Ethan Hunt must save the world from the dangers of an AI algorithm gone rogue in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which opens in Prague and cinemas worldwide this weekend. Despite some caustic reviews from its premiere in Cannes, this Tom Cruise blockbuster rates right alongside its predecessor as a finely tuned, breathless piece of blockbuster filmmaking, and sends the series out on a high note even if it doesn’t quite match the highs of Fallout or Rogue Nation.
That’s despite a rather rote premise that critics have derided as convoluted, but is really quite dry and uninvolving. Cruise’s IMF agent Ethan Hunt is essentially trying to stop a Skynet-like intelligence from launching a nuclear Armageddon, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning spends a great deal of screen time over its first hour trying to explain exactly what the algorithm (here called ‘The Entity’) is and how it functions.
But unlike a human villain, or memorable artificial antagonists like Hal-9000 or even the Johnny Depp supercomputer in Transcendence, The Entity is largely devoid of personality. An early scene where Hunt interfaces with it (for ill-defined reasons) is a low point; no amount of exposition could make this thing interesting. That’s a shame, because that film also has Esai Morales hanging around as Gabriel, a mystery man who is far more intriguing than The Entity.
Designed as a final send-off for the series, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning opens with long-winded explanation of where The Entity came from that results in a clip show montage featuring snippets from many of the earlier films in the franchise. Scenes from the first and third films play out not only to dig into nostalgia, but also serve as convoluted exposition as Hunt’s past adventures tie into the creation of the threat at the heart of this film.
That results in a surprisingly dull first 40 or so minutes of The Final Reckoning, which spends a lot more time trying to explain itself than deliver the kind of exciting action the franchise is known for; lengthy scenes of the ill-fated Prague mission from the first film only remind us of how the movie should have begun.
Typically a rogue agent, Hunt has an unusually large supporting cast helping him out this time around as he attempts to save the world. Series vets Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) are flanked by ace pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell) and former baddie Paris (Pom Klementieff), both returning from the previous movie. Intelligence agent Theo Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) joins the team at gunpoint in an early scene in Final Reckoning, even though his boss Jasper Briggs (Shea Whigham) still wants to bust Hunt—and, why not, Briggs is revealed to be the son of former IMF team leader Jim Phelps, played by Jon Voight in the original film.
But that’s not all! To stop The Entity, which has given the world exactly 72 hours before nuclear annihilation, Hunt will also need the cooperation of the entire US government, including President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), Secretary of Defense Serling Bernstein (Holt McCallany), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Sidney (Nick Offerman), Secretary of State Walters (Janet McTeer), CIA Director Kittredge (Henry Czerny), Director of National Intelligence Richards (Charles Parnell), and NSA head Angstrom (Mark Gatiss).
Credit where credit is due: in the typical movie of this type, memories of poor Clark Gregg in the recent G20, these guys would sit around a command room and feature in reaction shots. But Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has gone all out in the casting department, and the scenes of these guys bickering behind the scenes are a lot more compelling than they could have been.
But this is all just setup to the impossible mission at the heart of the film, which takes more than an hour to establish and is so convoluted that it (almost) defies description. It involves efforts by the team to pinpoint the exact location of a long-sunken submarine while Hunt prepares a solo dive into arctic waters with an assist from an aircraft carrier commander Neely (Hannah Waddingham) and sub captain Bledsoe (Tramell Tillman)—and even William Donloe (Rolf Saxon), the CIA agent whose office Hunt infiltrated in the first film—to retrieve the only key that can stop The Entity.
The 30-minute underwater sequence that unfolds at the heart of the film is truly breathless stuff, and plays out almost entirely without dialogue as Hunt makes his way to the bottom of the ocean and into a corpse-laden submarine. All that long-winded setup pays off wonderfully as Hunt makes his way through the sub, which begins to roll over and fall lower into the depths and missiles shift and block his exit. It’s a truly spectacular sequence of pure cinema that recalls the work of Buster Keaton and represents one of the series’ finest set pieces; kudos to director and co-writer Christopher McQuarrie for pulling it off so efficiently.
Those contrived early scenes may have put you off, but by the time Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning gets to its second big action set piece—a thrilling biplane chase that represents another level of incredible practical filmmaking—the film will have won you over. It’s too bad the first Academy Award for stunt work will be first presented in 2028, as the series could have picked up its first Oscar here.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning may not be as finely tuned in its attempt to tie together the whole series for this all-out sendoff, but it represents a stunning showcase of what the franchise has always done best: jaw-dropping, hands-on action filmmaking at the highest level. McQuarrie stages each sequence with clarity, precision, and tension, never losing sight of the characters amid the chaos.
From the (literally) breathtaking underwater sequence to the pulse-pounding aerial chase—all performed with an astounding degree of practical stunt work—this is blockbuster cinema firing on all cylinders. For all its narrative clutter, The Final Reckoning delivers an exhilarating experience that reaffirms Mission: Impossible as Hollywood’s gold standard for action, and serves as a fitting sendoff for one of cinema’s most consistent franchises.
