Even though they haven’t explicitly said it, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the latest Mission: Impossible movie, is widely considered the farewell movie of the character Ethan Hunt. And if you look at the way they have staged the whole story this time, by taking us back to the first film and bringing back several other key characters in this cinematic universe, one has to believe that this is where Tom Cruise’s MI journey ends. With familiar beats of world-saving missions from Ethan, this time getting the support of emotional coating because of the legacy, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning may not be a clutter breaker, but it is still a fun action entertainer.
So after the events of Dead Reckoning, the world is now a chaotic place with this faceless AI named The Entity taking control of everything, including brainwashing people. Ethan Hunt, who had made it clear that he would only respond to the president of the United States, gathers some information on how to kill this AI, and he is now much clearer about what to do with that key he obtained in the previous film. The intricacies of executing a plan against an AI are what we see in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
Spanning over almost three decades, this 8-film franchise has certainly reached a level where the emotional side of the main character has to be addressed. In fact, in the last few MI films directed by Christopher McQuarrie, we have been shown that personal side, and because of the legacy, the writing can now delve into such areas of the character. In this movie, there is a line by one of the characters to Hunt that the repeating pattern here is that he will always put his team ahead of anything else. So, in a way, this possible final chapter is paying homage to every trait that one can associate with this franchise, and the good thing is that it is integrated neatly into the film and is important to the story.
Christopher McQuarrie, this time, is getting into a space where Ethan does not have a nemesis with a shape. Even though there is a physical target set for Ethan, the decision-making this time is slightly different because of the kind of antagonist they have created. Like I said in the beginning, there are no major unpredictabilities here as we are entering the theater with the guarantee that Ethan won’t let the world end. So the challenge for the movie is naturally to make his efforts look enormous. And this 170-minute-long movie is not wasting any moment in achieving that.
From one minor set-piece to another major set-piece, McQuarrie and co-writer Erik Jendresen are packaging the script with events that are essential to the story. And like I said, they are bringing back characters into this story to give this mission the feeling of one where Ethan sort of gets closure from everyone. The tasks are getting distributed among the team members, and as always, our main man is the one who is pulling off the toughest ones. Be it the underwater sequence or the airplane fight, Tom Cruise makes sure the viewers are getting their money’s worth.
Tom Cruise is relentless as Ethan Hunt. From portraying the frustrations of being helpless to performing all those stunts and the iconic run, the 62-year-old astonishes you with his capabilities as an action star. Hayley Atwell as Grace plays a very significant role here. Ving Rhames as Luther gets an emotional farewell from the franchise in this movie. Simon Pegg reprises his character Benji in this film, and while he is fun to watch, because of the finale aspect, even his character gets an emotional layer. Esai Morales returns as the antagonist, and he is pretty good. Pom Klementieff, Angela Bassett, Henry Czerny, etc., are the other major names in the star cast.
As a franchise, Mission: Impossible has undergone reinvention with movies like Rogue Nation, and this last outing feels like the end of the writing pattern they started with that movie. While the lack of surprises makes it somewhat generic from an MI movie perspective, the way it has packaged the story by incorporating several characters from the franchise and also acknowledging what Ethan has done and lost in the whole process, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is definitely an elaborate, likable action package that never bores you through its nearly three-hour-long runtime.
