Mission Impossible Final Reckoning Movie Review

Tom Cruise delivers a flawed but still fulfilling finale to the one of the best if the best action film franchises.

Ethan Hunt and the IMF team continue their search for the terrifying AI known as the Entity — which has infiltrated intelligence networks all over the globe — with the world’s governments and a mysterious ghost from Ethan’s past on their trail. Joined by new allies and armed with the means to shut the Entity down for good, Hunt is in a race against time to prevent the world as we know it from changing forever. Christopher McQuarrie direction and writing is not quite at the level of Rogue Nation or Fallout which to me are some of the best action films ever made but when he is clicking, he shows why him, and Tom Cruise are an amazing creative duo that deliver an entertaining film that gives the ensemble great bits to play throughout.

Tom Cruise is great as usual as Ethan Hunt he might be the 2nd greatest action star behind Jackie Chan in doing his own stunts the plane scene for example, he is actually hanging on that plane not only that he is thinking about where is he is in the frame of the camera to make sure he is in the right places to tell the story which is insane to think about. Cruise in my opinion does not get enough credit for how good of an actor he is like when Luther is telling him to leave him behind so he can disable the bomb enough to not destroy the city Cruise does phenomenal work in his reaction shots conveying the love, pain, frustration, and resignation on his face that he knows it’s what is right to do is so good to watch as a viewer. Simon Pegg, Haley Atwell, Pom Klementieff Esai Morales and Ving Rhames are all great in the film that is a staple of all the Mission Impossible movies that the ensemble casts always get moments to shine like during the plane scene it is intercut with the team trying to disable the AI while Benjie is getting would worked on while he is instructing grace on how to disable it at the same time is thrilling and white knuckled to experience.

McQuarrie does a great job directing this film even though the one criticism I have is the over reliance on call backs and exposition to previous films that feel shoehorned for example when the main villain tells Grace about Ethan’s ex-wife it felt unnecessary for me. McQuarrie does a great job with the pacing of the film outside of those call back scenes the film moves at good pace that doesn’t drag which is critical for a movie at 2 hours and 49 minutes. The way he cuts back and forth between Cruise doing his inane stunts and the team on their mission during the underwater sequence is so well done it grips you and never lets you go which is impressive because it could have gone off the rails at any point.

Final thoughts on the film is it does reach the levels of the previous installments of the franchise it is not as clever it suffers from the dialogue being over reliant on exposition but it’s still an entertaining film that I will happily rewatch again on the future when I watch the franchise in the future so I do recommend it I will give it 3.5 out of 5.