Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise's most enduring role, was rarely much more than a name. That's the point of him; as the Mission: Impossible franchise's secret agent extraordinaire, Hunt can pretend to be anyone, accomplish basically any physical task, and uncover conspiracies with aplomb. He's a cross between James Bond and a vaudeville performer. But personality was not part of that package, and a backstory was entirely superfluous. After the third Mission film tried to give Hunt a wife and burgeoning family, the subsequent sequel rejected that subplot, instead asserting that for him, experiencing a normal life was impossible. So it was to my possibly foolish surprise to learn that Mission: Impossible'The Final Reckoning, the saga's latest (and rumored to be last) film, is a nearly three-hour salute to Hunt. It's a remarkable, lore-filled pivot from what we'd been made to believe about our hero for the past two decades. Over time, he's gone from cipher to human being, from an excellent...
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