Tom Cruise has been the face of the Mission: Impossible franchise since 1996. Since then, he’s given us a series that is endlessly watchable with a lot of admiration due to how much Cruise is willing to push himself to achieve arguably some of the most elaborate action and stunts ever put on film.
Cruise knows how to throw himself into this character and his franchise with a certain panache, and that panache is on display once more in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which serves as a worthy and mostly satisfying conclusion.
The plot for The Final Reckoning is heavy and some audiences might be disappointed that this entry doesn’t have wall-to-wall action, but it builds to some spectacular moments.
As the movie opens, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his IMF team (Simon Pegg’s “Benji,” Hayley Atwell’s “Grace,” and Pom Klementieff’s “Paris”) are on a globe-trotting search for Gabriel (Esai Morales) who is working for the AI program known as the Entity. They found out Gabriel uses a device that shows Ethan that if the Entity is not stopped, it has plans for nuclear Armageddon.
Ethan is captured by the authorities and presented to the President (Angela Bassett). Due to his methods, he is seen as a liability, but the President agrees to allow him to find the Entity and stop it before it gains control over the world’s nuclear codes. This movie has many detailed explanations, to the point that it should’ve been called Mission: Exposition. Not to mention, there are also a few sequences, including its opening, that give us a rapid-fire montage and callbacks to the previous films. It falls somewhere between fan service and a greatest hits compilation.
Yes, there is plenty of story to keep it afloat, but The Final Reckoning also contains the most emotional heft, as in one scene where Ethan and his long-time friend Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) get to exchange their usual dialogue during a crucial moment.
At 62, Cruise continues to prove he has virtually no equal when delivering a massive spectacle. The best sequence in the movie involves, for me, not the thrilling climax where Ethan hangs outside of a biplane as it does loops and goes upside down multiple times, but rather a prolonged sequence where he’s submerged underwater at a submarine wreckage site looking for a component of the Entity.
This sequence dazzles because it has absolutely no dialogue. It builds to a tense, exhausting fashion, raising the stakes going into its climax. You may find yourself holding your breath just as Cruise does. Once the details of the plot are out of the way, the movie settles in for these sensational sequences that are a delight to look at, especially in IMAX.
The Final Reckoning shows Cruise and director/co-writer/co-producer Christopher McQuarrie deliver a movie that might not live up to the near-perfect heights of previous installments such as Rogue Nation or Fallout, but they assemble a top-notch production that gives these characters a full-throttle, high-octane sendoff.
Does Cruise have another mission in him? I don’t know, but it’s an honorable way to go out if he doesn’t. Mission mostly accomplished.
Grade: A-
(Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence and action, bloody images, and brief language.)
