WARWICK SHOWCASE

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE —
THE FINAL RECKONING

* * * ½

(Ethan Hunt Saves the World Again)

Tom Cruise is back again as Ethan Hunt, and he has brought his team with him to once again save the world from destruction.

Hunt has the key to the Entity, an AI contraption that will knock out all the nuclear defense systems around the world, but first he must deal with past enemy Gabriel, the president, the Russians, and a whole bunch of bad guys coming after him from all directions.

There’s a lot of AI language that the younger crowd will get, much more advanced than the simple tape recorder that tells Ethan that the message, should he choose to accept it, will self-destruct in seconds.

The action starts before the credits when Hunt is kidnapped by Gabriel and forced to retrieve coordinates and malware and do his bidding within four days.

That leads him and his crew to the Bering Sea, where Hunt must recover certain items from a sunken submarine in a scene that goes on way too long, before being saved by a makeshift decompressor.

There’s plenty of action and interesting characters in this nearly-three-hour movie, all leading up to the bi-plane battle over South Africa with stunts that will take your breath away.

There’s a lot going on. At one point we are asked to follow three different fights at three locations.

Ving Rames has the choice line when he reminds us that our lives are the sum of our choices.

Is this truly the last Mission: Impossible?

We don’t know where it would go from here, but nothing is Impossible.

AVON

JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE

* * *

(Romantic Comedy)

Agathe (Camille Rutherford) works at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris with her closest friend (Pablo Pauly).

The young lady wishes to be a writer like Jane Austen but suffers from lack of confidence and writer’s block.

Her friend signs her up for the Jane Austen Writer’s Residency in England where she joins a small group of writers and meets a distant relative of Austen’s whom she immediately dislikes.

The familiar theme of dislike turning into love develops, as she struggles with her feelings for her friend back home and her new relationship.

It’s a lovely little love story that plays out nicely in an hour and a half.

Half English and half French with sub-titles.

* * * *

The Avon is bringing back the classic Jane Austen love story about a woman (Keira Knightley) who meets a man she immediately despises, but she eventually falls in love with him.

You can see both movies (separate admission) and have time for a slice of pizza next door at Antonio’s in between.