Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning: Movie Review

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Hannah Waddingham, Nick Offerman, Angela Bassett, Henry Czerny
Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Is this the final mission for Ethan Hunt?

Picking up where Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One ended, the film throws Ethan (Cruise) and his IMF pals back into the hunt to stop an AI that could destroy the world.

But with the Entity running rife, corrupting the internet, turning people against each other and sowing the seeds of discontent, it looks like this is one Mission that Ethan Hunt may not be able to pull off. And with Hunt having gone AWOL after taking the Cruciform key that's needed to unlock the Entity's original source code which is trapped in a sunken submarine somewhere in the world, time is running out.

The eighth Mission: Impossible film features what the franchise has become known for in its last few years. As well as death-defying, seemingly impossible practical action sequences that make you question whether a messianic Cruise cares for his own life in the pursuit of spectacle, there's also a great deal of bloat, repeated exposition and unnecessary dragging out of scenes which don't have the requisite tension to sustain the time spent in the cinema.

Whether it's Cruise's ego or desire to push the envelope, it's not entirely clear. McQuarrie certainly seems complicit in indulging him and the more interesting elements of the plot here (such as they are) are left on the sidelines. Mentions of cultists, moral quandaries et al all go by the wayside for the chance for Cruise to take off his top and slug it out with bad guys. (One early sequence even takes place off-camera suggesting a more ACME edge that's borderline pointless.)

Either it's the desire to push for more spectacular sequences or a propensity for the franchise to veer closer to the edge, the more intimate character edges have been squandered. It's a shame because the earlier outings had a more personal touch that's been lost in the last couple - certainly talk of apocalyptic nuclear armageddons and the repeated mantra of "For Those We Never Meet" throughout suggests the more human touch of the script has been squandered.

When it soars though, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning does. A plane sequence really evokes a how did they do that approach - but an underwater sequence is just a bit dull and lacking in real tension as it plays out solo.

It's touted as the end for the franchise, but there's no doubt that at some point, they'll be back. And while this latest ties in to earlier films picking up threads that were not necessarily left wanting, thanks to an over-stuffing of characters and a lack of emotional edge, it has to be said that Hunt's next mission should be one that needs to go back to basics, rather than over-complicating stories that don't need to be so convoluted.