Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

I think it would be an impossible mission to review this thing without spoilers so you have been warned. 

Fans of the Mission Impossible franchise will recognize a lot of proceedings in the final installment. Is there a scene where the team discusses a crazy mission that only Ethan Hunt can perform? Where every member of the team explains how what Ethan is planning is beyond the capability of a human being? That he’s going to get himself killed. 

There’s like four of them and they all made me chortle. 

Is there a scene where Ethan says he’s going to do exactly what the villian wants him to do, the thing that will threaten everyone on earth, but somehow the team will still win? Indeed. 

Are there stunts that might make little sense in relation to the plot and are seemingly designed to put Tom Cruise in as much peril as possible? Oh my yes. 

Is it great? That probably depends on you. I loved it as a reward for mission impossible fans like me. As a movie it’s got some flaws. But if you are going to the final Mission Impossible movie hoping for something that stands alone you have headed to the wrong place. 

Now in the spirit of this movie let’s do a flashback. 

We’ll start with an encounter I had somewhere in the mid 2000s with an older co-worker when I was excitedly yapping about whichever Mission Impossible film was about to come out. 

“Jim Phelps is not the bad guy in Mission Impossible,” he barked. 

He was still angry a decade or two later over what Tom Cruise had done to the franchise. If you don’t know, in the show Phelps was the team leader and the hero of the whole enterprise. 

But when Cruise took over the thing and took it to the movies he and writers decided that not only would Hunt be the star but that Phelps would be a traitor to his country and the big bad of the movie. Imagine if when they got to the films Sulu because captain of the Enterprise after Kirk betrayed the federation to the Klingons. 

Impossible you might say. 

Not only that, but the IMF team that dies in the first movie was supposed to be the original cast members and I think they even went to the original Phelps to ask him to play the villian. There was much yelling in the press about that arrogant twerp Tom Cruise. 

Of course, as a movie star who wanted to be a movie star forever we know that Cruise was absolutely correct. A movie star is not a member of a team he is the big damn hero of the whole thing. He doesn’t have a boss and he doesn’t have partners. He has amusing sidekicks. 

So, in this final mission  we learn that the honest lawman played by Shea Whiggum is actually Jim Phelps’ son. Name? Jim Phelps Jr. 

It’s twist that comes out of nowhere but I was not offended. 

I suspect Cruise or his writers felt they owed it to the fans of the original tv show to leave an honest Jim Phelps alive and kicking in the world of Mission Impossible. 

Now, that storyline doesn’t work and doesn’t add anything to the movie and in this final go round there are lots of little things that don’t work. 

In particular, the constant small flashbacks during nearly every exposition scene drag the procedure down. I didn’t mind the flashbacks to previous movies. This is the final bite at the apple and those made sense. But the movie just constantly shows you things that happened in the last movie and in the movie you are currently watching! 

It may well be the first movie edited with the TikTok generation in mind. 

And at three hours there is at least a half hour, all in the first sixty minutes that could have been cut without hurting anything. 

This is not a great movie if you judge it like a standalone movie. But if you judge it the way you are meant to, as the final send off to a 30 year film franchise it’s a four star banger. 

This movie takes a minor character with a joke ending (quite literally one of the biggest laughs in the first flick) brings him back, allows him to be awesome, redeem his fictional life and forgive Ethan Hunt. 

That sounds crazy when you say it out loud but it is true and it is glorious. 

They take a throwaway macguffin from the third movie and not only make it relevant but also make Ethan’s decision to save his wife at any cost into the driving force that may destroy the world. 

Ludicrous? You bet! Wonderful when you are watching it unfold? I thought so. 

The action set pieces are stunning. Somewhere along the way we moved Tom Cruise from Sean Connery’s 007 to Roger Moore’s 007 but it is still a sight to behold. 

While I’m here I think I want to pinpoint that we moved into Roger Moore territory when Henry Cavill “loaded” his guns during the bathroom fist fight in Fallout. 

Anyway, the action scenes are thrilling and breathtaking and everything you want in a Mission Impossible movie. Cruise and company don’t leave a stone unturned and always find a way to ratchet up the tension and spectacle. 

Cruise assembles not only his heavy hitters from the previous franchises but also a trove of tv star day players and they all make a meal out of the exposition scenes and the side quests. 

And Tramell Tillman has it. Every director in Hollywood should lock him up for the next decade or two. 

If you walked out saying to yourself, “man that thing had problems.”

I get it. 

But if you watch it again or you see it for the first time even after reading this review just remember, this isn’t a movie, it’s a well-earned victory lap.