“As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in ten seconds. Good luck, Ethan.”
You will be relieved to hear that Tom Cruise as Ethan, despite his advancing years, decided to accept this as his seventh mission impossible. I know: Jacqui and I saw the film on Wednesday, some three hours of non-stop, nail-biting action in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.
Sadly we were left on the edge of our very comfortable seats, not knowing whether Ethan would succeed in saving the world from a mysterious, all-powerful foe known as "the Entity". For this was just Part One. We are left on tenterhooks, to find out in Part Two whether he completes his impossible mission.
I wouldn’t worry too much here about any spoiler alert – the plot is entirely predictable, with two-dimensional characters chasing each other around the world in photogenic locations. Rome, Venice, Birmingham New Street railway station (which doubles as Abu Dhabi International Airport)
No character development and no one has an inner life. According to MI, we are simply defined by our face. You just slip on another face, which happens all the time in the MI films – and you become that person, entirely.
It’s all good fun, essentially a series of superbly executed stunts joined together by an altogether-implausible storyline. Some great car chases, this time around Rome in a strangely robust Fiat 500.
And a magnificent train scene, filmed just for me, in which the North Yorkshire Moors railway somehow becomes the Orient Express steaming through the Alps. Again, some remarkable special effects. Echoes of Skyfall.
But the highlight has to be Cruise’s gravity-defying motorbike ride off the edge of a sheer cliff, which truly was a mission impossible. No special effects here; as ever for Cruise, the real thing.
You must watch this, the Biggest Stunt in Cinema History. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lsFs2615gw
And yet the film, without realising it, is strangely Biblical in that it portrays in its storyline the basics of our human experience, those fundamentals of living in God’s creation which we take for granted as given. Basically, there is right and wrong, good and evil. And there is moral choice.
According to MI we are not the incidental byproduct of an arbitrary series of random events over 13.8 billion years. There is meaning which is beyond our lives, a decision to be taken on whether to confront evil.
Furthermore, this evil which menaces us is pernicious and pervasive, guided even by some consciousness, albeit one which is some variant of AI. We are all in acute danger, whether we realise it or not.
For to quote the apostle Paul in the Living Bible translation: “For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies—the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world.” (Ephesians 6:12)
And this is where agent Ethan comes in. His boss, Agent Eugene Kittridge, briefs him: “Your days of fighting for the so-called greater good are over. This is our chance to control the truth. The concepts of right and wrong for everyone for centuries to come. You're fighting to save an ideal that doesn't exist. Never did. You need to pick a side.”
This need to pick a side is one of the key themes of the film, especially for newcomer, perceptively named Grace. She may be a skilled pickpocket but she is given the choice of whether she wishes to serve as an MI agent.
What is truly weird is that Ethan in explaining to her the costs of becoming an agent actually, without realising it of course, quotes Jesus – in that there is a cost to carrying your cross.
The film here gets even stranger, so strange I wonder whether there is some deliberate reference to Christian discipleship buried in the screenplay. At the heart of the plot there is – what is known in the film world - a MacGuffin. (You can look that up in Wikipedia).
This is the “cruciform key”, which unlocks the Entity, although what the Entity will do once unlocked, nobody knows. Watching the film you simply can’t miss not seeing the cross of Jesus, which does defeat our most feared foe. His resurrection victory changes everything.
And now Jesus commissions his disciples,, he commissions us, with a mission which is truly impossible, “to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19f).
“This mission of yours is going to cost you dearly.” That’s Agent Kittridge speaking, not Jesus. It’s a mission which requires daring and dedication, a resolve never to give up but to keep at it despite the odds. A true Mission Impossible.
To quote Matthew 19:16 in the Message translation: “Jesus looked hard at them and said, “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.”
This blog will self-destruct in ten seconds.