In the final act of the “Mission: Impossible” series’ fifth entry, “Rogue Nation,” Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock”) delivers a memorable monologue. The contours of the plot at the time of this soliloquy are familiar to fans of the franchise: the bad guy has the MacGuffin, the American government is compromised and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, “Top Gun: Maverick”) is the only thing that can save us, odds be damned. For an ordinary protagonist, this might mean a threat to innocent lives or the end of time, but, as Baldwin’s character says best, Ethan Hunt is no ordinary protagonist. He is a manifestation of destiny.
It’s hard not to read this line, and the following development of the series, as being about Cruise himself. Spanning over 30 years and eight films, the “Mission: Impossible” franchise has weathered every PR crisis imaginable with Cruise. In the process, the series has undergone a difficult transformation from iconic IP into Cruise’s own personal vehicle for fame. Over the years, every new release has been accompanied by headlines both in horror and awe at the audaciousness of Cruise’s stunts; for the series, Cruise has climbed the world’s tallest building and dangled off the side of a plane while it takes off 5,000 feet into the air. Cruise’s Faustian bargain has paid off for him: The “Mission: Impossible” series has been wildly successful as a commercial project while also holding its place as the premier action franchise of the 21st century, continually reinventing itself and pushing boundaries as the rest of Hollywood falls into franchise complacency.
Now in his 60s, Cruise is beginning to sunset his beloved franchise with one final effort, pleading with the audience to trust him one last time. Ever a vigilant champion of cinema, Cruise likely views this effort as not just the end of his franchise, but an attempt to get people out of the post-pandemic dereliction of the theater experience to watch big, crowd-pleasing movies. “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” is Tom Cruise’s desperate plea to save the movies.
“The Final Reckoning” picks up where its predecessor “Dead Reckoning” left off. A mysterious and all-powerful Artificial Intelligence program referred to as “The Entity” is gaining control of the world’s nuclear arsenal, threatening to either subjugate or destroy the planet. In possession of the key to The Entity’s original source code, it is up to Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt to access the code and destroy The Entity, which is apparently how computers operate in the “Mission: Impossible” world. To accomplish this feat, Hunt gathers his team, Benji (Simon Pegg, “Hot Fuzz”), Luther (Ving Rhames, “Lilo & Stitch”) and Grace (Hayley Atwell, “Captain America: The First Avenger”) on a mission that will bring him across the globe to defeat The Entity.
“Dead Reckoning” was infused with a tone of paranoia and pessimism that distinguished it from earlier and lighter entries in the series. However, from its very first shot, “The Final Reckoning” diverges from these formal choices, instead imbuing the film with finality. The normally whimsical “Your mission, should you choose to accept it” sequence is devoid of all joy, Cruise is drowned in shadow and resigned to the task that lies ahead.
From here, the film takes an extremely meta approach. Through flashbacks to the series’ other films, it attempts to hammer in the idea that every moment is the result of Hunt’s prior decisions. Yes, the good guys and the innocents are around because of Hunt’s unyielding commitment to save them. But so are the bad guys, with the film retconning past series lore to make The Entity the unwitting result of Hunt’s prior actions. This thematic choice clearly owes itself to Cruise’s messianic cinematic crusade. Sure, he made “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” which rules more than any other action movie has ever ruled. But maybe Cruise feels some guilt for the less desirable effects of the franchise and action-dominated cinematic landscape that he helped to cultivate, which has contributed to shutting out serious, mid-budget dramas from the film landscape. After all, the Cruise of the 80s and 90s wasn’t an action hero, he was just an actor, starring in films like “Magnolia” and “Eyes Wide Shut” that were made by legendary filmmakers. Since the mid-aughts, Cruise hasn’t starred in a single non-action film (save a memorable yet minor part in “Tropic Thunder”). This monster he fights against is just as much his creation.
The self-referential scope of the film also influences the film’s plot through the continued presence of the original “Mission: Impossible” character Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny, “Clear and Present Danger”) and the return of William Donloe (Rolf Saxon, “After Ever After”). While I’m a viewer that rewatched every “Mission: Impossible” movie in the lead up to the release of this one — consequently the exact target for this hyper-niche cameos — it’s ultimately a strange choice for a series which mostly avoids such referential moments of excess. Yes, even I must admit that MCU-style movie callbacks for divorced dads in their 40s are a hilarious gimmick, but that’s not what makes these movies click. “The Final Reckoning” would have benefited from bringing back the slick style of what makes us love these movies rather than one-off characters; we love the intrigue, the spycraft and the tactile action led by our greatest movie star and some excellent filmmaking.
This overly-reverent first act is also to the detriment of the film. While director Christopher McQuarrie’s (“The Usual Suspects”) choices make sense to establish his thematic thrust that everything we see is the culmination of Hunt/Cruise’s career, they ultimately hamper the pacing. Bogged down in an hour of exposition and flashback, the film struggles to gain its footing early on. This section of the film also feels janky in its editing and character work, seeming more like a roughly assembled collection of reshoots and cut plot threads than a cohesive introduction. At an overly long runtime of nearly three hours, “The Final Reckoning” easily could have benefited from a more abbreviated first act.
Fortunately for us all, the film remembers that at some point it must resemble something other than a “Simpsons” clip show episode, embarking on a breakneck pace for the remainder of its runtime. It’s through this final stretch that “The Final Reckoning” recovers the real spirit of these films, resulting in an ultimately satisfying, if messy, conclusion. Most “Mission: Impossible” films have a three-act structure, each of which has its own set piece, some unique stunt that Hunt has to overcome. In its screenwriting approach, the series clearly orients around the primacy of the set piece over the plot, finding a cool thing for Tom Cruise to do first and figuring out how to work that into the story later. “The Final Reckoning” continues this approach, and for good reason.
The middle act of the film revolves around the submarine set piece, in which Hunt must dive to the bottom of the ocean to access the database of a sunken Russian submarine. This sequence is a breathtaking piece of filmmaking that held me, and the rest of my IMAX audience, in complete awe for about 20 minutes. Done completely with practical effects, this sequence — with no music and no cuts away to other action — is the series at its most tense. It also represents McQuarrie’s cinematography at its most precise, contrasting the claustrophobic interior of the submarine with shots of the ocean that defy all measures of conceivable scope. The sequence is astounding, with director Christopher McQuarrie operating at the most locked-in level he has hit.
The final act is similarly great, including one of Cruise’s most audacious stunts in an action of aerobic insanity that involves two biplanes. If the submarine sequence shows the guy behind the camera operating at his best level, this sequence shows the guy in front of it at his best. This sequence guides the film into its conclusion, filled with tension that puts it among the series’ best moments.
It’s also in these sequences that we feel the film regaining some of its charm, partly driven by Cruise’s supporting cast. Pegg’s Benji is great as always, the beleaguered human counterpart to Cruise’s insanity. Paris (Pom Klementieff, “Guardians of the Galaxy”) is particularly great on the team, finding a good level of sympathy and unhinged that fits into Cruise’s dynamics well. A little more messy is the villain, Gabriel (Esai Morales, “Crescent City”), who acts as a sort of human interlocutor for The Entity, a stand-in as the primary antagonist. Interestingly, the character shifts entirely in personality and motivation from his character in “Dead Reckoning.” Gabriel goes from a mostly boring, suave figure in the first film to a cackling, cartoon supervillain in this film, a shift that is mostly funny more than anything else. Regardless of its flaws, when the film reaches its conclusion, it’s a result that feels well-earned and satisfying.
“Mission: Impossible” is my favorite action franchise of all time. If anyone deserves to engage in a messy, sprawling, cinematic ode to all the crazy things he’s done over the years, it’s Tom Cruise. If “The Final Reckoning” is Cruise’s Hail Mary to save cinema, only time will tell if that crusade will succeed. But for fans searching for an entertaining, grandiose action movie, Cruise has earned your trust, one last time.
Daily Arts Writer Will Cooper can be reached at wcoop@umich.edu.
