One of the great things about our outlet is that we sometimes offer multiple reviews of the same movie because opinions vary. Yesterday, we posted a review by our leader, Laurie Coker, who did not like the new and perhaps final installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise. On the other hand, I had a great time watching this film. That said, it is not the best offering of this series, but I find it satisfying enough to close another exciting chapter in cinema.
The movie picks up where Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning leaves off. IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has the cruciform key to The Entity, a powerful artificial intelligence that can destroy all human life on Earth. Since the last film, Ethan has gone into hiding to protect the key but is forced to emerge as the Entity proceeds with its plans. Ethan connects with the remaining members of his IMF team and works with them to stop the Entity’s plans. At the same time, both Gabriel (Esai Morales) and the US government try to intervene,ene making Ethan’s mission more challenging and complicated.
Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and co-written by Erik Jendresen, The Final Reckoning is an epic and thrilling conclusion to a blockbuster cinema phenomenon. McQuarrie and Jendresen have an incredible amount of love and passion for this franchise, and this shows here, as they have a lot of callbacks to the entire series, with a specific focus on the first three installments. The movie never captures or outdoes the magic in III, Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, or Fallout (my favorite), but it comes close. The movie’s main weakness is that it rehashes an AI plot that has already been done previously in lots of other sci-fi and action films.
Though the screenplay is not original, its visual and auditory spectacle is palpable. Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie crave to give audiences a reason to go see movies in a theater, and because of this goal, they deliver more of the insane and ridiculous stunts and action sequences people expect from this franchise.
Everyone involved in this movie gives much heart and passion to this movie. It feels like this is the last hurrah. It might not outshine anything that has been done previously, but it is obvious that the filmmakers still want to make the experience memorable. For that reason, I had an absolute blast with this movie. It delivers plenty of nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat moments and ridiculous stunts that only Tom Cruise can execute.
Initially, this series may have struggled to find a footing, but once it took off, it did not fail to entertain. Fallout might have set the bar too high, but it gave us a reason to keep returning. Though the filmmakers never quite reached that bar again, they made the experiences awe-inspiring and fun. I do sincerely hope that this is the final installment because, at this point, this series can only go down, landing into disappointing territory.