Since the original feature debuted in 1996, the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE films have evolved in strange, interesting, but nearly always engaging ways across six sequels. With almost thirty years having passed since the first film, the series has lasted much longer than the legendary 5-seconds-until-self-destruction. However, even if this latest spectacle delivers more than a tiny puff of smoke in an 80s tape player, it represents a fizzling out nonetheless.
The film picks up shortly after the (dangling) conclusion of DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, with the A.I. villain The Entity having now spread to all corners of the digital realm, including the arsenal of many of the world’s nuclear-capable nations. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) must retrieve the program’s self-destructive source code from the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol to stop this ‘anti-God’ before the inevitable arrival of nuclear armageddon.
From the beginning, it is clear that McQuarrie’s film will be the most direct sequel in the series. The films have played with forging explicit links before, with the concept of the Syndicate and Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) carried across ROGUE NATION and FALLOUT. Still, THE FINAL RECKONING represents the apotheosis of McQuarrie’s desire to link these films together. The film is replete with callbacks to earlier entries, and there is a lot of portentous dialogue about choices, destiny, responsibility and the like. The film’s typical mission briefing scene includes on-screen reminders of our hero’s legendary misadventures to date, cribbed from reels of the previous films. Nevertheless, the film’s confused ambitions see this desire for direct connections stand in direct opposition to plot threads dropped from its immediate predecessor (the title of this entry once being DEAD RECKONING PART TWO, until an attempt was made to seemingly distance the sequel from the lukewarm reception to PART ONE).
“The best [M:I films] allow directors to assert their own cinematic styles[…]. For all the varying flaws they may or may not display, the first four entries are unmistakably Brian De Palma, John Woo, J. J. Abrams, and Brad Bird films.”
THE FINAL RECKONING is when the series finally succumbs to some of the worst tendencies of the films’ McQuarrie-led era (which began with the fifth entry in 2015: ROGUE NATION). During this time, the series has hung its hat on spectacular set pieces performed by Cruise himself, seeking to deliver the type of spectacle its prime custodian believes is only possible in cinema. However, at their best, the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE films also have an enormous sense of fun and wit. The best frequently allow directors to assert their own cinematic styles beyond mere spectacle derived from physical feats. For all the varying flaws they may or may not display, the first four entries are unmistakably Brian De Palma, John Woo, J. J. Abrams, and Brad Bird films.
McQuarrie’s direction of the series has always been solidly engaging but lacking in flair, with scripts increasingly reliant on callbacks. However, THE FINAL RECKONING seemingly jettisons any sense of inventiveness and frequently ‘plays the hits’. Character callbacks (including at least one of the needless sort popularised in the wake of STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS and SPECTRE) and the ties to previous films are lingered on at the expense of the team dynamics which made GHOST PROTOCOL, for instance, fizz with energy. Indeed, the team and Ethan are separated for much of this new film’s excruciatingly long run time.
The film drags its heels on set pieces which feel like they have been executed better in previous films, either by McQuarrie himself (the interminably slow Sevastopol traversal versus the snappier water torus scene in ROGUE NATION; the final plane dogfight versus the helicopter chase in FALLOUT) or other, more visually inventive directors (there remains nothing in this film on the level of Bird’s GHOST PROTOCOL sequence at the Burj Khalifa). Where set pieces previously hummed with energy, they sap patience in THE FINAL RECKONING. All of this comes at the expense of character moments and instances of levity. There are no ridiculous gadgets and few humorous interruptions to punctuate action sequences. One character is accused of living “in the Entity’s reality”, and said reality appears to be a grimdark and self-serious one.
“The film drags its heels on set pieces which feel like they have been executed better in previous films, either by McQuarrie himself […] or other, more visually inventive directors. Where set pieces previously hummed with energy, they sap patience in THE FINAL RECKONING.”
Pursuing that miserable tone is a strange decision for a film series that always leaned into the absurdity of facemasks and clandestine briefing tapes that self-destruct. Even in this entry, Ethan communicates with the Entity in a coffin-like device like some sort of Digital Dracula, but the film swiftly moves on to Serious Things Only Ethan Can Do. The script lays out his quest with heavy and expository dialogue, with the import of a Greek hero’s journey to his destiny. The sense of caper and freneticism evident across all entries, bar maybe MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, which made Hunt’s efforts entertaining rather than merely impressive, is largely absent here.
There are echoes of a more interesting script, lingering like a deleted file deep in the Entity’s memory banks. An enemy built on the idea of artificial intelligence and machine learning that makes us take leave of our human instincts and solidarity is a topical idea, which could have been an interesting nemesis for our do-gooding and humble moral hero. However, the film does little with this that wasn’t delivered by AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON in a frothier manner to a similar middling blockbuster return, even down to the cyan visual representation of the nascent digital threat. The film also parallels the sophomore superhero team-up in seemingly pinning some of the blame on Hunt (in a curious decision to hark back to MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III) in the manner of Tony Stark’s self-created threats.
“There are echoes of a more interesting script, lingering like a deleted file deep in the Entity’s memory banks. An [‘A.I.’ enemy] that makes us take leave of our human instincts and solidarity is a topical idea, which could have been an interesting nemesis…”
Ethan Hunt fully ascends to a messianic figure, where the fragility and hesitancy inherent in Hunt’s physical feats were previously at the forefront. He is trusted here more than any cinematic superhero this decade, while the government and military apparatus of the USA sit in a flatly lit boardroom and wait for him to deliver. When a character intones that “the son of a bitch actually did it”, it’s hard to fathom whether the reference is to Hunt’s feats or a self-regarding meta-line about Cruise himself hanging off a plane.
THE FINAL RECKONING gets lost in a sense of importance and finality, which bloats the script while robbing it of the lighter elements that made the best of the series so entertaining. More unforgivably, the much-ballyhooed stunt set pieces leave little impression, and the lack of visual flair compounds into a much flatter and po-faced affair than any MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE entry should be. It will always be challenging to argue against the sheer scale, production effort, and logistical achievement of what McQuarrie and Cruise have put to screen here, but cinema is – and should be – more than that.
The last – perhaps final – two films have lingered on the idea that “our lives are the sum of our choices”. THE FINAL RECKONING represents, by their own design, the sum of Cruise and McQuarrie’s choices on their creative journey with MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. There have been many highs, but what these amount to, for the supposed climax of thirty years of filmmaking, is disappointing.