Highly entertaining and a lot of fun. Every action set-piece is phenomenal (mainly the cabin, the sub, and the plane). The plot is pretty cool as well. It hosts some parallels to what’s going on in our world right now. Simon Pegg acts his heart out during the last act. We also get more of Esai Morales’s Gabriel, the main human antagonist. He remains very suave and very cool.
Tom Cruise is still the best thing about this film and this franchise. He is absolutely fearless, and continues to find time to act amidst all the action. For a film that runs close to 3 hours, you don’t feel the runtime (a definite plus). This flick feels like it’s constantly running at full speed (not unlike Tom Cruise/Ethan Hunt in every Mission: Impossible film).
Unfortunately, not all that glitters is gold with this supposedly final entry into the Mission: Impossible franchise. Final Reckoning attempts to tie elements of the first and third Mission: Impossible films into this one. The effort is appreciated, but results in many clips of scenes from those films and a multitude of references. One assumes it’s all done in an effort to catch newcomers up, but these portions only detract and distract from the plot and action at hand.
The editing was poor as well. It works well-enough during the aforementioned cabin, sub, and plane set-pieces, but there are plenty of other moments where it can lead to confusion or whiplash (the editing tends to jump back and forth between past and present, and the present and an anticipated future outcome). There also feels like there was at least 30 minutes to an hour that was crudely chopped out of the first act.
The last big issue is one that is common with almost all of the Mission:Impossible films: It always seems certain that every one of our leads is going to make it out ok (and throwing one out of the film early on doesn’t have the “no one is safe” effect the filmmakers likely intended it to).
The Mission:Impossible franchise has always felt like disposable fun. The action is always high-quality, but that’s all they’ve really ever had to offer. The same goes for Final Reckoning. It’s not a bad movie, but its flaws seem more noticeable than others in the franchise.
If you want to watch Tom Cruise on the big screen, want to see some phenomenal action, or if you’ve seen every Mission:Impossible film thus far, then Final Reckoning makes for an easy recommendation. If you don’t fall into any one of those three categories, though, you might do best to spend your hard-earned cash elsewhere.
3.5 STARS
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