“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is the best version I’ve ever seen of a bad idea. Since the advent of long-running film franchises with narrative continuities that are loosey-goosey at best, studios have attempted to create sweeping, lore-heavy finales that culminate a decades-long story in rousing fashion. I’m thinking of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “Jurassic World: Dominion,” even Bond got in on the game with “Spectre.” What these films all have in common with “The Final Reckoning” is a slavish devotion to forgotten minutia from previous films and a plodding structure that prefers manufactured nostalgia over trusting the movie to be its own movie instead of a belabored encore. What those films do not share with Tom Cruise’s final film in his longest-running franchise is that “The Final Reckoning” somehow, by the skin of its teeth, overcomes its titanic flaws and still winds up being a good time at the movies.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), a deep cover operative for the IMF (Impossible Mission Force), has been saving the world from the brink of destruction since the mid-90s. Over the years, he has averted bio-chemical warfare and nuclear annihilation through high-wire antics and daring schemes that always place him at the center of some near-death scenario, such as climbing the Burj Khalifa without a rope or hanging onto the side of a cargo plane as it takes off. Standard fare for your run-of-the-mill action hero. But Ethan Hunt is as common a hero as Tom Cruise is a movie star. So when you see Hunt Halo jump out of a plane, that’s Cruise actually doing it in real time. When you see Hunt ride a motorcycle off a mountain cliff, you can be sure it’s Cruise putting his life on the line in his near fanatical devotion to the purity of cinema. The Mission: Impossible films are at their best when they are structured around these sequences, introducing stakes and conflict around forcing Hunt/Cruise to solve insurmountable problems through tenacity, fearlessness, and pure dumb luck. They are at their worst when, as is often the case in “ The Final Reckoning”, they think we come to these movies for the plot.
The first true sequel in the series, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” requires you to remember a few key story points from the previous film, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning,” to get up to speed. In short, the world has been essentially taken over by a rogue AI known as “The Entity” that is in the process of overwhelming the nuclear arsenals of the world to enact a global apocalypse. The only hope the world has to undo this damage is to discover The Entity’s source code, which just so happens to be buried deep beneath the Bering Sea in a drowned Russian submarine. And the only person in the world with a key inside is Ethan Hunt. There is a lot more subterfuge, names, and characters from previous films and whatnot to parse through, but you get the gist. If you don’t, worry not, because the first fifteen minutes of the film are essentially a clip show highlighting the pertinent plot points of the last thirty years of Mission: Impossible movies. There is a solemnity that sets its teeth in the opening moments of the film and holds on for a while, a tone that feels incongruous to a series built on globe-trotting fun. Sure, Ethan Hunt is facing his greatest challenge yet, with the world primed for decimation and all, but this conundrum is not dissimilar to previous entries. Yet, because this is “The Final Reckoning”, everything needs to be borderline morose and sober, without a hint of wink or whimsy. Worse yet, plot points from previous films need resurfacing for some reason for forced emotional stakes and resolutions. Ever wonder what “The Rabbit’s Foot” actually was from “Mission: Impossible 3”? Ever question whether or not Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) from OG “Mission: Impossible” ever had a family that might be salty at Hunt for killing him? Me neither. But “The Final Reckoning” thinks you’re desperate to know and that’s a massive problem for a series for which lore was never the point. In most films of this type, a cadaverous self-seriousness and a forced march through nostalgia is an insurmountable death knell. But, not unlike one of Hunt’s last-second brushes with disaster, “The Final Reckoning” manages to pull itself out of a tailspin and fly off into the sunset with a final hour that features two of the finest sequences in the series’ illustrious history.
The submarine and bi-plane sequences, both teased in every trailer or advertisement for the film, are sublime. The first, Hunt’s near suicidal descent into the bowels of a flooded Russian nuclear submarine, is twenty minutes or so of wordless tension. Cruise navigates a funhouse nightmare of frigid water and toppling warheads as the long-buried sub nearly crumbles over the edge of an undersea canyon, taking its world-saving secrets with it. I was rapt in my seat, punching the air with each compounding near-catastrophe, and aghast at the deftly beautiful filmmaking at work. Cruise & Co. filmed large sections of this sequence underwater, using hand signals to coordinate blocking and direction. The palpability of a real man being under that much water in a spinning submarine is rich, bold storytelling. Still, if this sequence wasn’t enough to place the bad aftertaste of the film’s languishing first hour well in my rearview, the bi-plane sequence surely finished the job.
The final set piece of the film, and potentially of the series itself, has to be seen to be believed. Having Cruise fly a plane is nothing new. Seeing him hang onto the side of a bi-plane as it dips and dives through the skies over South Africa, on the other hand, is demented and thrilling. Cruise does the seemingly impossible, acting out the tension of the film’s climax while spinning and clamoring from the wing to the cockpit and back again of two different planes hurtling through the clouds. But while the stunt itself is eons beyond impressive, it’s the carefully crafted storytelling beats that set this and the submarine sequence on the Mt. Rushmore of the series, despite their unfortunate placement in one of the franchise’s weaker installments. There’s nothing more cinematic than watching Ethan Hunt outthink, and oftentimes out-dare, his way through a death trap of his own creation. The problem-solving on display by the character is as impressive as the behind-the-scenes work to create the sequence itself. It’s that marriage of slavish devotion to the reality of the artifice that has kept audiences cheering in theaters for three decades now. Mine certainly was.
“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” has some of the lowest lows but also some of the highest highs of the entire series. Yet despite the first hour’s insistence that we need intricate reasons to see Ethan Hunt do something ridiculous, the payoff for the film and series is a grand send-off to one of the most fun and improbable film franchises in recent memory. Tom Cruise is a lunatic, and it will always be a pleasure to see him carry out his self-appointed mission to risk life and limb for the world’s enjoyment. YOUR mission, should you choose to accept it, is to see this one on the big screen.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is showing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
