MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING REVIEW
“McQuarrie brilliantly sticks the landing from everything set up in previous movies to deliver one of the most satisfying conclusions possible.”
Possibly one of the biggest tragedies at the box office in recent years – well, okay, there have been far too many to mention – is that after 2023’s Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, we were forced to wait an extra year to see how that story would be concluded. After watching the aptly-titled The Final Reckoning, I can safely say that it was well worth that extra wait.
When we last left Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, he had managed to get the cruciform key that could allow the person holding it to access the sunken nuclear submarine Sevastapol with plans to destroy the dangerous AI cyber-virus known as The Entity. It took Ethan and his team a lot to get those keys, losing a few people along the way, but other parties are trying to get their hands on that key in order to control the Entity for their own means. Still a part of that mix is Esai Morales’ Gabriel, who was merely doing the Entity’s bidding in the previous movie, but who now wants to gain control of it for his own means. Final Reckoning continues the story with Hunt seeking out Gabriel’s personal assassin Paris (Pom Klementief) who has been taken in by the CIA in the form of Shea Whigham as Jasper Briggs and Greg Tarzan Davis’ Degas. Hunt also still requires the help of Haley Atwell’s pickpocket Grace, and soon, a new team is formed including Simon Pegg’s Benji, who has been moving up the ranks at the IMF since his introduction way back in Mission: Impossible III. Regular IMF member Luther (Ving Rhames) has created a poison pill to destroy the Entity but Gabriel has gotten his hands on that, too.
This time the stakes are higher, leading merely the potential for WWIII and the of the world as we know it as everyone is destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse created by the Entity. We already knew that Ethan would have to track down the Russian submarine Sevastopol at the bottom of the Bering Sea, but that ends up being a far more complicated prospect, requiring the cooperation of the U.S. government who have already deemed Ethan and the IMF to be a greater threat than the Entity. If those challenges weren’t enough, there’s also a doomsday cult that want the Entity to succeed for their own reasons, and those members become a regular hurdle for Hunt and his team throughout the film. Because of this, Ethan, Benji and their ersatz time has to take on not one impossible mission but several back-to-back steps in order to complete what is necessary to stop Gabriel, stop the Entity, and literally stop the entire world from being turned into nuclear waste. It might sound complicated, and it is, but paying close attention to the exposition explaining things will eventually pay off.
If there was any question whether Ving Rhames’ Luther has been the heart and soul of this franchise, any doubts will be dispelled by the end of this movie, since Luther plays a far more pivotal role in this story than in any previous installment. It’s good to remember that Rhames is the only other actor/character to be in every single installment.
An even more interesting choice was to bring back Rolf Saxon as William Donloe, the poor CIA analyst who walked in as Ethan broke into the Langley Black Vault in the first Mission Impossible. Donloe had been demoted to a supervisory position at a remote island in the Arctic, where he meets his Inuit wife Tapeesa (Lucy Tulugarjuk), and both of them end up playing a far bigger role in the film’s last half than anyone might expect.
A good portion of the film takes place in a secure room where the U.S. President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) is discussing with her cabinet what needs to be done about the Entity, as it begins to take over the nuclear armaments of one country after another. It’s a portion of the film that is far more talkie and full of exposition, but it also creates even more tension. It’s terrific seeing Nick Offerman in these scenes in a key defense role, while as soon as you see Holt McCallany, you know that he will be the big A-hole in the room.
Christopher McQuarrie continues to hone himself into one of Hollywood’s finest filmmakers, and part of that comes with hiring the best department heads to realize what is required in creating some of the most jaw-dropping action sequences we’ve seen in the franchise. The sequence of Hunt underwater inside the Sevastopol is particularly nerve-wracking, but things don’t let up much after that either.
I generally love Eddie Hamilton’s editing, as I consider him to be brilliant as Cruise’s secret weapon. As with previous installments and Top Gun: Maverick, his editing is top-notch with just two exceptions: the opening title sequence, and when Ethan connects directly to the Entity, two scenes that throw so much information at the viewer it’s jarring to watch and may even cause seizures.
Another crucial factor is the score by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey, though oddly, neither of them composed the music for any previous Mission: Impossible installments, but they both were in the music department for Top Gun: Maverick. It’s interesting to see how people have moved up the ranks working with McQuarrie and Cruise, and the composers have really done such a bang-up job that I just assumed it was Lorne Balfe back again.
In my personal opinion, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is to this franchise as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight was to the Batman movies in that McQuarrie brilliantly sticks the landing from everything set up in previous movies to deliver one of the most satisfying conclusions possible. Sure, if you’re expecting three straight hours of action, you’re likely to be disappointed, but no one ever said these movies have to be wall-to-wall action.
Rating: 9/10
Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning will open nationwide, including in IMAX and on other premium format screens on Friday, May 23.