8.5/10
Honestly, at this point, if Tom Cruise isn’t running or trying to save cinema by hanging from something in midair, then I assume he’s planning to do so. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is the embodiment of a belief in an actor made true, and I am glad to say, Hollywood is saved. Well, maybe not really, but if spectacle films are necessary for cinema to endure, Mission Accomplished.
Following the seventh installment, “Dead Reckoning Part One”, the “Final Reckoning” for Tom Cruise’s Agent Ethan Hunt is to retrieve a source code that can kill an AI that James Cameron’s Terminator warned us about. All you need to know is it’s a hostile threat taking control of the world’s nuclear arsenal with plans on killing all humans while hiding in a bunker computer. In this pursuit of saving the world, Cruise will run, fight, hold his breath while swimming with submarines, run some more, and eventually hang from not one, but multiple planes in midair. To say that Cruise delivers feels like an understatement, even if the film’s story has some issues.
I watched the previous seven films over the past couple of months to prepare, and I’m glad I did. Did the stories dovetail into some meaningful story arc that culminated in this film? No, but it tried. What did feel meaningful, however, was how Final Reckoning treated the characters who have supported the missions up until now. There are definite arcs to characters like Simon Pegg’s Benji, who becomes team leader for the first time, only for events to go haywire, testing his strength and abilities. Ving Rhames as Luther gets a satisfying story as well, coming at just the right moments to matter.
While the characters mostly deliver, the plot does receive several “go here, do this, go here, do that” moments that require a lot of plot delivery via dialogue. However, after watching the franchise leading up to it, I was honestly happy for the suspense. It’s not overly long or trite, but functional in keeping the story going. My new favorite character is the former assassin, Paris, played by Pom Klementieff, who has come over to Ethan’s side so she can kill the film’s other “bad guy,” Gabriel, played by Esai Morales. She only speaks in French and uses very short phrases, making her like the badass that movies depend on to deliver one-liners.
One last note, as a former Navy submariner, I was very pleased with the use of both active and submerged submarines in the film. I can confirm that, like in the movie, Navy Seals operate off the back of submarines via dry deck shelters for operations that require stealth delivery. Seeing Tom Cruise walk out of the back of one such underwater vessel only to be run over by a submarine in hot pursuit of his actions was incredible.
The action is a spectacle, and the cast of characters is memorable, even if the story sometimes feels like a straight line of expectation. That said, these movies keep getting better, and this installment is no different.