Review of 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning '
8th film in the 'Mission: Impossible' series
Two years after the events of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, IMF agents Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Grace (Hayley Atwell) continue to pursue Gabriel (Esai Morales) who after working for the artificial intelligence known as the “Entity”, is now seeking to control it. They learn that the module containing the Entity's source code is on the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol. As the Entity seizes control over the world's nuclear arsenals in order to eliminate mankind, Ethan realizes that it will need to transfer itself into a secure digital bunker in South Africa to survive the coming apocalypse. Luther (Ving Rhames) has developed a “poison pill” that when used with the module to lure the entity into a self-contained storage device, isolated from the Internet and imprisoned forever. With three days before the end of the world Ethan surrenders to former CI director, now U.S. President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) who agrees to give him the time to attempt to recover the module and save the planet but first they need to find where the submarine has sunk which requires a trip to St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea but the Russians are waiting…
The long awaited finale (?) of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise sees the stakes considerably ramped up with the fate of the world in his team's hands at the culmination of the series. It is good that I watched all of the films before seeing this one as it continually refers back to earlier events in flashbacks and in the somewhat complicated narrative. What they tell you during the film is probably enough for you to figure out what is going on but having these films fresh in the mind made it considerably easier. They attempt to pull in elements from all of them to provide a bunch of revelations to fans that I will not spoil here. It is also good to see a few unexpected faces returning from previous instalments. Of course, there are also a number of surprises and you should know that not everyone on the team will survive this chapter with a shock death early in the film. The story, for a Mission: Impossible film is remarkably straightforward but, again, you really do want to be at least generally familiar with what has come before.
The action, of course, is a lynch pin of the films and here there are a couple of extended action sequences that feature Mr. Cruise that fit that bill: The dive to the sunken submarine Sevastopol and an incredible sequence featuring two bi-planes where Cruise spends more time out than in any plane. There are a couple of obligatory car chases but nothing so amusing or incredible as the one in Rome in the previous film. Interestingly, humour seems to be largely lacking here with the focus more on introspection – characters staring at the camera thinking, presumably, deep thoughts – then long sequences of action.
A good “final” film in the franchise with suitably fantastic set pieces that feels a bit self-indulgent and overly long at just under 3 hours including, interestingly, an introduction from Mr. Cruise himself ahead of the film. Looks great though and it is fun to go out with a bit of a bang.
Rating: “Nearly perfect, but not quite”
Review Date: 2025-06-01
Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Year: 2025
Length: 169 minutes
Genre: Action/Adventure
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9603208/
Other reviewed films in the 'Mission: Impossible' series:
- Mission: Impossible (1996)
- Mission: Impossible II (2000)
- Mission: Impossible III (2006)