“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” composers Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey tell IndieWire how they utilized international influences and custom instruments to score one of the most ambitious action movies of all time.
A big movie needs a big score, and there’s no bigger movie than “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” the eighth entry in the action franchise Tom Cruise and Brian De Palma inaugurated almost 30 years ago. The series has become known for its spectacular stunt sequences, and “The Final Reckoning” features two of the best “Mission: Impossible” set pieces ever: a deep dive Cruise’s Ethan Hunt takes through a sunken Russian submarine and a harrowing mid-air pursuit that sees Hunt climbing all over every inch of a speeding biplane as he attempts to stop bad guy Gabriel (Esai Morales).
These sequences have been justly celebrated for their stunts, editing, and camerawork, but their secret weapon – and one of the keys to the film‘s overall impact – is the music by composers Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey. Throughout the film, their score helps acclimate the audience emotionally and geographically, and provides an underlying structure for the set pieces that keeps them from becoming monotonous. Each of the action sequences plays like its own self-contained short film with escalating tension and multiple tonal shifts, all of which the score makes cohesive and more emotionally affecting.