Mission: Impossible – Fallout & # 39; and the redemption of Henry Cavill



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Warning: The following contains spoilers for Mission: Impossible – Fallout . Read at your own risk.

In Mission: Impossible – Fallout Henry Cavill plays the CIA agent, August Walker. He is paired with Ethan Hunt, an IMF star (Tom Cruise) on a parachuting mission. The cruise seems smaller next to Cavill, but everyone does it too. Director Christopher McQuarrie cleverly films Cavill's waist as a common joke, his big, impassive mustache resembling that of a little man.

Visual treatment of Cavill reveals a deeper fault. Walker represents the brute force and brutality of the force. He always kills the bad guys, and will kill the good guys. It's a philosophical distinction from Hunt and his close relatives of the IMF, a team of adventurous heroes. They prefer spying to the old, character work in deep cover. Walker looms, towers, carcasses. You can not imagine pretending to be someone else than himself.

Hunt notices a storm under his plane: skydive canceled. But Walker jumps anyway, and is immediately struck by lightning. Cruise worked overtime, playing 10 airborne melodrama points, pointing to Cavillward, defying the oxygen tanks, avoiding last-minute parachutes. The cave is unconscious, splendidly soft, limbs hanging without weight over its free-falling volume. If you've followed Cavill's career closely, it's hard to miss the point. In Fallout Superman does not steal; he falls

Cavill climbed to the prominence of blockbuster in Man of Steel and played Krypton's last son in two films since. All the bad movies, in my opinion. Staticeque Biceppery is the main note that hits Cavill. His muscles make Brad Pitt in Troy look like Roger Moore in a turtleneck. It's less a performance than an effort (although that's how DiCaprio won his Oscar).

Not very lucky for the emotional range, that's what I mean. My favorite Cavill performance this decade came between Supermans, in 2015 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Undoubtedly the best film that Guy Ritchie ever made, U.N.C.L.E. Cavill stars as Cold War spy Napoleon Solo, also opposite Armie Hammer (plus Alicia Vikander before winning her Oscar and Elizabeth Debicki before essentially playing an Oscar.)

Ritchie was the first Filmmaker to understand that Cavill, post Superman's bending was so huge that filming it by doing normal human things would always be a little funny. See Cavill, wearing an apron. Or Cavill, eating a sandwich. It is the opposite of his performance Man of Steel forever imperturbable. It seems to float. His American accent is modern in the middle of the century, what Cary Grant would look like if Cary Grant was a bass drum.

Grant Morrison, one of the great Superman writers of our time, once described his vision of the Man of Steel. "A man who was invulnerable to all evil would always be relaxed and comfortable," Morrison wrote. "It would not need the kind of physically aggressive postures that superheroes have specialized." This perfectly describes Cavill in U.N.C.L.E. and not-at-all describes Cavill in Superman's films; It is fair to say that Zack Snyder appreciates physically aggressive positions.

And I am convinced that McQuarrie threw Cavill in Fallout because of U.N.C.L.E. Like Solo, Walker is extraordinarily calm. (Lightning storm? No problem!) Like Solo, Walker is rather heartless, not a man who seems to be feeling a lot. And in both films, Cavill has a fight scene in a bathroom. (One more and it's a trend!) Cavill was, famously, filming Fallout around the same time that the Justice League was repositioning itself. There are times in Fallout where I started to wonder if McQuarrie (who also wrote the film) was up to a nifty cascading cast. Walker has a secret identity, as does Clark Kent. The Final Act of Fallout illuminates the revelation that the CIA agent is secretly John Lark, writer of a death cult manifesto proclaiming: "There can be no to have peace without suffering. "

Lark's great idea is to reverse the Old World order, to kill a third of the world's population, so peace will reign supreme. This plan is strangely identical to the great idea that Thanos had in Avengers: Infinity War . (Control of the population, so hot right now!) And it seems noticeable to throw Cavill into the game. His Superman films became talking points from their mass destruction, entire cities were leveled in his serene wake to red capes. His trip there derives a lot from the messianic imagery. Are you wondering if you missed the Gospel where Jesus hits people, but perhaps "the perversion of a peaceful philosophy in the cause of great suffering" is an important part of the epilogue Messiah.

In Fallout is a big problem. Lark's changing philosophy is that of a mass murderer, killing women and children with smallpox. The film praises ingenuity, team work, the possibility that everyone can be saved. Walker is a loner who will kill anyone. He thinks it makes him hard. In the estimation of Fallout it just lacks imagination. "Why did you do it all if complicated ?!?! " he yells, a villain confused by this conspiracy in which he finds himself.

It's a wonderful performance of Cavill, secretly complex. He plays a relaxed evil, a flawless evil, a business evil. Its physicality sells the action pieces, you wonder why anyone could hide it behind the digital superpowers. His smile is so punchy, but there's a sharp humor that you can not ignore. Yes you think, it's probably what it would look like if a horrific egocentric narcissist had nuclear bombs .

Is this Cavill ahead? to the naughty tongue-in-cheek? May be. Wondering if there is an impending restart of James Bond that could [] Mission: Impossible for cascading casting. Imagine Cavill as the very vision of 007hood, big, chiseled, tuxedos, monstrously indifferent – and he's the bad guy vis-à-vis anything-but-a-white-guy plays James or Jane

the next step is a do-over of the first step. Justice League was two bad movies mixed together, and internet corners exist to highlight the certain blurred quality of the ruthless lip of Superman. And yet, some scenes are the best of Cavill. He looks happy to be alive, delighted to be around other superheroes, gently anxious to inspire goodwill among the kids. The weight of the world may still be on his shoulders, but that is what superiority is all about

Is there still a future for Henry Cavill's Superman? Fallout suggests a wonderful possibility. We know that he can play a villain now. Imagine Cavill's Superman looking at his own hilarious duplicate: Bizarro has restarted, with a mustache.

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