By Richmond Adams
Movie Reviewer
In graduate school, our film professor would often mock the notion of repeating plots and scenarios by referencing Mission Impossible VIII. Just beyond a decade later, we are now, as it happens, at our sixth repeated tale of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his merry band of not-quite, but sure seems like superheroes with presumably seventh and eighth to be packaged and produced in short order.
I had not seen the four episodes of Save the World, but two years ago, I decided to take a look at Save the World V and, surprisingly enough, left rather pleased. Hence, my curiosity was piqued with the release of Saved the World VI to see if despite the yet again reproduced plot could hold itself together. Sigh, it did not, and what Hunt and Company did was, in the midst of trying to find super villain John Lark (sort of Henry Cavill, who appeared to leave his Superman cape on Krypton for this film, and also served as a CIA agent sent to watch our heroes to make sure they didn’t save the world too much) to recapture three plutonium cores meant to become (wait for it) nuclear bombs to be used by the (wait for it) the Syndicate to cleanse the world by destroying it.
There were car chases, motorcycle races, squealing brakes, multiple shootings toward heroes, villains, and bystanders (but even experts have a bad day and missed their targets a lot), falling in and out of helicopters which spun madly in mountain ranges and through ravines), and even a tragic stabbing of Hunt’s once adversary now benefactor Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin, who might as well have been an older Jack Ryan from The Hunt for Red October). These sequences, sadly, were better than the endless dialogue spoken with almost wooden repetition by our Hero and various Villains and Sub-Villains (the head Syndicate guy, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) has a wicked grin and is strong as well as smart: how about making Save the World VII about him and leave Hunt–err, Cruise at home?) As they prattle endlessly about this or that gadget, thing, or Hunt’s love interest, who, of course (!!), miraculously happens to be in Kashmir, where the Villain plans to detonate the bombs and contaminate much of the world’s water supply. Whew!!
All’s well, however, as literally at the last second, nothing happens but a white screen for a not tense number of seconds before Hunt reappears, bruised but alive in a warm hospital under the watchful care of his one true love, Dr. Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan), who gallantly understands that the fight to produce Save the World VII has just begun. When it is released, I will have better things to do.
I give it One-half star from Five.