MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING Review: All About Tom

Introduction

Every now and then, I’ll watch a movie where my immediate reaction is “I thought it was pretty good,” then my wife will explain why I’m wrong. This happened with The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and, more recently, with Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). And, I’m not just saying this for the sake of marriage – she was right. While she did not accompany me to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, I could hear her voice in my head as I was relaying my immediate reaction that I thought it was pretty good.

The good news is that Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is much closer in quality to the mildly disappointing The Dark Knight Rises than the comical and stupid Thor: Love and Thunder. Like The Dark Knight Rises, The Final Reckoning has a messy plot and too many characters with little given little to do. However, the film features solid acting and really good action scenes. Unlike Thor: Love and Thunder, it doesn’t bare its ass to the audience, both figuratively and literally.

To be completely honest, I had kind of forgotten a lot of what happened in the previous Mission: Impossible film, Dead Reckoning: Part One. I even forgot that it had ‘Part One’ in the title. I needn’t have worried, though.

Catching Up

The Final Reckoning begins by blasting the audience with a seizure-inducing collage of split-second flashbacks from the previous movie, and from all the other movies in the franchise. They try to disguise it as a monologue from the Entity (the evil AI that wants to take over the planet), but it’s just a way to cram some nostalgia down our throats for one reason: to bask in the gift to humanity that is Tom Cruise. I wish I were exaggerating, but the film eventually reveals that the world revolves around Ethan Hunt (Cruise). And how could it not? He’s Ethan Tom “The Clear, Maverick” Cruise Hunt.

Director/writer Christopher McQuarrie’s past eight projects, and ten of his previous twelve, feature Cruise, a man whose ego is so big that Cruise literally (and incorrectly) thought he could be a convincing Jack Reacher. Yes, Hunt has always been the protagonist of the Mission: Impossible films, but The Final Reckoning lifts him to almost deity-level status.

On top of the constant flashbacks of previous installments throughout this film, they eventually just outright say the world is about to be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust by a rogue AI because Ethan Hunt plays by his own rules. And Ethan is the only person on the entire planet saintly enough to want to destroy the Entity. Can I get an amen, brothers and sisters?

Synopsis

This being the second half of Dead Reckoning (they changed the title away from Part 2 because reasons), the story resumes with Hunt rendezvousing with Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) to devise a plan to destroy the Entity. Luther has invented a malicious device to interface with the Entity’s source code, which is stored on a server on a sunken Russian submarine.

The team must find the submarine, use the special key from the first film to unlock the server and retrieve the drive with the source code, and plug Luther’s device into it. And they must do this before the Entity, which has infiltrated all of Earth’s networks, takes control of all of Earth’s nuclear arsenals and destroys humanity in seventy-two hours.

This being a Mission: Impossible film, it’s far more complicated than just that. Oh, were you expecting me to elaborate? Even I’m not that masochistic. Just know that the plot is kind of a mess, including some very unnecessary (and illogical) retconning of the Rabbit’s Foot device from Mission: Impossible III (2006).

The plot isn’t nearly as smooth and tidy as in Part One, and you’ll find yourself wondering on more than one occasion if you missed something. For example, why is Luther dying all of a sudden? Or, what happened to the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) and why isn’t she in this film at all? Or, why is Gabriel (Esai Morales) now acting like a raving lunatic instead of the cold and calculating villain from before?

Discussion

Lucky for you, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning will distract you with some very good action scenes and a very, very good call back to the first film. As with the whole franchise, the action scenes are really the main reason we’re in the theater. We’re there to see what stunts Cruise is going to attempt this time.

Have you seen The Hunt for Red October? The Abyss? Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Top Gun? I guarantee Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie have. And if you have too, you’ll immediately recognize the scenes inspired by those films (one scene is outright copied). Also, yes, Cruise is doing as many of his own stunts as possible, including the biplane scene in the climax.

And the scenes are so well-crafted that, even though I believed things would work out, I still found myself also believing that maybe they wouldn’t. If there is one complaint about any of these scenes, it’s the Abyss-inspired scene that had me thinking “yeah…more like Mission: Get-the-fuck-outta-here-with-that-nonsense-even-in-this-movie.” Like I said, deity-like status.

Conclusion

I still enjoyed that nonsensical scene, just like I’ve enjoyed every film in the franchise except the second one. Just like I enjoyed the performances from Cruise, Pegg, and Rhames, as well as Hayley Atwell (as Grace) and Pom Klementieff (as Paris). They all seem to genuinely enjoy their characters and the franchise, even when their characters are given very little to do (Benji and Paris, most notably).

I even enjoyed the scene-chewing from Angela Bassett, Nick Offerman, Holt McCallany, and Janet McTeer every time the film cut to the President (Bassett) and her advisors (the other three). The film delivered what I wanted and expected, but my wife’s voice is correct – it’s not as good as I initially thought. But don’t tell that to Ethan Tom “Show Me The Money!!” Cruise Hunt.

Rating: Ask for a dollar back for too much nostalgia.

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