Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Paramount Pictures, Review | Tagged: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Review: No Real Reckoning

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is the worst kind of ending to a franchise in that it isn't an ending at all, but still tries to position itself as one.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning features a mission that feels impossible only in the sense that the story makes almost no sense and lacks any sense of finality that isn't surface-level.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Summary: Our lives are the sum of our choices. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

There Is Nothing "Final" About Mission: Impossible – The Reckoning

The Mission: Impossible franchise has evolved throughout the years. When it first came on the scene, the first two and a half movies were very much a "one man against the world" type of situation. Which is fine, but we already have so many different stories featuring that kind of character. Beginning in the third film and really leaning in starting in the fourth, the franchise rose to new heights when it embraced a team dynamic. From there, it seemed like the sky was the limit, until it got a reality check with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. It's not a bad film, but compared to the benchmark set by this franchise, it was lacking.  Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, being more or less a direct sequel, did not instill any hope in its wake. Even Tom Cruise can't build on flawed foundations.

It turns out we were all right to be hesitant concerning this film because The Final Reckoning is a mess and maybe even more so than the last film. While Dead Reckoning featured a ridiculous story, it wasn't selling itself as anything other than the first part of two [because the original title called it that]. However, what The Final Reckoning does that is even worse is being dishonest about what it is. Everything about this movie is screaming, "This is the finale, this is the end," because that is the narrative we have been pushed. In the trailers, Ethan says, "I need you to trust me one more time." All of the marketing has been about this ending, but this isn't an ending in any way that really matters.

The only "wrapping up" this film does is linking the events of the last two films to the events of previous films, but that only works if you know what they are referencing. They do that by constantly flashing back to show you footage from the previous films. It's incredibly clunky in a story that was already barely holding it together. All of these references feel like a last-minute decision, perhaps one that was added during the reported rewrites. While the IMF is likely pretty insular, and that could explain why everything is so connected, it still makes this world feel smaller instead of larger. Star Wars has a similar problem with the galaxy being so massive, yet somehow everyone is related to the same three families.

The reported rewrites could also explain why this was initially billed as the "final" film, but by the time it was actually released, that was not the case. A lot happened during the production of this film, and maybe some minds were changed. However, if that thinking did change, they should have shifted the marketing or changed the film enough that it stopped touting itself as a "final reckoning." It renders so much of what is already a pretty empty film even emptier. It almost feels like Paramount is aware of how empty and nonsensical The Final Reckoning is because they haven't talked about the plot at all in the lead-up to the film. Instead, it's been all about the stunts, and nothing else.

One Cannot Survive On Death-Defying Stuntwork Alone

And those stunts are pretty awesome. There is no denying that watching Cruise hang off the side of a plane like that isn't intense, mostly because we know the man is out of his mind and that's not a stunt double. We also know he was actually underwater during the submarine scenes, which adds a level of claustrophobia to the entire thing. These two big set pieces are pretty great, but they don't feel like enough. Because this story is so complicated, they have to spend so much time explaining things that it feels like we're one big set piece short.

Character-wise, this is also the weakest film for the people we have invested in from the beginning. After shoving Ilsa Faust into the refrigerator in Dead Reckoning, we pick up two months or so later. The Grace (Hayley Atwell) of it all is still hanging over this production. Her role in the film feels so strange as she appears to be shoved into Ilsa's place as a Ethan's Replacement Badass Brunette. While they do have some moments where her skills are the only things that can save the world, her character is still hurt by the way she was introduced, which is a shame because the character isn't bad. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames remain franchise MVPs. Besides Cruise, they are the only people you really care about during the big, final showdown. There are other people running around, including a reformed Paris played by Pom Klementieff, but so many of these characters either haven't been around long enough to be invested in, or they are showing up again after a very long hiatus.

Some of this mess might be excusable if The Final Reckoning didn't overstay its welcome, but despite feeling like it is missing one big action scene, the film clocks in at nearly three hours, and you feel every minute of it. The first act, in particular, is probably the worst part of the entire film, as it kicks off with a highlight reel that shows off the events of the previous seven films. The highlight reel is needed because unless you've rewatched all of these films recently, some references might be lost to you.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is the worst kind of ending to a franchise in that it isn't an ending at all, but still tries to position itself as one. Is there anything here that is offensively bad? Not really, it's all well crafted, and director Christopher McQuarrie knows his way around an action scene. McQuarrie and Cruise have made incredible films together, but these last two, which seem like they were supposed to be the magnum opus, have somehow ended up as two of the weaker entries in the entire franchise.

Hollywood seems convinced that people want endings, and maybe people do, but they also so rarely stick the landing of an ending that they end up souring everything before it. Fortunately, these last two Mission: Impossible movies have only soured themselves since the rest of the franchise are largely standalone films. When you set the bar extremely high, like this franchise did, it becomes even more obvious when you fail to meet those high expectations. Does it mean we're judging Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning unfairly by comparing them to the quality of their predecessors? The film seems pretty committed to the idea that this is all connected, so we are too, and this franchise has done so much better.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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6/10

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning features a mission that feels impossible only in the sense that the story makes almost no sense and lacks any sense of finality that isn't surface-level.

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