A new M:I won't save cinema, but it's fun to watch Tom Cruise try

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—THE FINAL Reckoning, the eighth film in the franchise and ostensibly its finale, looks, feels, and sounds like the sort of movie you need to see on the big screen.

- - BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK/ CANNES, FRANCE

Cruise performs stunts in sea and sky in the franchise finale

The powers that be at the Cannes Film Festival clearly thought so too: the picture premiered here on May 14. And even if, some 20 years ago, including a pop-franchise entry might have seemed like a cheap, attention-grabbing stunt, it means something different now. Aside from the fact that Cannes isn’t necessarily above such a stunt, it has always been all about the big-screen experience, which is now so endangered that it needs all the attention it can get. You don’t have to love Cruise to acknowledge that he’s probably the most widely recognizable movie star in the world. Sometimes recognition counts as a kind of love.

Just as his Mission: Impossible character Ethan Hunt gamely takes on the burden, ad nauseam, of saving the world, Cruise genuinely thinks he can save cinema. His optimism is touching, if unrealistic. But