Asheville – In Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, the world’s fate comes down to (in tennis terms) a brutal hand-to-hand “tiebreaker” between Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) and villain Esai Morales (Gabriel).
Morales unleashed crisp shots and wide grins in the recent Stars Servin’ Up Love tennis event in Asheville, benefitting local non-profits for Helene relief. Retired stars Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick also played, alongside current stars Emma Navarro and Jessica Pegula.
Morales, 62, is a handsome, light-bearded Puerto Rican-American from Brooklyn. This accomplished actor portrayed the detective squad head in NYPD Blue from 2000 to 2004. He played the demonic Gabriel in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One in 2023 and in the sequel Final Reckoning.
Cunning Gabriel
Morales’ easy-going nature departed from his on-screen persona as Gabriel. Gabriel is the angel of death for the rogue, malevolent artificial intelligence “Entity.” Gabriel connives. He inflicts guilt on Ethan. Gabriel growls. He is cold-hearted, often stone-faced.
Gabriel taunts. He grins, staring foes in the eyes while telling of their supposedly sealed fate. He yells “Catch me if you can!,” laughing as he drives out of a cave before a bomb is set to destroy it.
Gabriel lethally traps an IMF (Impossible Missions Force) agent and is usually a step ahead of his rivals. He ranks among the finest villains in modern action film history.
In the sequel, Gabriel is an independent menace after the Entity exiles him for failing to protect its existence. He nearly succeeded in part one when he secured both halves of a pivotal cross-shaped key, but Ethan ultimately takes it from him during their fight atop a speeding train.
Gabriel now seeks to control the Entity’s immense power and, in turn, governments across the world. Superpowers Russia and the United States also desire exclusive control over the Entity.
Poison Pill, Podkova
To achieve this omnipotence, one needs both the “poison pill” algorithmic device designed by IMF tech agent Luther Stickell and the Entity’s original source code module known as “Podkova.” The Entity developed from code in the “Rabbit’s Foot,” which was secured in an earlier MI film. Gabriel stole the pill from a bedridden Luther (Ving Rhames).
Plugging the pill into Podkova infects the code, destroying the powerful Entity. Rogue agent Ethan aims to stop the Entity rather than turn it over to CIA Director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), whom he believes will abuse its powers.
The plot’s most chilling phase involves a race between IMF agent Ethan and the Russian Navy to locate and reach a sunken Russian submarine that contains the Entity’s source code module. Ethan possesses the key to unlock it, but the submarine lies deep in cold Arctic waters. He defies the odds of surviving depth-induced convulsions.
Evil Entity
Ethan takes unexpected actions to outsmart the Entity, which calculates likely behavioral outcomes. The stakes are high in this captivating plot. The Entity deceives and hacks into nuclear doomsday systems of eight superpowers, aided by its brainwashed followers’ sabotage. It is closing in on controlling U.S. nuclear weapons as well, planning a global nuclear holocaust that would leave only its followers alive.
Facing armaggaedon, U.S. President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) weighs bizarre and devastating options.
To survive nuclear threats, the Entity seeks access to an underground data storage facility in South Africa that protects against electromagnetic energy.
Spoiler Alert: Luther created a five-dimensional flash drive capable of capturing the Entity within that fallout shelter where IMF agents wait. Swift-fingered pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell) has a millisecond to capture the Entity in the drive.
Grace will have that chance if Ethan can snatch the poison pill from Gabriel during their high-altitude fight and plug it into the source code in time. Can he? Can she?
Meanwhile, tech-savvy Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), who is injured, instructs Paris (Pom Klementieff) on how to save him from a collapsed lung while Grace cuts wires on Gabriel’s bomb in the shelter.
The IMF crew includes charming Grace with her alluring eyes and mischievous grins, and her polar opposite in cold-hearted Paris. Gabriel scorned slender, butt-kicking French assassin Paris. CIA agent Theo Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) and exiled CIA analyst William Donloe (Rolf Saxon) also assist Ethan.
A bonus for Asheville-area residents enjoying the latest Mission Impossible film is seeing an actor (Morales) who contributed to the local noble storm relief cause.