Courtesy of IMDB
Theatrical release for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
“I need you to trust me, one last time” pleads Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to a team of skeptical military agents in a key scene. They, like the audience, know what comes with the job. 30 years of death-defying stunts and the shenanigans don’t stop in this one; two sequences involving a submarine navigation and a biplane chase are some of if not the best in the series. They literally took my breath away; I was shaking during them not knowing what the outcome would be. However, the means of getting to these points were a bit faulty.
Picking up where Dead Reckoning left off, Ethan and his Impossible Mission Forces (IMF) team, Grace (Hayley Atwell), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Luther (Ving Rhames), are in shambles. Gabriel (Esai Morales) is still out there and the rogue A.I. the Entity continues to spread misinformation. Ethan and his team are tasked by President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) to find the source code in the Sevastopol, a sunken Russian submarine.
There is a time jump from the previous movie, but I wish we got to see more ways in which normal citizens were being manipulated, especially in an age where artificial intelligence is playing a larger role in our daily lives. This is alluded to with a newsreel and some characters acting like prophets, along with Ethan trying to convince characters on opposite sides to work together, but is not touched upon anywhere else. The story feels convoluted as a result. It tries to touch on these new topics while bringing in even more plot devices. this makes the script feel cluttered, but it could make more sense with re-watches. The end goal was always defined, but the means to get there were not clear.
The stunts continue to thrill, particularly the two main set pieces. There’s not a lot of action in this movie as it takes more of an espionage approach, but the stunts force the audience to pay attention. One misstep and the mission fails. The lack of music and dialogue, coupled with the fact that Tom Cruise performed these with very little CGI, feels like I got my money’s worth by seeing this in the theater rather than at home. The film reportedly had a $400 million budget, and I could see where it went to on screen. If you think the underwater scene and air chase are too similar to the ones in Rogue Nation and Fallout, respectively they’re not. The pacing and the stakes feel a lot higher.
In the original movie’s famous vault heist scene, Ethan and his team had to get William Donloe (Rolf Saxon) out of the room to steal a list containing all the IMF agents’ secret identities. Donloe is brought back and plays a surprisingly big role in the plot. It’s nice to see him and Ethan reflect on their journeys and how fate brought them together. The use of flashbacks to Ethan’s past adventures complements this nicely as all his decisions and encounters have all led up to this supposedly final mission. This makes the franchise feel more whole and allows it to tie together nicely.
The Final Reckoning movie accomplishes an “impossible” task in movies nowadays: keeping us on the edge of our seats. It’s a great send-off for the cast and their characters even potentially leaving off some room open for future installments – what should Tom Cruise’s next mission be? Perhaps shutting down ChatGPT?