Pop Culture Pick: Does Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Stick The Landing?
Or is the new franchise entry drifting on Cruise control?
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
Welcome to Pop Culture Pick, a catch-all for subjects I want to highlight outside of the usual weekly Weekend Watch columns. In this edition, is the new Mission something you should accept. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite, Threads/Instagram: @jammerwhite and Blue Sky: @jammerwhite.bsky.social
I’ve been a fan of the collaborations between writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and star/producer/daredevil Tom Cruise for years now.
They’ve brought us some truly memorable cinema, including Top Gun: Maverick (on which McQuarrie helped whip the script into shape) and the last few Mission Impossible movies (such as 2023’s Dead Reckoning.
Yet with the box office issues faced by that most recent outing, studio backers Paramount hacked off the “Part One,” and instead decided to make the new film The Final Reckoning, even though it still continues the story of the last one.
But my overriding love for what McQuarrie and Cruise have done with the series kept me going even when Dead Reckoning didn’t quite match up to the level of previous entries such as Rogue Nation and Fallout.
Which all goes to say that I was truly disappointed by The Final Reckoning. Don’t get me wrong: there is still plenty to enjoy about what has been advertised as the last time Cruise will hang on to planes, throw himself off things or climb tall buildings in service of saving the world as IMF agent Ethan Hunt. That commitment to spectacle remains absolute, and there are death-defying moments here you’ll be puzzling over how they achieved for a while upon leaving the cinema.
Trouble is, those stunts have been explained endlessly by behind-the-scenes featurettes and interviews long before the film itself is on screens and as for the rest of the running time? A few fun character moments aside, it’s honestly a bit of a mess.
The whole nasty A.I. “Entity” plot starts to fall apart in this one once you really think about it. Ditto the scheme and exit strategy from another antagonist (I’m looking to stay spoiler free as usual, but if you’ve seen Dead Reckoning, you know who I’m talking about).
While the stunts are impressive every action sequence is preceded by long and occasionally numbing bouts of exposition, and all the plot points are explained over and over and over again. I’ve a lot of time for McQuarrie’s skill as both writer and director, but between wrangling the giant shoot and coming up with ideas on the fly, he and co-writer Erik Jendresen have somewhat lost not the plot, but the thrill.
To make up for that, The Final Reckoning is pitched as a cross between a reminder of the story for anyone who hasn’t seen (or forgotten) Dead Reckoning and one giant third act, cranked up to a ridiculously operatic level, every single decision and idea delivered with solemn certainty. This is Cruise and McQuarrie high on their own supply.
Add to that the fact that at least one of the big set pieces, which is introduced with one of the long-winded briefing, effectively handwaves the threats to Ethan’s life with a relatively quick fix. And don’t get me started on one particular decision with the Entity that makes absolutely zero sense (again, I’m not going into detail, but suffice to say I was smacking my forehead towards the end).
What does help? The usual sterling work from Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg as Hunt’s stalwart fellow agents Luther and Benji. And some great turns from more recent recruits such as Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff.
Also making an impact? Severance’s Tramell Tillman as a submarine captain with a yen for the word “mister,” Nick Offerman playing a military commander and Hannah Waddingham as an admiral.
Yet around it all there’s the feeling that this is less a big finish –– the callbacks to earlier missions range from fun to cringeworthy –– and more about hitting pause so the series can continue when someone decides that’s a good idea. Right now, I’m truly not sure it is.
Mission: Impossible –– The Final Reckoning is in UK and US cinemas from 23 May.