*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The Mission: Impossible movie franchise has had a unique trajectory.
The first installment was a better-than-average 90s spy thriller that was mostly an updated, big-budget version of the TV show. Built around Tom Cruise’s star power, M:I gets points for a few clever effects and an iconic infiltration scene (Cruise suspended in silence in an all-white room at Langley).
The second film tried to be something more, but largely failed: A so-so John Woo-directed outing that relied too much on slow-motion shots and a cartoonish villain with less nuance even than the first film. Still, there were some fun action sequences—and, most importantly, the movie made money.
The third installment showed much more promise. Philip Seymour Hoffman was superb as the villain, but, perhaps due to the lackluster second outing, M:I III wasn’t as profitable as either of its predecessors.
Still, there was some magic. Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation nailed the formula: exotic locales, insane Cruise stunts, better pacing than 1 or (especially) 2, a more robust supporting cast, including a larger role for Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn.
Fallout is probably the best possible version of this type of movie. IMAX eye candy abounds, and Henry Cavill is a perfect adversary for Cruise, the first time the series gave Cruise a foil who, crucially, seemed like a younger, upgraded version of Hunt. The film also cleans up one of the only negatives of four and five: the confusing status of Hunt’s relationship with his wife.
Those first half-dozen movies are the first and only time I can think of a movie franchise that started off ok, dipped, got better, then even better until peaking with the sixth installment. Normally, movie sequels leave us in the land of diminishing returns. An early entry or two does well, which makes producers want to keep churning these things out, quality be damned, and the box office and critical performance almost inevitably dips.
Mission: Impossible obliterated that pattern like Ethan Hunt smashing feet-first through a window. Box office performance got better over time, and the critical response skyrocketed. Unprecedented. And it achieved this with a list of established directors, each with a slightly different vision: Brian DePalma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams (who probably saved the series), Brad Bird (who took it to another level), and Christopher McQuarrie (who eventually perfected it).
Those first six films set the stage for the series to come to a triumphant end, which would (akin to Harry Potter and The Hunger Games) be spread across two movies.
Dead Reckoning Part One had a few issues, but it was merely the first part in a two-part finale, after all. What was rather unexpected was how much the seventh installment struggled at the box office in a way that its predecessors hadn’t—and with a much bigger budget. It had the second-lowest domestic box office of any of the films, a major disappointment for Cruise and Paramount after the near-miraculous, record-breaking success of Top Gun: Maverick.
But they were committed now. After all, this was Dead Reckoning Part One.
After the relative failure of the first half, they course-corrected slightly by retitling the final sequel The Final Reckoning, rather than saddling it with a name attached to an underperforming predecessor.
That brings me at last to the finale. Unfortunately, the movie itself descended almost comically into an overly convoluted plot that is salvaged only by the usual insane Cruise stunts and set pieces, as well as an unexpected and enjoyable (if a little overwrought) redemption arc.
Let me back up: on paper, this installment checks the usual Mission: Impossible boxes. Far-flung locations, detailed fight choreography, But we’re still left with the core problem that the primary villain is computer code. Moreover, we are reminded in nearly every scene of the stakes of the film, and reminded in a way that is darker and more relentless than prior installments.
For example, M:I4 also had a potential nuclear apocalypse as part of the stakes (or at least San Francisco getting nuked), but there was never a point where that movie didn’t feel fun. By contrast, Dead Reckoning seemed like a bit of a downer, as the notion of a sentient AI and manipulation of misinformation felt too close to our actual reality to be as enjoyable.
That leads to a related problem. It’s as if one of the producers looked at the series as a whole and thought, “You know what people really like about this series? How complicated some of the missions are. Since this is the last one, we should make this the most complicated mission yet!”
Therein lies the biggest challenge of Final Reckoning. Each step in the process of achieving the mission is so convoluted that characters spend about 25 percent of the movie explaining to other characters what has to happen next—often in painstaking detail, so that the audience can follow it.
At the same time, the focus on these details often sacrifices clarity around other plot points. Such as:
- Did Luther (series stalwart Ving Rhames) have cancer or some other terminal illness? It’s clear the answer is “yes,” but this is never explained in any way.
- If Ethan wanted to give Gabriel the source code at the end (as he tells Kittrich in front of Gabriel!), and Gabriel wanted said source code, why does Gabriel run away and leave Hunt (and the source code!) to presumably be destroyed in an explosion? Isn’t possession of that source code essential to Gabriel’s plan of bringing The Entity under Gabriel’s control?
- Why make Briggs be the son of Jim Phelps? This seems like pointless “full-circling,” a la making Rey the granddaughter of Palpatine in Star Wars. Didn’t need that.
- How many scenes in the first half of this movie have characters silently holding “the key” up and admiring it while the music swells?
- This isn’t unique to Final Reckoning, but why is this movie series so weird with Ethan Hunt’s relationship with women? In nearly every movie (except M:I3, when a major plot point is that he has just gotten engaged), Hunt has strange interactions with women that are not sexual but have some of the trappings of sexuality. Luther speaks of Ilsa as if Ethan loves her, but his words are always chosen very carefully to leave room that the bond between them is platonic. In a more recent example, in Final Reckoning, Grace (Hayley Atwell) rescues Ethan after he nearly drowns while retrieving the key. But she doesn’t kiss him, she gives him mouth-to-mouth. She doesn’t sleep with him, but wakes up next to him in the depressurizing chamber as if they did have sex (but they didn’t!). It’s all very peculiar, and there are scenes in nearly all of these movies that have similar strangeness. It’s like we’re always supposed to think of Ethan and these women as partnered up, but they very clearly are not.
- And what is with that final scene? Everyone meets in Trafalgar Square, nods, and goes their separate ways? I get that the idea is to give the audience something that features all of the main members of the final mission team (and to let us know Benji survived), but, in reality, only Grace and Ethan needed to be there to make that exchange.
And maybe the biggest question of all: why is everything normal at the end of Final Reckoning?
That is, due to the numerous reminders of the stakes during the movie, one point driven home was that the protagonists were attempting to choose the lesser of two bad options. Even in the scenario where Hunt destroys The Entity, cyberspace itself would be destroyed, creating economic turmoil and likely leading to armed conflict (just something far less destructive than the all-out nuclear war that the Entity tried to create).
But none of that appears to happen. Everything in London seems perfectly normal at the end of the movie. There are only three possibilities. One, faced with the loss of cyberspace, the civilized world actually adjusts very quickly, rekindling its lost love of pre-2000 contact and human interaction.
Two, for reasons unexplained, the idea that destroying the Entity would destroy cyberspace turned out to be wrong. Cyberspace is alive and well, and the Entity is safely trapped in the 5D drive Ethan now has.
Three, the most likely option: the writers simply forgot (or decided not) to pay off their own premise, because they didn’t want anything that couldn’t be construed as a happy ending. Any remaining chance to show that espionage and statecraft comes with trade-offs, even when you “win,” or that IMF’s activities create, you know, fallout, gave way to a desire for a simple, upbeat ending.
It isn’t all bad, though. The action is fine. We get an obligatory mask reveal. Cruise is a madman when it comes to stunts. The scenes in U.S. High Command are genuinely tense. The completely unexpected William Donloe redemption storyline was terrific, although I would have left him on that island. It’s a stretch that he would accompany them to South Africa, and it definitely doesn’t make sense that he would bring his civilian wife with him.
Similarly, I’m left thinking that the series would have had a more fitting end if Ethan’s back-up parachute hadn’t opened, and he had died with his final act having saved the world from annihilation.
But that was never going to be this movie, of course. Final Reckoning is a bit of a mess that made me glad that it’s the last one. The series overall is quite good, but my main thought while watching M:I8 was “it’s time.”
We are left with a decent enough finale. Mission: Impossible goes out not quite with a whimper, but certainly on a bit of a soft note.
___
Post-script—my personal ranking of the films:
1. Fallout (6)
2. Ghost Protocol (4)
3. Rogue Nation (5)
4. Mission: Impossible III
5. Dead Reckoning Part One (7)
6. Mission: Impossible
7. The Final Reckoning (8)
8. Mission: Impossible 2
The top four or five on this list are all excellent action movies. The original is a solid first outing. The final installment is flawed and has a messy plot but could be worse. The second entry suffers from a few issues but is still not terrible.
The Axis of Ego 
Timely Movie Review: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
The Mission: Impossible movie franchise has had a unique trajectory.
The first installment was a better-than-average 90s spy thriller that was mostly an updated, big-budget version of the TV show. Built around Tom Cruise’s star power, M:I gets points for a few clever effects and an iconic infiltration scene (Cruise suspended in silence in an all-white room at Langley).
The second film tried to be something more, but largely failed: A so-so John Woo-directed outing that relied too much on slow-motion shots and a cartoonish villain with less nuance even than the first film. Still, there were some fun action sequences—and, most importantly, the movie made money.
The third installment showed much more promise. Philip Seymour Hoffman was superb as the villain, but, perhaps due to the lackluster second outing, M:I III wasn’t as profitable as either of its predecessors.
Still, there was some magic. Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation nailed the formula: exotic locales, insane Cruise stunts, better pacing than 1 or (especially) 2, a more robust supporting cast, including a larger role for Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn.
Fallout is probably the best possible version of this type of movie. IMAX eye candy abounds, and Henry Cavill is a perfect adversary for Cruise, the first time the series gave Cruise a foil who, crucially, seemed like a younger, upgraded version of Hunt. The film also cleans up one of the only negatives of four and five: the confusing status of Hunt’s relationship with his wife.
Those first half-dozen movies are the first and only time I can think of a movie franchise that started off ok, dipped, got better, then even better until peaking with the sixth installment. Normally, movie sequels leave us in the land of diminishing returns. An early entry or two does well, which makes producers want to keep churning these things out, quality be damned, and the box office and critical performance almost inevitably dips.
Mission: Impossible obliterated that pattern like Ethan Hunt smashing feet-first through a window. Box office performance got better over time, and the critical response skyrocketed. Unprecedented. And it achieved this with a list of established directors, each with a slightly different vision: Brian DePalma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams (who probably saved the series), Brad Bird (who took it to another level), and Christopher McQuarrie (who eventually perfected it).
Those first six films set the stage for the series to come to a triumphant end, which would (akin to Harry Potter and The Hunger Games) be spread across two movies.
Dead Reckoning Part One had a few issues, but it was merely the first part in a two-part finale, after all. What was rather unexpected was how much the seventh installment struggled at the box office in a way that its predecessors hadn’t—and with a much bigger budget. It had the second-lowest domestic box office of any of the films, a major disappointment for Cruise and Paramount after the near-miraculous, record-breaking success of Top Gun: Maverick.
But they were committed now. After all, this was Dead Reckoning Part One.
After the relative failure of the first half, they course-corrected slightly by retitling the final sequel The Final Reckoning, rather than saddling it with a name attached to an underperforming predecessor.
That brings me at last to the finale. Unfortunately, the movie itself descended almost comically into an overly convoluted plot that is salvaged only by the usual insane Cruise stunts and set pieces, as well as an unexpected and enjoyable (if a little overwrought) redemption arc.
Let me back up: on paper, this installment checks the usual Mission: Impossible boxes. Far-flung locations, detailed fight choreography, But we’re still left with the core problem that the primary villain is computer code. Moreover, we are reminded in nearly every scene of the stakes of the film, and reminded in a way that is darker and more relentless than prior installments.
For example, M:I4 also had a potential nuclear apocalypse as part of the stakes (or at least San Francisco getting nuked), but there was never a point where that movie didn’t feel fun. By contrast, Dead Reckoning seemed like a bit of a downer, as the notion of a sentient AI and manipulation of misinformation felt too close to our actual reality to be as enjoyable.
That leads to a related problem. It’s as if one of the producers looked at the series as a whole and thought, “You know what people really like about this series? How complicated some of the missions are. Since this is the last one, we should make this the most complicated mission yet!”
Therein lies the biggest challenge of Final Reckoning. Each step in the process of achieving the mission is so convoluted that characters spend about 25 percent of the movie explaining to other characters what has to happen next—often in painstaking detail, so that the audience can follow it.
At the same time, the focus on these details often sacrifices clarity around other plot points. Such as:
And maybe the biggest question of all: why is everything normal at the end of Final Reckoning?
That is, due to the numerous reminders of the stakes during the movie, one point driven home was that the protagonists were attempting to choose the lesser of two bad options. Even in the scenario where Hunt destroys The Entity, cyberspace itself would be destroyed, creating economic turmoil and likely leading to armed conflict (just something far less destructive than the all-out nuclear war that the Entity tried to create).
But none of that appears to happen. Everything in London seems perfectly normal at the end of the movie. There are only three possibilities. One, faced with the loss of cyberspace, the civilized world actually adjusts very quickly, rekindling its lost love of pre-2000 contact and human interaction.
Two, for reasons unexplained, the idea that destroying the Entity would destroy cyberspace turned out to be wrong. Cyberspace is alive and well, and the Entity is safely trapped in the 5D drive Ethan now has.
Three, the most likely option: the writers simply forgot (or decided not) to pay off their own premise, because they didn’t want anything that couldn’t be construed as a happy ending. Any remaining chance to show that espionage and statecraft comes with trade-offs, even when you “win,” or that IMF’s activities create, you know, fallout, gave way to a desire for a simple, upbeat ending.
It isn’t all bad, though. The action is fine. We get an obligatory mask reveal. Cruise is a madman when it comes to stunts. The scenes in U.S. High Command are genuinely tense. The completely unexpected William Donloe redemption storyline was terrific, although I would have left him on that island. It’s a stretch that he would accompany them to South Africa, and it definitely doesn’t make sense that he would bring his civilian wife with him.
Similarly, I’m left thinking that the series would have had a more fitting end if Ethan’s back-up parachute hadn’t opened, and he had died with his final act having saved the world from annihilation.
But that was never going to be this movie, of course. Final Reckoning is a bit of a mess that made me glad that it’s the last one. The series overall is quite good, but my main thought while watching M:I8 was “it’s time.”
We are left with a decent enough finale. Mission: Impossible goes out not quite with a whimper, but certainly on a bit of a soft note.
___
Post-script—my personal ranking of the films:
1. Fallout (6)
2. Ghost Protocol (4)
3. Rogue Nation (5)
4. Mission: Impossible III
5. Dead Reckoning Part One (7)
6. Mission: Impossible
7. The Final Reckoning (8)
8. Mission: Impossible 2
The top four or five on this list are all excellent action movies. The original is a solid first outing. The final installment is flawed and has a messy plot but could be worse. The second entry suffers from a few issues but is still not terrible.
Share this:
Related