For the past several years, the message surrounding Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was that it would mark Tom Cruise’s last go-around as IMF leader and indestructible hero Ethan Hunt.  Unfortunately, despite the craftsmanship and daredevil antics of Cruise, this movie isn’t as enjoyable as the previous entry, Dead Reckoning – Part One. Instead, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and his filmmaking collaborator Tom Cruise have used the overriding sense of finality as justification for a slew of clumsy narrative choices that threaten to sink the film to the bottom of the ocean.  Although Final Reckoning is often exciting, it’s clumsy instead of nimble, tripping over its own feet while doing things that previous entries had wisely avoided.

At the end of the Dead Reckoning, Ethan had secured both halves of the cruciform key necessary to retrieve the source code (now referred to as the “Podkova module”) for the malevolent AI named “The Entity” from the sunken Sevastopol submarine.  The Podkova module represents the only way to defeat The Entity before it assumes control over all of the world’s computers.  Unfortunately for Ethan, only Gabriel (Esai Morales) knows the coordinates of the Sevastopol, and he’s not talking.  (I’ll get to why shortly.)

If you’re like me and had assumed that The Entity sank the Sevastopol recently, Final Reckoning clarifies that it actually happened twelve years ago.  The reason for this storytelling slight-of-hand is to make what had been a MacGuffin in Mission:Impossible III–the Rabbit’s Foot–relevant to what’s happening now.  If you haven’t seen M:I:III (guilty as charged), don’t worry because this obscure plot point has no bearing on what happens in this movie.

In another of the movie’s curious twists, Gabriel is revealed to be on the outs with The Entity.  After failing to prevent Ethan from getting the cruciform key, The Entity has decided to take matters into its own cyberhands.  It knows that Ethan has the key and that he’s the only person  capable of retrieving the Podkova module from the bottom of the Arctic ocean.  (It obviously watched the previous movies and knows that nothing stops Ethan Hunt!)  The Entity also knows that IMF cybergenius Luther (Ving Rhames) has developed “Poison Pill” malware capable of disabling it.  Given that Luther made a point at the end of the last movie of staying off the grid while devising a way to defeat The Entity, I didn’t understand how it could possibly have known this, but it is the most powerful AI ever, so who am I to say?

Gabriel captures Ethan and Grace (Hayley Atwell) in London and reveals that he’s stolen Luther’s poison pill.  (After all of the brilliant things they’ve done over the years, Luther and Ethan made this ridiculously easy.)  When combined with the Podkova, Gabriel can take control of The Entity and rule the world.  To convince Ethan he means business, Gabriel arranges for Ethan and Grace to be tortured to death while activating a bomb at the secret bunker where Luther has been hiding.  If you’re wondering why Gabriel does this, it’s so that Ethan can arrive too late to save Luther, but long enough to have a tearful goodbye with him and still escape the explosion.  (In other words, it makes no logical sense but provides for good drama.)

With his back squarely against the wall, Ethan devises a plan–an impossible mission, if you will.  He sends Benji (Simon Pegg), Grace, Paris (Pom Klementieff) and Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis) to a listening station on St. Matthew Island in the Baring Sea, which heard the Sevastopol sink to the bottom.  Ethan surrenders and convinces President Sloane (Angela Bassett) to trust him “one last time”.  He asks to be taken out to the North Pacific Ocean, where he’ll meet up with a super-secret submarine.  Although Sloane has no reason to agree to Ethan’s demands, she quickly does so, despite the objections from General Sidney (Nick Offerman), Secretary of State (Holt McCallany) and franchise stooge CIA Director Kittridge (Henry Czerny).

Once in the North Pacific, Ethan reconnoiters with the USS Ohio, which will get him as close to the sunken Sevastopol as possible without tipping off the Russian subs on their tail.  (It must be noted that the crew onboard the submarine, led by Tramell Tillman, must be the horniest crew in the fleet.)  After fighting off some pesky Russkies, the IMF team broadcasts the coordinates just in time for Ethan to plummet into the cold, murky waters below.  As Anthony Hopkins aptly put it in Mission Impossible 2, “This is not mission difficult Mr. Hunt.  It’s mission impossible.”

If you’ve seen the trailers, you already know that what follows includes an extended sequence with Ethan lurking about the Sevastopol while it rolls around and fills with water.  Without spoiling anything, it’s probably the most elaborately staged and exceptionally executed action sequence in the franchise.  This is somehow matched by an extended biplane dogfight between Ethan and Gabriel, where both exhibit little regard to their own and each other’s personal safety.  Again, without spoiling anything, it easily tops Cruise’s motorcycle jump off a cliff in the previous movie.

If you’ve seen any Mission Impossible movie before, you know how this one ends.  You may be curious as to how this one is Ethan’s “final reckoning”.  I don’t want to give anything away, but the closing moments couldn’t be more explicit about what this movie has been all along.  Where all of these films have been about Cruise’s doppelganger saving the world, this time he makes one last sales pitch to save your soul.  Don’t believe me?  Watch and see for yourself.

Recommendation

If you’ve seen some or all of the previous seven Mission: Impossible movies, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t see Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.  The movie delivers more than enough entertainment to justify the time and/or the money you’ll spend watching it.  There are two exceptional action sequences, featuring Tom Cruise yet again risking life and limb for moviegoers.  The cast from the last movie is augmented by at least a dozen new supporting characters played by recognizable actors (Tramell Tillman, Hannah Waddingham, Nick Offerman, Katy O’Brian, Holt McCallany).  There are also numerous callbacks to previous installments that will thrill fans of the franchise.  However, even with everything it has going for it, the movie is not the giddy thrill-ride it should be.

Where Dead Reckoning was self-assured and (gasp!) sexy, this closing chapter is a surprisingly morose affair.  Instead of being a joyful retirement party celebrating Tom Cruise’s swansong as Ethan, Final Reckoning is downbeat.  Instead of being light on its feet, it plods along while Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and everyone around him mourns that the end is nigh.  It repeatedly asks, “How can we go on without Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to save us?”  The movie deifies Hunt (and Cruise) so much that you would expect him to be declared a saint in the closing credits.  (He’s actually surrounded by smiling apostles in one scene.)

When the movie shakes off its glumness, it’s an exciting, blockbuster-scaled spectacle.  Even then, there’s a noticeable lack of the wisecracks and self-effacing humor that typically balances the “sudden death” atmosphere of this franchise.  With rare exception, the actors are so serious about everything that the action feels more like work than play.  For example, Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff, who were so much fun in the previous entry, are reduced to grim, tight-lipped cogs in the action machinery.

For a franchise that had never been preoccupied with its legacy, Final Reckoning provides an overload of fan service.  Another character from the first movie is brought back purely for nostalgia.  I chuckled when a supporting character introduced in the last movie was revealed to have direct lineage to a main character in the first movie.  There’s a throw-away reference to M:I:3 that adds nothing to the matter at hand.  Overall, the callbacks do nothing but make the story more convoluted than it should have been.

The villains are largely nonfactors here.  Esai Morales’ Gabriel is oddly transformed into a cackling madman, and his particular animus towards Ethan Hunt remains a mystery.  The Entity barely has a presence and is defeated by a trap that should have been obvious for something so intelligent.  (So much for AI, huh?)  On top of all that, Final Reckoning is full of weird narrative choices that cry out for psychoanalysis.  Cruise’s Ethan is exalted so much by everyone involved that the movie at times feels like a recruitment video.  His character exhibits so many complexes–God, messiah, savior–that I doubted giving him control of the world was a good idea.

Fortunately, the franchise’s bread-and-butter elements rescue the film.  Tom Cruise is as compelling an action hero here as he ever was.  The two showcase action sequences are superbly directed by Christopher McQuarrie.  There are further teases of intimacy between Cruise and Atwell’s characters.  And the returning characters played by Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames have their moments in the spotlight.  When the movie remembers what has made this franchise special, it rises above the series-capping bloat that weighs it down.

When it’s not indulging in pointless franchise nostalgia or constantly reminding us that Tom Cruise is the chosen one, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is an entertaining, well-made action movie.  Come prepared for top-notch action surrounded by eye-rolling distillations of Cruise’s cockeyed worldview.  Mildly Recommended.

Analysis

Instead of my usual analysis, following are my random observations about the movie.

Instead of President Sloane sending Ethan a simple voice recording pleading for him to turn himself in, she has her staff whip up a snazzy video presentation.

That Luther was succumbing to a fatal ailment came as a complete surprise, given that there was no mention of it in Dead Reckoning.

I get that Luther knew he was going to die soon, but he was remarkably calm about being blown up and, if he survived the explosion, subsequently being crushed to death by rubble.

Before Ethan enters the chamber to commune with The Entity, Paris warns him that the experience “will change him”.  Knowing Cruise’s strong affiliation with Scientology, I wonder if this scene was intended to parallel his first experience with an e-meter.

Cruise has gone on record as being extremely negative towards psychiatry.  Extrapolating from his comments, Ethan’s horrific experience within The Entity’s chamber symbolizes what Cruise believes a psychiatrist does to a person.

Why does The Entity penetrate Ethan’s mind to threaten him and also give him the means to defeat him?

Holt McCallany and Nick Offerman have a lot of fun playing the “loud military guy” and the “shifty military guy”.  Someone should pair them up in another movie.

The bit where President Sloane’s message to Hannah Waddingham’s Rear Admiral Neely consists of the date when the first Mission Impossible movie premiered is…dumb.

Was it just me, or was every character on the sub undressing Ethan with their eyes?

Maybe the USS Ohio is the “top secret sex sub”, because it doesn’t take long for Ethan to be reduced to wearing hot pants.

Tramell Tillman gets an incredible amount of mileage out of a handful of lines. When his Captain Bledsoe tells Ethan, “You are out of your mind,” Tillman says the line calmly and smoothly, with a tinge or amusement, implying that he admires Ethan, thinks he’s certifiable and is tickled to have him on board.

The Sevastopol sat on the edge of a precipice for twelve years until Ethan came aboard. Then it proceeds to roll off whenever he twitches.

The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center used by the president and the military men to observe the end of the world resembles the War Room in Dr. Strangelove.  The movie should have included at least one joke about it.

Apparently, there’s no need to worry about budgets when the end of the world is near.  It must have been expensive to equip the Emergency Operations Center with so many huge monitors.

Then they must have paid a government contractor a tidy sum to depict each country in brilliant Crayola colors, as well as have old-fashioned airport tiles flip whenever a location falls under The Entity’s control.

They found an excuse to bring back CIA Analyst Donloe, the minor character from the first movie who Emmanuelle Beart gave explosive diarrhea to, but not Jeremy Renner’s character, who had a significant role in two prior entries.

Grace and Ethan finally kiss–but only because she has to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  Tom Cruise’s boycott of on-screen intimacy continues.

Although Hunt/Cruise is able to resist the gravitational pull of Atwell’s bosom, McQuarrie’s camera is helpless against it.

After being told repeatedly online that Mission:Impossible:III is the weakest movie of the franchise, Final Reckoning retcons it into essential viewing.

Gabriel’s demise was Wile E Coyote material.  McQuarrie must have grown to hate this character to kill him off in such a silly, offhand way.

I know Benji is incredibly smart, but I had no idea he also knew everything there is to know about how to alleviate his collapsed lung.  Does he watch medical shows in between missions?

Couldn’t anyone besides Benji have grabbed the cube really, really fast?

Instead of being short and to the point, as Luther has always been, the movie has his last words go on and on.

How was Luther able to manufacture a hard drive while being off the grid?

In the end, the cube containing The Entity is still glowing.  How is this possible?  What is its power source?

Despite Ethan’s reluctance, Grace gives Ethan The Entity so that he’ll reprogram society.  I guess he really is the chosen one.

Although the closing scene quotes Ocean’s Eleven, everyone involved looks like they just joined a cult.

Final Reckoning has a running thread about how women save men.  Three characters resurrect men from their “deaths”.  Grace pulls Ethan from the icy waters and breathes life into him.  Paris operates on Benji and cradles him in her arms.  Donloe says that being sent to the Arctic was the best thing that ever happened to him because that’s where he met his Inuit wife, who completed him.

With that in mind, the movie plays like an advertisement for the next Mrs. Tom Cruise.  “See how much I love and respect women?  I really need a strong woman to save me from myself.  If you’re incredibly beautiful and don’t mind my religious practices, please reach out to me if you’d like to apply for the job!”

Nearly every new character from Dead Reckoning looks like they aren’t having fun in this movie.  Conversely, every new character introduced in Final Reckoning appears to be having a blast.

In particular, the two ladies who stole every scene they were in last time around are being punished for their sins here.  Nothing in Final Reckoning comes close to Atwell and Cruise’s sexy spy-thief tango in Dead Reckoning.  Klementieff’s Paris, so wild and dangerous in that movie, never smiles and speaks all of her lines with leaden gravitas.  I think Atwell had one funny line and Klementieff none.

Even though the movie kills off Luther, it manages to keep Benji and Ethan alive.  The movie strongly implies that both will die, only to reveal that they managed to cheat death once again.

After playing a significant part in Dead Reckoning, Shea Whigham’s character only exists in this movie to give Ethan Hunt a hearty hand shake after saving the world.

Working for the IMF has given Ethan Hunt so many complexes that he really needs to take a long vacation to detox.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

I watched this movie recently because it was cited as an influence on The Terminator.  To my surprise, the plot of this movie is basically the framework for Final Reckoning.  Check it out if you haven’t seen it.