Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
Review: I joked with my buddy that these films really should be called, ‘Mission: Improbable’ instead of Impossible because everything that happens isn’t literally impossible, just highly improbable. And that was the case here. It seemed like everything Ethan Hunt & his team needed to accomplish had zillions to one odds or a half second window they had to hit. And the movie rocked. The film started with a great voiceover from Angela Bassett and a very strong montage of the seven previous films. We got the classic M:I credits about 15 minutes in, and man those are always so fun. I’ll have some spoiler thoughts down at the bottom of this page, but another non-spoiler item I wanted to touch on was the cast. See my thoughts about Tom Cruise below, but the rest of the ensemble also crushed it. A lot of returning players from the franchise such as Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, & Charles Parnell. Atwell, Morales, & Davis are the members I think stood out even above the rest. I also need to mention newcomers Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Holt McCallany, Lucy Tulugarjuk, & Janet McTeer, with Tillman being especially notable. Then, I have to mention Rolf Saxon. I think it’s absolutely hilarious he played a mostly inconsequential role in the first film nearly three decades ago and was brought back for a major role in this film, so shoutout to him. Lastly, I just need to talk about the two big stunt set pieces from this film (one in a submarine & one on a plane) both of which were great! The whole underwater & submarine sequence had me on the edge of my seat.
High: I trusted Tom Cruise. One last time. And that paid off. The man truly is the President of Movies and everything he does in this film is so cool. He fully understood how to properly send off the character of Ethan Hunt, and that’s exactly what he said. There were of course cool stunts & set pieces, good character moments, & some good nostalgia baiting as well. And making Ethan pretty much the chosen one in this movie worked well too.
Low: This movie was certainly not without faults. The first half was very choppy with constant camera changes & scene changes, which is not inherently bad (and really is a staple of the franchise) but I felt as though I was having a hard time getting really into the story at first because it kept jumping. There was also a good amount of moments that I felt like didn’t land the way they were intended to such as one liners not hitting or emotional moments falling flat. I think people know this 30 years into the franchise, but you need to go into this film expecting a lot of cheesiness. As long as you know that you should be good.
Rating: 8/10
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SPOILERS BELOW
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SPOILERS:
Listen the twist of Shea Whigham’s character being the son of Jon Voight’s character from the first film was dumb and unnecessary. It just did not need to be included at all.
Oh also, Luther dying was sad. I expected Ethan, but alas Tommy C lives to see another day. Also, Cary Elwes must have had his scenes cut or something, because I remember vaguely seeing his face at some point but that’s it. Weird.
