[Review] Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (7/10)

 

Title - Mission: Impossible - The Final Recknoning
Production - Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, TC Productions
Starring - Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Shea Wingham, Greg Tarzan Davies, Henry Czerny, Nick Offerman, Angela Bassett, Hannah Waddingham, Janet McTeer, Holt McCallany, Tramell Tillman, Rolf Saxon, Mark Gatiss, Katy O'Brian, Stephen Oyoung, Lucy Tulugarjuk
Writer - Bruce Geller, Erik Jendresen, Christopher McQuarry
Director - Christopher McQuarry
Release - 23 May 2025

This was not good enough a movie as a bookend for the first eight movies. 

For the record, I don't believe Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarry intended for this to be the last Mission movie with Cruise leading it. Once they have another idea for a big story or another crazy, huge stunt; they will come back.

However, that also depends if Cruise's body can still handle the stress. Personally, I would prefer if he would transition to drama and try for an Academy Award again. 

There was a whole lot of exposition in the first act, especially when we got to the introduction of the A.I. It took a whole lot of brain power just to stay alert to take in the explanation and it wasn't fun. It tried to be too big, to do too much as the "last movie" and it just got out of hand. 

But once we got to the submarine, it was both intense and stressful watching Cruise navigate into the sub and then out of it. I haven't felt that stressful in a cinema in a long time. That was actually the best sequence of the movie, and not the hanging-upside-down-on-the-airplane sequence.

Esai Morales' antagonist was all over the place - not physically but his motivation and intention. These Mission movies actually and always come with some lame excuses to pivot Cruise into the next big stunt. It felt like this movie had worse, and Morales' character was guilty of it in a big way.

But what was really brilliant about this was Cruise getting Rolf Saxon back, all the way from the very first movie, and made him part of the team - because he was the butt of the joke back then. To have him walk towards the screen with the rest of the IMF was really satisfying to see.