Tom Cruise | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

The good news is that, to ultimately save the life of Tom Cruise and any number of stuntmen who create the most dangerous movie stunts in the history of film, this eighth installment., “Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning” will most likely be the very last Mission Impossible movie. The problem with insane stunts like these is that for each new film, the producers always try to top themselves, and one day, during one mundane take of an action sequence, someone is going to be killed.

This new movie now has the most dangerous stunt scenes ever filmed, including the climax with two biplanes and Tom Cruise wingwalking, and climbing around both airplanes with a high probability of instant death. Some videos about these stunts explain the years of planning and risk involved (included in this blog) as Tom Cruise has once again topped himself, but has put his life in the most extreme danger in this movie.

As far as the rest of this 2-hour and 49-minute action film, there are times when the story is rather slow with a plotline that is overly crazy and complex, about a worldwide AI virus and the series of tasks required to find the source code and then trap the virus to save the world. There are also very dangerous scenes on a submarine where Tom Cruise spends a long period underwater looking for this container that, along with another device, is needed to trap the AI virus that is putting the world on the brink of nuclear war. This part of the action is the most far-fetched, with Tom Cruise at one point without a diving suit very deep in freezing cold water, something that would definitely kill any human being.

The rest of the cast includes the two regulars in this long-running movie franchise, including Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn and Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, with Hayley Atwell as Grace, and did not include Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust who has been Ethan Hunt’s long-term love interest and was in the last Mission Impossible movie released in 2023. This is because she was killed off in the last movie, something I did not like about the previous Mission: Impossible film. I also thought the ending of this film was too similar to the ending of Mission: Impossible Fallout, released in 2018, and the film was unnecessarily long.

The Rotten Tomatoes reviews for this film are an anemic 80%, mainly due to the overly complex and convoluted plot, with my rating 100% for the incredible action scenes and a solid 85% for this movie.

In recent years, with sequels that are many years after the original, the trend has been to rely on the huge name recognition and popularity of the original movie and forego the most important things: the story and the screenplay. Not this time. “Top Gun Maverick” has a great story and screenplay and is a very well made movie, worthy of the original Top Gun released in 1986. This film started production in 2018 – 2019 and was ready for release in 2020 and due to Covid the delay has been over 2 years. Top Gun Maverick may have set the record for not only the longest delays, but the longest period of time – 36 years – from the original to the sequel.

The main story is very well done, with Maverick, played by Tom Cruise being called back to the Top Gun training school to teach the best Navy Pilots to accomplish an almost impossible and dangerous task of blowing up a nuclear facility deep within the mountains of some unnamed foreign country. The flying required of diving down close to the ground, dropping a bomb and then diving up causing 10G forces required extremely impressive special effects, both during the training scenes and the very well done climax. Once again, Tom Cruise and many of his young co-stars did some of their own stunts, risking their lives to make a movie. One can easily argue that Tom Cruise should have won 2 Academy Awards for “A Few Good Men”, 1992, and “Born on the Fourth of July” 1990. But there is no doubt that Tom Cruise is by far the best stunt man in the history of movies. He has already risked his life many times in previous Mission Impossible productions, with two more in the Pipeline “Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, Part 1 and 2”, set to be released in 2023 and 2024. Any fan of Tom Cruise cannot help worrying that maybe one day his risk taking with all of these films may one day be too much. Hopefully that day will never happen. Risk taking with dangerous stunts should be measured with the obvious realization that “Its only a movie”. No movie will ever be worth anyone’s life.

The actor Val Kilmer, who reprises his role as Iceman in the original Top Gun movie, makes a depressing appearance in this movie. In recent years, Val Kilmer has unfortunately almost died of throat cancer, and after two tracheotomies, he can no longer eat and now needs a feeding tube. The one scene Kilmer had with Tom Cruise in this movie involved Kilmer typing on a computer and later barely able to speak. In this sequel, Ice Man and Maverick are friends; one of the best parts of this sequel. Actor Miles Teller plays the son of Maverick’s close friend Goose, who died in the first movie and I thought that the conflicts they had in this story were very real and believable. The remaining cast of young Navy Pilots were also outstanding in their roles as was John Ham who played the Admiral in charge of the entire mission.

Actress Jennifer Connelly, plays Tom Cruise’s girlfriend, with no mention of Kelly McGillis, Maverick’s girlfriend in the original movie – a fact that I considered a harsh reality of the business of movie making.

The Rotten Tomatoes for Top Gun Maverick are an extremely high 97% and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this film.