Tom Cruise is saving the world … again! The latest installment of the Mission Impossible film franchise was released in 2023: Dead Reckoning (Part 1). A yet unnamed Part 2 is scheduled to be released in 2025.
In this latest adventure, the old familiar cast is back together—Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), Luther (Ving Rhames), and Benji (Simon Pegg). In addition to this small crew of confidants, Grace (Hayley Atwell), a topnotch thief with ambiguous loyalties, gets caught up in the deadly back and forth. This time, what threatens the world is a powerful A.I. (called the Entity) that has become self-aware and is quietly infiltrating every world government’s computer system to mine secrets stored deep in digital algorithms.
After a Soviet submarine is destroyed by the Entity, the race is on to acquire a two-part key that can unlock a unit that contains the original source code of the rogue A.I. Of course, bad people want the key for themselves to control the A.I. and use it to their own ends believing that whoever controls the A.I. controls the future and the fate of the world.
What makes movies like Mission Impossible so compelling is the simple worldview that splits reality into the good guys and bad guys. It’s easy to root for a hero like Ethan Hunt who might be a flawed individual but has a sincere desire to keep the world safe from people who are self-interested, greedy, and shortsighted. Christians, however, believe a different story about the world—we’re all complicit in the evil, and responsibility can’t be exported to A.I. systems, authority figures, or criminals. God will save the world, but in a way that subverts the usual Hollywood story. (Streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, and other platforms. Rated PG-13)
About the Author
Sam Gutierrez is the Associate Director at the Eugene Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. More of his creative work can be found at printandpoem.com