If the mission was to end this iconic film series on a high note, then it seems it really was impossible. The Final Reckoning is an overlong, messy and nostalgia-heavy conclusion to Ethan Hunt’s three-decade-long saga. Still, it manages to deliver just enough adrenaline fuelled thrills, while providing fitting closure for the IMF rogues.
Dead Reckoning (Part One - when that was its original title) served as exciting setup for this long-awaited conclusion, so why is the first hour of this movie plagued with drawn out exposition and further setup? Seriously, over a third of its runtime is wasted on characters explaining things to one another that we kind of already know. It absolutely kills the pacing, and by the time the film eventually arrives at its first big set-piece, I was exhausted and half checked out. The other issue, is the over-reliance on the series’ past as a narrative crutch, rather than a true focus on its conclusion. There are so many flashbacks to previous M:I movies that I felt like I was watching a clip show.
Thankfully, after a rough first hour or so, the plot finds its rhythm and things do improve. While I do think there are too many characters stuffed into this final chapter, it was nice seeing some familiar faces again, and they were mostly well incorporated into the story. The Entity’s world ending power feels truly frightening, as it coldly calculates Ethan and co.’s every move. I also enjoyed how there are several different teams and characters working both together and against each other to serve their own agendas. There are some ridiculous gaps in logic that are hard to ignore, especially when the plot gets too convoluted for its own good, but it’s easy to be invested in characters we’ve been following for almost 30 years.
The story takes us on another globe trotting adventure, and the variety of locations help keep the narrative from getting stale, even when the plot becomes stagnant. Naturally, the film has the big budget polish and craftsmanship you’d expect from the franchise. The highlight by far is when Ethan and his team venture to the frigid arctic tundra, and into the depths below the ice. Complete with a heart-racing underwater set piece in a sunken submarine, and a tense sequence in a radio outpost, this is when the movie comes alive and truly feels like Mission: Impossible again.
The Final Reckoning is an ambitious yet critically overstuffed concluding chapter to Ethan Hunt’s saga. For all its messy narrative flaws, the film bookends the Mission: Impossible series in fitting style, paying homage to the past three decades of IMF adventures.
3/5
Review by: Benjamin Garrett