Mission: Impossible - Final Karma: Nothing is Impossible for Tom Cruise

The eighth and final film in the Mission: Impossible series directed by Christopher McQuarrie, with a huge production budget of up to 400 million USD, was rated 5 stars by the British daily newspaper Guardian. The newspaper commented that Tom Cruise's spectacular stunts will create a global big screen fever like the phenomenon Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, earning nearly 1.5 billion USD.

The danger of artificial intelligence

Continuing the unfinished journey from part 1 Mission: Impossible: Karma (2023), spy Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) and a group of 5 close friends including Grace (played by Hayley Atwell), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Paris (Pom Klementieff), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Degas (Greg Davis) seek to stop the artificial super intelligence system called Entity, created by humans but with out-of-control thinking and the desire to destroy humanity.

The entity wants to have absolute power so it takes advantage of the villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) to disrupt world order by taking over the infrastructure of the server that stores Earth's data, manipulating information to make the superpowers suspicious of each other. The world is on the brink of nuclear war that can cause widespread genocide.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) swings on a biplane in the movie Final Karma.

Ethan is tasked with finding the Podkova source code box in the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol and connecting it to a device containing the malicious code invented by Luther, thereby neutralizing the Entity.

The film, although purely entertaining, contains a timely message that needs to be pondered about the global network system and the race to develop AI. "The technological issues in the film warn of the dangers that may occur in the future when humans pursue the ultimate goal without humanity" - People's World news site noted.

“Mission: Impossible - Final Karma is shockingly compelling. Tom Cruise is amazing in his stunts” - People page commented.

Tom Cruise's masterful performance

Nearly 3 hours long, Mission: Impossible - Final Retribution is truly captivating in the last 2/3 of the film with the "unimaginable" journey of Ethan Hunt and his team. The overwhelmingly lavish action feast recreates immortal scenes from previous films such as Ethan running at speed (in the ending Ethan runs under the Big Ben clock symbol (London, England), underwater action, falling from the air...

Tom Cruise himself performed the difficult underwater pressure scenes (the submarine scene) or clinged breathlessly to a high-speed biplane in the climax of his pursuit of the villain Gabriel. This stunt recalls the scene where the superstar clings to the outside of a jet in Mission: Impossible 5 or the helicopter stunt in Mission: Impossible 6.

Despite being over 60, the action superstar proves his class with creative and energetic action scenes, especially those involving airplanes. On NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Tom Cruise revealed: "The action scenes in the movie are the result of my training, ideas and filmmaking over the past decades. I flew those planes and mastered the filming techniques to tell the story on the big screen. And I'm very excited for the next movie!"

“We all share the same future”
Despite its open ending, Mission: Impossible - Karma may finally "say goodbye" to the action movie franchise associated with Tom Cruise. The first film was released in 1996, the previous 7 films grossed a total of more than 4.35 billion USD worldwide.
The image of spy Ethan Hunt overcoming spectacular challenges time and time again excites the audience because he embodies the human aspiration and will to overcome limits, "turning the impossible into possible". Ethan's spirit of sacrifice and solidarity in the special forces team make the story more meaningful and inspiring.
The character of the best friend, technology expert Luther Stickell, passed away in part 8, but Ethan still has his good-natured best friend Benji, his "quick-witted" female ally Grace, the cold-hearted "action girl" Paris and the muscular warrior Degas ready to fight shoulder to shoulder. "We all have the same future. A future built on kindness, trust and understanding if we choose to accept it" - the final narration of the film Karma is ultimately a noble message of justice.