Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning ★★★
THE addition of writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has been the best and worst thing for the Mission Impossible film franchise.
Best, because he helmed Rogue Nation and Fallout, two of the best instalments, and enabled Tom Cruise to deliver some of the greatest stunts ever achieved by an actor.
Worst, because he helmed Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning, two of the weaker instalments, and enabled Tom Cruise’s God complex to take over the franchise to its detriment.
The first film, Mission: Impossible released in 1996, ran for a tight 110 minutes and cost $80 million to make.
Three decades later, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning runs for a bloated 169 minutes and cost $400 million.
The action and stunts have got bigger and better, but the scripts have not improved at the same rate.
Most agree the high point in terms of this balance was the sixth film, 2018’s Fallout, which was also McQuarrie’s second effort.
But 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One was a significant step down, due to the convoluted story that relied on too much on-screen explanation for an enemy that Ethan Hunt couldn’t even see, let alone fight.
Cyber enemy The Entity was a damp squib. They tried to give it a pseudo-human form, in the villain Gabriel, played by Esai Morales, but this didn’t work either.
The film did, as usual, feature some amazing action sequences, including Cruise’s cliff-top motorcycle jump, and featured the welcome addition of Haley Atwell to the cast. Ultimately, it was very entertaining in sections, but ponderously slow in others.
The writing was on the wall six months before the release date for the next film when Part Two was officially dropped from the title, giving the impression that we wouldn’t be getting more of the same..
Wrong.
The first hour or so of The Final Reckoning is the slowest of the entire franchise. Not only do we sit through explanations of what The Entity is and what happened in the first film; we also get explanations of who Etan Hunt is, what the Impossible Mission Force is and parts of what happened in all the previous seven films in service of later efforts to tie everything up into a nice big bow.
Not only is this annoying and distracting, it’s designed to deify the Hunt character and, by association, Mr Cruise.
Rather than enjoying not just another, but what’s advertised as the final, thrilling ride, you are asked to also marvel at the overall achievement in cinema.
Yes, Cruise is one of the last great movie stars, is a pretty good actor and has risked life and limb to entertain us.
But he’s not God. He’s not a surgeon. He’s not a nurse. He’s just an actor.
In fact, some claim he’s also a bit of a nut; so let’s not get way ahead of ourselves here.
All that being said, once we get past all the exposition, at the 80 minute mark we settle in for another entertaining spy caper that culminates in an exhilarating mid-air fight sequences across two bi-planes that has to be seen in its entirety to be believed.
It is arguably the best action stunt sequence of the entire franchise and definitely what saves this film from being possibly the worst of the franchise.
Watched at the cinema.