Preamble

Well, this is quite a contrast. I was ready to publish this review last night but instead opted to sleep on it and do further edits in the morning. It’s amazing how writing about different mediums can make you go from a chap with writer’s block to an enthusiastic energizer bunny. But personal writing stories aside, have you seen the latest and touted final entry in the Mission Impossible series? Let me know in the comments below.

Review

Up until this point, the Mission movies have been singular in being transportive cinematic experiences that mix spy intrigue and impressive stunt work (courtesy of main star- Tom Cruise). However, The Final Reckoning feels like a bug in the franchise machine. Cruise’s second round with A.I. is a self-important and indulgent experience that chases the worst trends of modern tentpole cinema. 

Picking up six months after the events of Dead Reckoning, the eighth Mission Impossible movie depicts Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) continual search for a means to destroy The Entity whilst dealing with the ever- escalating threat of nuclear annihilation from the A.I. program.

“You were always the best of men in the worst of times”, a grave President Erika Sloan (Angela Bassett) intones early on in The Final Reckoning. By itself, it’s an earnest means to get Hunt onside. However, it’s the start of a problem that plagues this latest instalment, namely a persistent attempt to mythologize its central hero and the events that he has experienced. What was once a solid set piece now turns into a moral quandary of whether or not Ethan has ruined the person who the stunt directly affected. 

This aspect is compounded by a series of flashbacks that play in a clip show reel fashion to remind the audience of nearly every little aspect of Hunt’s career. It makes the movie too self-serious in a manner that takes away from the weight of events and its ensuring consequences. This is a far cry from prior Christopher McQuarrie entries, which were able to be lighthearted, dramatic and even post-modern at times (especially Fallout).

At the same time, this quality also fundamentally breaks the spirit of the series. We were in on the fun of the spectacle, and now we’re reminded that it was burdensome for Hunt. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and up until this point, Hunt climbing a tall building was just precisely that. In this regard, it seems the Mission series has caught the bug of other tentpole movies, whereby nearly everything has to be connected and have meaning. It appears as though being the American tonic to James Bond was not enough. 

Despite this problem that’s compounded by an overly long run time, The Final Reckoning is surprisingly nimble in its editing. Exposition scenes are given a comic momentum due to a rapid cross- cutting of reactions that gets mileage out of its variants on bewilderment. It’s in the intimacy of the camera moves where Final Reckoning soars, whether it’s Film Noir esque close-ups of Gabriel (Esai Morales) or a medium shot that captures Grace’s (Hayley Atwell) horror at seeing Ethan’s violent actions up close. 

There’s also something deeply amusing about one of Cruise’s central set pieces being so anti-action. Instead, it’s a near-real-time sequence where the character swims amid the remains of a Russian submarine. It’s mesmerizing, ominous and everything in between. Finally, in a movie stuffed with portent and weighty exposition, it’s a credit to the screenplay that Sloan’s character arc registers as well as it does. Part of this comes from Angela Bassett’s subtle performance that goes a long way in illustrating the weight of her office and choices.