Matt at the Movies Review: Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning
Matt Highly Recommends Tom Cruise's latest offering with an 8.5 rating
Editor’s Note: Today’s review is the first in a two-part series about Tom Cruise. Next up: The Tom Cruise Action Movie Hall of Fame
Tom Cruise is nothing if not completely sincere when it comes to his profound love for his craft.
He’ll talk to you about turning off motion smoothing on your TV settings, berate crew members for not taking film sets seriously as he did over COVID-19 protocols, and buy a whole theater popcorn as he chats up AMC workers to get butts in seats. It’s this sincerity that I love about him and why I keep coming back to see whatever project he has next.
Hate his personal life, persona, and pietism all you want — there’s plenty of material to work with — but it’s impossible to deny his unflagging efforts to keep the movie industry relevant and save our screens.
Mission: Impossible 8 — The Final Reckoning?
Today we break down the eighth and potentially final entry to the franchise with Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.
In a Nutshell
We pick up a few months after the events of Dead Reckoning Part I (the seventh installment in the series) with the team scattered around the globe.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has acquired both halves of the “crucifix key,” the only MacGuffin that can get to the A.I. system called the “Entity,” which has infiltrated every government and online presence in the world. As the Entity is moves forward with its plans for an extinction level attack, it has slowly taken over the nuclear arsenals of nine countries.
Hunt’s main foe and ex-IMF (Impossible Mission Force) member Gabriel is determined to obtain the key and control the Entity so he can bend this new world order to his will. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and neither is the amount of exposition linking all of Hunt’s actions from the previous seven films to this critical point.
Did I say this movie had high stakes? Good, since you’ll be hearing about them continuously for the following 170 minute runtime.
Time is Money, Why Should I Go?
If you are nostalgic for Lalo Schifrin’s iconic theme music, or a fan of the previous films, you’ll be locked in from the opening montage until the very end. Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie opens the film with flash cuts and a fun refresher of everything that has transpired since Cruise first became Hunt 29 years ago.
However, the story takes a back seat to the incredible action sequences we get on screen. Cruise is on record — many times — to attest that he performs his own stunts for this series. There were a few sequences, both submerged and in the sky, that were jaw dropping, and well worth the price of admission.
Plus, we get to see the signature Tom Cruise run ramped up to the point where he may have sprinted a half marathon by the end credits.
Star of the Show
This is a Tom Cruise love fest here this week, but I want to highlight stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood for outdoing himself once again. The South African stuntman has seventy-six credits for his work, and this is undoubtedly his finest hour. There are two montage sequences of stunts happening at different locations — intercut with one another — that left me scratching my head. The final scenes happening on multiple biplanes were astounding, and I’m sad that the new Oscar category, “Achievement in Stunt Design,” will not be introduced until 2028, because this would be the easiest win of the year.
Don’t Sleep On
This film has a great injection of “that guy” character actors including Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation), Holt McCallany (Mindhunter), Tramell Tillman (Severance), Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), and Mark Gattis (Sherlock).
We also have several recurring characters back for one more round including: Angela Bassett as the President; Shea Whigham & Greg Tarzan Davis as government agents; as well as an old school callback from the first film: Rolf Saxon, who plays William Donloe.
This film, however, is a great vehicle for three of the core team members of Ethan’s IMF team. Ving Rhames (Luther) serves as the emotional connection from all seven films to keep Ethan grounded on the right path. Simon Pegg (Benji) is given the most in-depth scenes to date, and steps up as a team leader in Hunt’s absence. Lastly, Hayley Atwell (Grace) takes on her largest role as both the key to Hunt’s plan as well as his reason to keep going.
All three are fantastic and serve as great accomplices to round out Cruise in this final film.
Best Ten-Minute Stretch
Can it be a thirty-minute stretch. [Editor: Okay, just this once.]
The team is split as some members head to a remote island in the Bering Sea to find key coordinates in locating a sunk Russian sub where Hunt will dive into an excuse for Tom Cruise to jump into icy water in order to retrieve the core module of the Entity’s source code. Hunt is remotely dropped into the sea and recovered by an American submarine, who will deliver him to his destination.
The on-the-ground team encounters a team of Russians also vying for the coordinates on this remote base, and they try to outmaneuver each other leading to a large-scale shootout. Hunt is then transported with new diving technology to reach the sunken sub, and has to fight the frigid waters, a slowly collapsing submarine, and even the bends to retrieve the core with his crucifix key.
The tension builds and builds as time is running out. I was wide-eyed and completely fixated on the screen as this long scene played out - and I was in awe at the stunt work involved.
Coulda Used More
We’ll flip the script here as well and say could have used less exposition.
This is a long run time, and it’s apparent the two parts of this film were originally intended to just be one story. By dragging it out over two separate movies, McQuarrie had to write himself out of a hole, which for the viewer meant extensive dialogue about launch codes, and weaving more connecting stories to tie everything together. It could be seen as the weak part of the film, but was an understandable choice to bring the story together after all eight movies.
Matt at the Movies Score: Highly Recommend - 8.5
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