such as Luther manning the computers (Fig. 12). The camera never ceases to move and yet there is no motivation for its movement. It does not track a subject across space. It does not reveal new visual information or elements. The emphasis is on the dialogue. It’s as if McQuarrie does not trust his audience to find Luther’s dialogue riveting and resorts to unmotivated movements to create stimuli.
But perhaps the greatest sin of McQuarrie’s visual direction in Dead Reckoning is his flavorless action sequences. It is quite ironic that for a filmmaker that continued to revitalize the franchise with big action set pieces such as the airbus scene in Rogue Nation or the helicopter chase in Fallout fail to capture the same magic with the motorcycle cliff jump in this seventh film. This IMAX camera-filmed stunt was heavily promoted in cinema previews, a way to entice audiences still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic to re-embrace the big screen. The image of Tom Cruise jumping off a speeding motorcycle from a dangerous cliff is what the trailer hinges on, as it cuts with Cruise in mid-air. And yet, in the actual film, the particular moment, which the trailer withheld for the big screen, is frustratingly brief at 40 seconds. The film missed an opportunity for the audience to take in the impressive stunt by cutting into seven different shots with varying lengths in less than a minute. Nothing ruins the grandeur of a stunt than cutting quickly to another shot, like the three and a half second shot of Ethan free falling through the air, before Benji talks to him (Fig. 13). The problem with this shot is the same as many films of the Marvel-dominated era of blockbuster filmmaking. Not enough time is allowed to be felt in each shot. Compare this stunt to the similar high altitude free fall stunt from Fallout which is all done in one two-and-a-half minute shot, allowing us to feel the tension in real time. This motorcycle stunt was a disappointment back in cinemas then and still remains one even on rewatch.
The fact that the marketing for Dead Reckoning revolved around the motorcycle stunt scene makes it all the worse for it. But then again, there’s really no other action scenes in the film to look forward to. It is especially unfortunate that the beloved McQuarrie-era character MI6 spy and Ethan’s ally Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) gets an abrupt death in another muted colored, poorly-lit scene that is similar to the scene in Fig. 8. The fight scene that precedes Ilsa’s death is also defined by quick cuts and distant angles which lessen the impact of the hand-to-hand combat (Fig. 13). I’m not usually one to make comparisons between Western and Eastern cinema but witnessing such a shoddy action scene makes one realize the superiority of the East in blocking and lighting action. It is such a pity that a franchise that was once helmed by John Woo, the master of Hong Kong action cinema, has regressed into this standard American action filmmaking gray bullshit. Woo consistently had the sauce in his images. McQuarrie fumbles from film to film. This obsession by Western films with realistic lighting, exemplified by the Marvel franchise and reflected in the McQuarrie era of M:I, comes at the expense of visual clarity and beauty. How people can praise a film like Dead Reckoning for its action scenes is beyond me, not when Bollywood and other South Asian film industries have a better grasp of lighting, coloring, and framing of action. It was not long before the release of Dead Reckoning when the anti-colonial Tollywood epic RRR brought Asian action excellence to a wider global audience (Fig. 14).
Perhaps there are still many people who do not see the similarity between the McQuarrie era’s “realistic” visual style with that of the Marvel franchise’s visuals. But there can be no doubt that Marvel’s influence is most apparent in the increased interconnectivity in McQuarrie era narratives. As mentioned earlier, the seeds of this were laid in the Brad Bird-directed Ghost Protocol with characters like Benji and Julia returning and the set-up for recurring antagonists. For Rogue Nation and Fallout, the character of Solomon Lane and his organization the Syndicate make for bland villains and their obsession with creating a nuclear holocaust is ultimately as generic as bad guys in spy movies can get. These films, regardless of some other differences in character names or plot details or whatever, have a homogenous quality to them like when Marvel uses the same ideas of hidden, advanced civilizations and interfamily dynastic struggles in Thor and Black Panther.
No other film in the M:I series, however, exemplifies the Marvel-style interconnectivity of the McQuarrie era than the last two installments, Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning. There was no real reason for the character of former IMF chief Kittridge, missing in action since 1996, to return as the antagonistic authority figure archetype in Dead Reckoning other than to remind us of the superior first film. Hell, I don’t think the regular Joe could even remember him, anyway. Not that the actor Henry Czerny doesn’t give a good performance as Kittridge but it’s not like the series had a shortage of respectable thespians to choose from in playing authority figures. They got Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburne, and Tom Wilkinson to play one-off roles in individual films before the McQuarrie era. In a way, he’s what the Internet has called a “Glup Shitto”, a term that refers to a Tumblr post that mocks the abundance of Star Wars characters – and the excitement of die-hard fans (nerds) in identifying them. But he’s not the only character from the 1996 original film returning in the finale. There’s the minor character Donloe (Fig. 15) who is best known for his appearance in the iconic Langley heist sequence. In fairness, Final Reckoning does give him more of a personality and character background this time. Donloe becomes a key supporting character, becoming a new member in Ethan’s team, as he and his indigenous wife travel from Antarctica to South Africa to participate in action-packed adventures. And yet, there is still something hokey about this callback. Again, the film treats the original 1996 narrative as this biblical event where even a minor character has been transformed into a prophet. And yet, easily the most egregious character connection to the original in Final Reckoning is the reveal that the character Jasper Briggs (Shea Wigham), the law enforcer hunting down Ethan and the gang, is actually the son of the antagonist Jim Phelps! And his real name is Jim Phelps! What does this reveal have to do with the story? Does Briggs/Phelps continue to be a thorn in Ethan’s side in the latest film? No. He’s mostly on the sidelines of the story and he has a hug with Ethan that ends this belatedly introduced blood feud between the Phelps family (?) and Ethan. Lore familiarity is the new spectacle in today’s films.
The use of flashback footage in the first half of The Final Reckoning, has been rightfully criticized for their overabundance. In the very first scene, as Ethan listens to the mission tape and is thanked by the President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) for his “lifetime of service”, clips from all past seven films play out. And it’s not even for a brief 30 seconds or so. It goes on for almost two minutes! It goes on for so long, it also has time to organize its clips into similar subjects. One instance shows Ethan riding in motorcycles in the second and fifth film then transitioning to falling or jumping from a great height in the various stunts from the fourth, then third, then the sixth, and then the seventh film. The way Sloane’s words become a narration over this footage makes this moment feel like a TikTok video or YouTube reel made by a fan. The only thing missing is an unrelated K-Pop or Charli XCX song to appeal to the online community’s sense of irony and genuine devotion. The next uses of flashback footage are thankfully more brief, such as when Gabriel interrogates Ethan about the events of the previous film, but it does create this overly serious tone that makes the film pretentious. Yes, pretentious doesn’t mean arthouse films. A crowd-pleasing blockbuster film like a Mission: Impossible film can be pretentious. It takes quite an amount of self-importance to use footage directly from past films to constantly add to the grandeur of the Avengers: Edngame-style finale.
Interconnectivity in and of itself is not a bad thing but Hollywood has had an unhealthy obsession with it, as of late. As a consequence, narratives in individual films tend to rely on the mass audience keeping up to speed with plot and character details from one or two films back the series timeline. As new and new franchises pop up every other year to begin a new cinematic universe, can one expect the audience to remember everything from past films? And how ironic it is for a series that ends with artificial intelligence as the primary antagonist to rely on familiar characters and plot devices from previous films, keeping up with the recent trend of regurgitating the same old shit for (unchallenging) audience familiarity and easy money. Interconnectivity is the end result of the self-mythologization, this bloated self-importance of the filmmakers and/or the studio towards their own cinematic narratives. It treats past franchise narrative as sacred text and now, just like in religions, can only derive new films burdened by the constraints of the past. The series effectively masturbates over itself, receiving narcissistic pleasure in the troublingly messianic figure of a secret agent.
Interconnectivity comes hand in hand with homogeneity. The same characters and their children appear again and again, and thus, the same sort of stories or scenes happen again and again. They get self-referential with time and they treat every event as a potential for future crossovers or sequels. It’s not enough that the heroes defeat the bad guys. There are other bad guys who are like said bad guys in the next film. Fallout does this with John Lark (Henry Cavill) and the Apostles, spy-turned-terrorists who were a part of the “rogue nation” of the previous film. And what are their plans? To spread chaos and blow up the world, of course! Like the last one. The same characters, the same scenes and stories result in the same themes and ideas. That the world could only be saved by a singular ubermensch like Ethan Hunt, the secret agent with the heart of gold and the best of humanity. That, ultimately, we have to thank the services of the people from those government agencies who use clandestine means to stop “the enemy”. Not that Ethan had not been saving the world since the 1996 original but the self-mythologization of the character that began in 2015 under Christopher McQuarrie has only made the franchise appeal to a mass audience who patronize the mythical superheroes of Marvel films. These are the only kinds of narratives produced by big movie studios now: streamlined never-ending interconnected stories about mythical, morally pure supermen, shot like flavorless gray slop because God forbid someone put some beauty into these things.
It’s funny to think that Tom Cruise was not always Mister Death Defying Stunt Guy in cinema. He appeared in dramatic roles and films directed by real auteurs. By the time he was cast as Ethan Hunt in the first Mission: Impossible, he had already worked with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone, and Tony Scott. He had starred in acclaimed legal dramas like A Few Good Men and The Firm and drama-comedies like Risky Business and Rain Man. Something seemed to have changed in the mid 2010s, weirdly enough coinciding with the end of the “old” era of the M:I series. The last time Cruise had a non-action role was Rock of Ages in 2012, since then it’s all action films like Edge of Tomorrow and American Made. Since 2018, he has only limited himself to franchise roles in Top Gun and, of course, Mission: Impossible. There may have been varied directors in his 2010s filmography but look further down the credits you would find that Cruise has been working with McQuarrie even outside M:I. Jack Reacher, Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy, and Top Gun: Maverick all had McQuarrie’s writing involvement. Let me be clear. I don’t think Christopher McQuarrie is a bad filmmaker. There’s always something to enjoy in his collaborations with Cruise, both within and outside the M:I series. The stunt sequences Cruise puts himself in that draw huge audiences and praise are made possible by someone as skillful as McQuarrie. Fallout remains one of the best entries in the decades-long franchise. Final Reckoning saw McQuarrie course correct from the bland visuals of the previous film. But there is a nagging feeling that Cruise and, by extension, the Mission: Impossible series has become stale like the Marvel franchise as McQuarrie had become an integral part of both.
Tom Cruise’s next mission, should he choose to accept it, is to reject Marvelfication. Put a definitive end to the Mission: Impossible series (and not go the way of Marvel limping its way onto another phase of films after Endgame). Stop working with McQuarrie in his films so much. This article will self-destruct after this sentence.