Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie and producer/star Tom Cruise close out their signature franchise revisiting its history to bring an epic conclusion to the world that Cruise built.
If you ask anyone what the first Tom Cruise movie is they can think of, chances are the answer will either be Top Gun or Mission Impossible. And make no mistake, the legacy of Tom Cruise will forever be tied to the IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, a character Cruise has made as synonymous to action/spy thrillers and tentpole franchises as Tom Ryan, Jason Bourne, and James Bond. Over the course of eight films and thirty years working with some of the best directors in the history of film; auteurs like Brian DePalma, John Woo, and J.J. Abrams among others, Cruise has forged a franchise in Mission Impossible that hooked generations of fans on the adventures of the Impossible Mission Force around the world.
Now, with Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning as he reaches the age of 60, Cruise is ready to bid farewell to the role he created in an epic fashion. A sequel to 2023’s Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, MI:8 finds Hunt continuing his chase for Gabriel (Esai Morales) as the sentient AI, The Entity, tries to close out it’s bid for world domination by taking control of all of the world’s nuclear stockpile. While the storyline for The Entity is still unquestionably a bit hokey with shades of Terminator’s Skynet, what other character could possibly be a greater foe for Cruise’s Hunt than an intelligence capable of turning everything he holds dear against him. Even Gabriel has fallen foul of The Entity in this installment, as he manipulates Hunt’s relationship to one of the franchise’s fan favorite characters, Ving Rhames’ Luther, to get Hunt to give him the past installment’s submarine hard drive in his bid to take control of The Entity. With his team of IMF agents, including Benji (Simon Pegg) and Grace (Hayley Atwell), Hunt makes a play to capture the drive from the sunken Sevastopol to try and capture the sentient AI in a hard drive where it believes it has succeeded in destroying the world, a genius invention of Luther’s design. Will Hunt survive and thwart his computerized enemy? Undoubtedly, but the fun of these films is watching what insane stunts will Cruise endure to get you there.
And make no mistake, Mission impossible: The Final Reckoning contains some of the series’ best setpieces. There’s the vintage airplane dogfight straight out of silent films from 100 years ago like Wings are really amazing and show you how Cruise believes in this franchise. But the underwater sequence where Hunt tries to recover the Sevastopol mainframe source code is insanely terrifying and rivals the tension and scares in films like The Abyss. This is some of McQuarrie’s best work as a director and his longtime relationship with Cruise here yields some amazing results in closing out this franchise. That’s not to say the film’s supporting characters don’t carry their weight around. Angela Bassett reprises her role as the head of the CIA – now as the President of the United States – and she carries the background action here of what options does she have here if Hunt fails to get this hard drive and the world stands on the brink. It’s to her credit that the film seems to have real stakes and gravitas. Plus, the revisiting of some of the franchise’s early players, including a surprisingly deep arc for Rolf Saxon, who played Bill Donloe in Mission Impossible back in 1996, and a twist origin story for Shea Whigham’s Briggs character to further tie him into the franchise’s history and redeem a plot point from the original film that riled up many fans of the original TV series. McQuarrie takes his time to find some loose ends from all the films and tie them up neatly in a bow here in this finale, including the legitimately shocking reveal of The Entity’s origin and how that snakes through all the MI film franchise in a way that legitimately works.
Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning is a legitimately good film. One that perhaps spends too much time reminding you of why the franchise is so good through a plethora of front loaded flashbacks at the start of the film, but convinces you through action by the end of the film. See it on the biggest screen you can if you’re a fan of this series. Should you choose to accept the mission.
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Mission Impossible
★★★★ 1/2 ★ of ★★★★★ stars
A great sendoff to one of cinema’s best action franchises.
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OUT OF THEATER VIDEO REACTION
OUT OF THEATER VIDEO REVIEW