“Our lives are the sum of our choices. And we cannot escape the past.”
After thirty years of watching Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) accept his missions and running towards the next threat, his final reckoning is finally here. Or we can hope it’s his final mission.
As a diehard Mission: Impossible fan, the franchise has consistently exceeded its predecessor to make this one of the best action franchises in history.
Audiences have grown fond of Cruise’s death-defying stunts and have enjoyed the thrilling narratives Christopher McQuarrie has conjured since Rogue Nation. Cruise and McQuarrie have reflected the international sociopolitical climate in each of their films, which made them grander in resonance and scope.
No matter the mission, Hunt has always had an intimate connection with the leaders of these world-ending ideologies, like the Syndicate and The Entity. Hunt has reflected on his past because of his mission time and time again.
Ethan Hunt has lived in the gray area and has worked towards the greater good as he seems fit. What is the best way to save the world, his team and himself? These questions rotate in his head as he tries to assemble puzzle pieces in action sequences to keep everyone safe.
The use of AI in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning was, in my humble opinion, fantastic. This is new technology working against Ethan Hunt, and not one that he can adapt to. Hunt and his team were manipulated, and it was hard to trust what they’d been working with for years.
After watching Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, it seems that incorporating an AI plot into the narrative ultimately harms the outcome. While Dead Reckoning sets up the AI and The Entity extremely well, it appeared difficult to tie up all the loose ends while making a final send-off to one of the best action characters in film history.
Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, Pom Klementieff plays Paris, Greg Tarzan Davis plays Degas, Simon Pegg plays Benji Dunn and Hayley Atwell plays Grace in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.The first half of The Final Reckoning does not feel like a Mission: Impossible movie. And that is the root of the problem for this “final” instalment. The film begins two months after Dead Reckoning, and The Entity has caused more destruction within that time frame. Luther (Ving Rhames) is held in a facility with an illness, Benji (Simon Pegg) is with Ethan, and Grace (Hayley Atwell) conveniently appears with the skillset of an IMF agent.
The first half is a highlight reel of what has been done in previous Mission: Impossible films. While that montage may be nostalgic for some, it became grossly repetitive to the point of inserting key players from those films into The Final Reckoning. It can be perceived that McQuarrie wanted to reference De Palma’s work (Mission: Impossible) alongside Abrams’s (Mission: Impossible III), with cheesy, melodramatic writing, but it didn’t work for what McQuarrie has built after Rogue Nation.
McQuarrie attempted to encapsulate everything the franchise has been famous for in The Final Reckoning. His focus was to thread from previous films to make this the ultimate finale. For the first time, McQuarrie’s direction lacked structure, and his writing lacked the cleverness of his other films.
The Final Reckoning became convoluted with “The Entity” being tied to Ethan Hunt’s destiny. There’s a callback to the third film, and Ethan’s choice to obtain the rabbit’s foot is integrated with “The Entity” being created.
These threads, which were being pulled to tie his choices together, became nonsense and laughable. The only time audiences laugh during a Mission: Impossible film is at the banter among the team or nervously laughing at one of Hunt’s stunts; it has never been because the story made zero sense.
There was little to no action in the first half, and the playfulness of the team banter was stripped away when they went their separate ways for an hour of the film. Benji and Ethan were separated for the majority of it, so the stakes of saving an all-new team with one veteran on it were lacklustre.
Unfortunately, this was the weakest entry in the McQuarrie era because it all felt detached. Their biggest mistake was killing off Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) in Dead Reckoning and not The Final Reckoning. The intimacy between the team was missing, and therefore, the film felt hollow. The heart of the team had always been Luther, and even his character was mishandled in this.
It was mind-boggling that two massive action set-pieces weren’t as intense as anticipated. For some reason, the stakes weren’t effective. There was no tension with Hunt in the submarine, even though it looked cool, or on the biplane. It didn’t feel like an impossible mission for Hunt, but more so on a global scale. It’s hard to explain because the intent of making this personal to him is there, but it didn’t feel that way emotionally.
The two action set-pieces also went on for far too long. One was intercut with a diffusing bomb sequence, so the length is justified. But the submarine sequence lacked tension or urgency. The pacing was a big issue in this final instalment. Everything dragged because of the exposition being so repetitive, and frankly, hard to follow.
Sadly, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning did not exceed my expectations like Dead Reckoning. This final instalment felt empty and misguided. For the first time, a Mission: Impossible film left me fatigued. Whether this was a good send-off or not, it is time to say goodbye to the team of action junkies who gave us some pretty iconic action sequences that will never be topped.
3/5
Review by: Amanda Guarragi
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