‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ Is an Operatic and Reverential, but Bloated Farewell

It says something about a star, when a close-up of their weathered face becomes the multiplex poster of the last two films of a $4 billion franchise. Whatever one might think of Tom Cruise, it’s saying something that his face is all the advertising these films need. Why should we watch it? Because it has Cruise, who will be attempting something no one else ever has done in a film.

The action set-pieces in the Mission: Impossible franchise have always been the focal point, enveloped in a jargon-addled plot whose flimsiness wouldn’t survive the faintest probes of logic. Their function is to only add emotional stakes to Cruise’s daredevilry. Ethan Hunt – should he choose to accept – needs to steal something from a facility impossible to break into, to either clear his name, save a loved one or avert a nuclear disaster.

As much as the joy lies in the repetition of these outlines – what’s also worked for the recent film is the self-awareness to know just how silly it all looks from the outside for someone who might be watching their first Mission. It’s a trade that director Christopher McQuarrie perfected in the fifth film – Rogue Nation (2015), and the seventh film: Dead Reckoning – Part One (2023). 

A still from Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Photo: Screengrab from video.

However, one of the pitfalls of a franchise spanning 29 years over eight gargantuan productions, is that the snappy self-awareness and humour gets depleted eventually. It’s what happens in the final film here, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a verbose, operatic and a bloated farewell. Between wanting to give a proper send-off to the franchise’s most-loved characters and wanting to advance its overwrought plot, the film repeatedly goes too far with its sombre, self-reverential tone.

Picking up from the events at the end of Dead Reckoning – Part One, Hunt is on the run after stealing the crucifix key that can give him access to an AI’s (called ‘The Entity’) mainframe. The Entity has meanwhile begun indoctrinating individuals across the globe, telling them that the only way to salvage this planet is to burn it to the ground and rebuild it. It’s taken control of nuclear arms for many nations including Pakistan, Iran, Israel, France – and is slowly looking to gain control of all nuclear powers in the world – including USA and Russia.

Meanwhile, Hunt needs to turn himself in and get access to the American resources if he’s going to stop The Entity. The first hour and a half plods along with clever repartee, gun fights, fist fights, cabinet members of the US President reading aloud Hunt’s exploits with their jaws on the floor. The callbacks to earlier films – which I’ve always found forced in previous films too – seem to be trying too hard here as well. So far, so predictable. 

It’s in the second half that the price of the popcorn begins to see returns. McQuarrie and Cruise bet everything on a wordless 15-minute underwater sequence, where Hunt has to swim 500 ft below sea level to the remains of a Russian ship called the Sevastopol – where The Entity was first employed. Hunt has to recover a virus that infected The Entity in there.

It’s a big swing for a film that costs an estimated $400 million – but the single minded conviction of the director-actor duo makes it sing. Another sequence towards the end, in the skies of South Africa (we’re told in the film) – we see Cruise hanging from a Cessna airplane, with his legs locked around a pole on one of its wings. The magic of such a scene lies in the fact that it’s hard to tell what is VFX, what is a practical effect and what is ‘pure Cruise’. Even with everything I’ve watched Cruise do, my heart remained in my mouth as I saw the wind slapping him violently, as he uses all his strength and focus to do the aerial acrobatics. 

A still from Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Photo: Screengrab from video.

On the other side, there’s also the discomfort of watching The Final Reckoning where Cruise self-aggrandises. Hunt, earlier a spy who felt too much, is turned into a symbol of everything pious about humanity. As much as Hunt says – someone ‘controlling’ The Entity is too much power for one person – the people around him keep telling him that he might be ‘destined’ for it. And not once does he deny it. The biblical references (like Noah’s Ark – as nations get ready to obliterate cities) only make Cruise’s gaze of himself that much more suspicious. Does he see himself as a ‘saviour’ – something Spielberg attributed to him after Top Gun: Maverick (2022) made over $2 billion dollars and brought theatrical distribution? 

Cruise deserves credit for Top Gun – but the way Hunt cheats death even in the last film, as many of his accomplices bid adieu to the franchise, made me wonder if the makers are being too precious about killing their protagonist. Even Daniel Craig’s James Bond exited the stage gracefully in his last film. Does Cruise view Hunt as an immortal, where dying might be beneath him? It’s hard not to speculate about his real-life faith and belief system – and tie it up with these films which, beyond a point, function as a way to feed and further the mythology of Tom Cruise. 

I laughed out loud when after rescuing him from the bottom of the Arctic and reviving him back to life, Grace (Hayley Atwell) sincerely asks Ethan – What happens now? Almost as if Hunt is the only one with the wisdom to take on The Entity. The repeated references of how he’s the ‘chosen one’ made me a bit uneasy. It says a lot about how Cruise and McQuarrie see this once brash, cowboy-version of a spy – turning him into a “higher being” of sorts. Someone who is incorruptible, and yet routinely falls in love with a new woman in every second film.

At 170 mins, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is too bloated and assaults the tear ducts of fans of this long-standing franchise; even giving them a montage from previous films. Nostalgia is a low-hanging fruit and while it might work occasionally, the worst thing any series can do in its conclusion is become precious. I smirked in the final moments when Luther (Ving Rhames) goes on a Morgan Freeman-esque monologue. Tom Cruise and the Mission franchise have carved their place in cinema history; and now might be the right time to say goodbye.

*Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is playing in theatres

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