4 outta 5

The 8^th, and potentially final, Mission: Impossible film, The Final Reckoning is a fairly bombastic finale for a series that has always been fairly bombastic. Probably a bit too much at a very long 2 hours and 50 minutes running time. It’s as if Tom Cruise saw that all these blockbusters are coming in at three hours and decided he needed one. This film does deliver spectacle and some emotional payoffs, wrangling in continuity from across all the installments. The Final Reckoning does an effective job of wrapping up the entire series for a finale blowout.

Superspy Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is battling a deadly artificial intelligence known as the Entity, and he is coerced into getting its source code for the cold-blooded assassin Gabriel (Esai Morales). Ethan gathers members of his Impossible Mission Force, Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), Grace (Hayley Atwell) and former enemy turned ally, Paris (Pom Klementieff). But to get to the source code, Ethan must find a sunken submarine at the bottom of the ocean, while his team offers assistance. All while Ethan is pursued by Gabriel, and government agents like Ethan’s former nemesis, Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and Jasper (Shea Whigham). Meanwhile, the President of the United States (Angela Bassett) is dealing with an impending nuclear crisis as the Entity manipulates information and takes over nuclear launch capability, as she has US Generals like Sidney (Nick Offerman) and the Secretary of Defence (Holt McCallany) telling her she must make a pre-emptive strike.

Lots of pieces of previous film continuity are worked into the story here. Looking at the series in the wide view, it makes M:I4-6 seem more side-questy. (M:I2 always felt like a side quest-y, John Woo style excursion. Great songs by Metallica and Limp Bizkit though!). But the best piece of continuity brought in is the origin of the villainous A.I. Entity is the freakin’ Rabbit’s Foot/ Anti-God from M:I3! That unexplained mysterious McGuffin everyone was chasing after in the third movie. Only took almost two decades but Ethan, and the audience, finally figured out what that thing was. As far as deep continuity pulls go, it’s a satisfying answer.

Another good Mission: Impossible history pull is Donloe (Rolf Saxon), the guy from the Langley vault in the first film (where Ethan does the iconic upside-down computer hack). Even though Ethan’s hacking made Donle banished to Alaska, he actually is grateful to Ethan for getting him demoted 30 years ago, and there is a cool visual callback to the knife that Ethan dropped at the end of that scene from the first film. Making Jasper, the fed chasing Ethan the last two movies, Jim Phelps Jr. feels forced. Ethan blew up your dad, buddy! Jim Phelps was on a helicopter in the Chunnel and it smashed into the ground. At least the family reveal shows why Jasper was so determined to catch Ethan and Whigham is exceptionally good at growling.

Gabriel seemingly had a change of heart off screen in between the two movies as he started out as a devoted follower of the Entity but now he’s trying to control it. The revelation from the last film that he killed Ethan’s mother gets no payoff aside from a few grainy flashbacks. His exit is a little weak but as this film takes a lot from M:I3, a lame villain exit is apt. Czerny returning as Kittridge is a hoot because he seems annoyed all the time. Offerman and McCallany as the government workers urging the President to nuke huge chunks of the globe are a bit over the top. There’s also a subplot about the Entity’s cult followers. There is a cool bit (of maybe IP infringement) where an acolyte says they are “children of the atom” waiting for a nuclear apocalypse which is basically stolen from X-Men.

Ethan’s team all get a chance to have a standout moment. Klementieff went from assassin to being on the IMF team which is great because she’s still kind of unhinged and dark, and there’s a crazy moment where she has to perform surgery on Benji with a knife and a pen. Atwell is good at looking determined, and Cruise is impressive in the stunts and has some moments where he conveys the desperation that Ethan has to save his friends. Rhames’ Luther, a member of the team since the first film, gets in some stirring emotional speeches.

There is a lot of great action, although some go on for a while. The filmmakers spent lots of money on a rotating submarine set (one that apparently broke down and caused huge budget overruns), and it’s basically pitch black, as Ethan rolls around it. There are some cool scenes like the sci-fi hellscape moment when Ethan straps on a mask in a mechanical coffin and as the Entity recaps his entire life. And the finale action scene features zippy intercutting between the team trying to get the Entity, defusing a nuclear bomb, and Ethan hanging upside down on a biplane in what looks like an incredibly real and dangerous stunt. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning does a good job to piece together elements across all 8 films into a cohesive whole, with some big booms and satisfying dramatic conclusions. This has been a great action series, and it goes out on top, even if it overstays for about 30 minutes too long.