Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

When I walked out of the screening of The Final Reckoning -- intended to be the end of the Mission: Impossible franchise -- the cinema owner asked me my opinion, and all I had to say was, "Wow. That was a lot of movie."

As a standalone film, which it patently is not, it simply doesn't work. There are far too many flashbacks and callbacks in the first hour to previous entries that it feels like a televised recap before the series finale. Repetitive and condescending, the screenplay pauses in nearly every scene to describe explicitly what just happened, what's currently happening, and why it matters to the audience; it may be the talkiest action film ever made. And it's all deeply concerned with its own pretense, conceitedly pointing out the stakes at each turn and reminding us why Ethan Hunt and his impossible missions have, for over a generation now, enraptured audiences and encapsulated the art of filmmaking through the decades.

And it's for that reason that the film works wonderfully as a climax to the impossible missions of Hunt and of Tom Cruise himself. Not only does it ramp up the action to freshly imagined impossibilities for Hunt to endure, testing him beyond anything he's previously faced; The Final Reckoning reads like a swan song for Cruise, who is gifted with not only superhuman action prowess but a certain control over the visual language of the film. Despite his ghastly hairstyle in this film, he graces the screen with the surety and suavity he's mastered as an iconic brand his whole life. As a creative (and financial) power behind the scenes, one wonders at a few moments that exemplify his control over his own projects: during one of the most literally breathless sequences in the series, Hunt turns a submarine's wheel to devastating effect and the film's aspect ratio shifts from widescreen to IMAX. It's the kind of subtle flair Ang Lee tossed into Life of Pi, among other examples, and it makes the vision pop from our eyes to our whole being. I felt like my seat was vibrating in the screening; maybe it was me, maybe it was because I wasn't inhaling enough.

While the specifics of the villainous AI known as The Entity aren't all that clear -- be sure to rewatch (the retrospectively poorly-named) Dead Reckoning Part One for slightly better comprehension -- the point of this film is less topical and more mythological than its predecessor. Hunt is figured here as the savior of the world without much doubt or concession. President Sloane (Angela Bassett, gloriously returning) begs him, two months after Hunt retrieved the cruciform key to the Entity's source code, to save the world as the AI takes over various countries' governmental operations and nuclear weaponry; he accepts after demanding, essentially, carte blanche and whatever he deems necessary, including a warship in the Pacific. I chuckled as often as I gasped in this movie because, really, what else can you do with such material?

Unlike our ongoing onslaught of superhero films, Mission: Impossible always grounds its impracticalities and unlikelihoods with amazing effects and stunts, which is why I'd generally prefer these films to other action franchises. Cruise here astonishes with his endless running, jumping, running, swimming, running, falling, and more running, and his climactic chase on and around biplanes is exactly as thrilling as it should be. Under Christopher McQuarrie's now-masterful direction of the last few entries, this film smartly balances its extended action sequences with meaningful melodrama via its enormous cast of A-list stars, including returners Ving Rhames (who gets a fabulously emotional send-off), Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell (whose romantic purpose feels both underbaked and underserved here), Janet McTeer, Holt McCallany, Henry Czerny, Nick Offerman, Angela Bassett, Hannah Waddingham, Shea Wigham, and more. Esai Morales returns as the human face of villainy, though he has little to do and is as grating as Christoph Waltz in his Bond film, and Pom Kelementieff, who is thankfully less awkward in this picture than the last. And for its three-hour runtime, they all admirably step up to the plate in this final outing, making the time fly by.

McQuarrie and his co-writer don't inject much humor into this film, and while it does feel tonally more somber and apocalyptic than these movies usually do, it pays off in sentimental and nostalgic dividends. They know this is all ridiculous, and they know that's why we've loved it for so long, so they don't cheapen the experience one iota. Its seriousness might put off some fans, but I think the franchise deserves its eye-popping, breathtaking finale to take itself more seriously than usual. After all, it's a much different world than when Hunt accepted his first mission. I'd be interested to see the almost-six-hour full cut of the Dead Reckoning film altogether, because I think that would help the pacing and spectacle considerably; much like the final two Harry Potter films, the buildup and payoff work better continuously rather than separated. But I cannot deny that this is the most-movie movie I've seen in cinemas in years. 

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

It's all a matter of taste, but the Mission: Impossible movies are probably my favorite action/spy franchise. I do not like the Bourne series, Daniel Craig's James Bond was the only one I've enjoyed, and I dearly love John Wick but those aren't, strictly, spies, and so they don't have much of the same trademark inventive humor. Tom Cruise, whatever your opinion on the real person, makes damn good movies, as a producer, an actor, and a stuntman. That's not to say everything he touches is golden -- I'll never understand popular love of Top Gun or its recent sequel -- but when it comes to a franchise like this, he knows full well what his audience wants. More importantly, he continues to challenge himself, increase stakes, push cinematic boundaries, and defy death at an age when most actors start slowing down or shifting genres.

And, other than possibly the third film in the series, Dead Reckoning may be the scariest entry simply due to its topical content. It's a fairly straightforward plot, thankfully, though the specifics of everything are kept annoyingly vague: an experimental AI called "the Entity" has gained sentience and gone rogue, infiltrating the top military and intelligence networks of the world, and so the world powers are hunting a certain "cruciform" key that should enable the wielder to control the AI. Naturally, IMF offers the job of finding the key to Ethan Hunt (Cruise), whose quick impression of the stakes is that control over this monstrosity is too great for one person, so he and his team tentatively plan to destroy the AI if possible. As I said, though, the specifics are intentionally vague: nobody knows what exactly the Entity may or will do, what exactly the key will allow its bearer to do, or even for sure what the key unlocks or where this lock might be. So it's a lot of red herrings and "who knows" amidst this breakneck globetrotting chase.

Which is fine, surprisingly, because the film was always marketed as "Part One," so there's no sudden dissatisfaction from a cliffhanger ending or latent frustration at not having a cohesive story yet. A lot happens during this movie, but the basic plot is so simple it flies by from brilliantly staged action sequence to action sequence. It's roughly 160 minutes long and feels maybe half that. A few scenes in which people drop exposition quickly and thickly are a bit clunky, especially when the dialogue gets repetitive about what the Entity might access and how bad it would be if it fell into the "wrong hands," but apart from those moments, we clip along at a speedy pace that never feels hurried or wasteful.

Sadly, we don't get more of Angela Bassett from Fallout or some of the other memorable players who have briefly appeared in the series, but we do get some exciting new faces. Chief among them is Hayley Atwell as professional pickpocket Grace, who gets unwittingly caught up in this apocalyptic mess and provides most of the film's humor and sex appeal. I cringe a bit saying that, but other than Cruise, it's kind of true; the women in these movies aren't your vapid (or vampiric) Bond girls, and though they tend to fall for Mr. Hunt's charms, they are always strong on their own. And Atwell finds the perfect blend of suavity and clumsiness as her character starts understanding she's in way over her head. She's beautiful and brilliant and funny and I don't know why she hasn't become an A-lister in demand in Hollywood yet because she deserves it.

Speaking of love interests, Rebecca Ferguson is back as Ilsa Faust (who joined the series in Rogue Nation) to round out her story in this franchise. I don't really love her character, but Ferguson is wonderful and I was glad to see her here to wrap up her business with Ethan. Esai Morales pops in eventually as Gabriel, an amoral mercenary who has set himself up as a sort of proxy for the Entity in the real world, a self-described chaos agent hoping to use any means necessary to watch the world burn. He's scary, but there's a lot more to unravel here, so I hope Part Two will give us more of his story. Pom Klementieff shows up for the first time in this franchise as a silent assassin working with Gabriel, and while her physicality is unquestionable, her character doesn't really make much sense and I couldn't stomach her costume or hairstyle; she looked like she stepped out of a totally different franchise, maybe John Wick or Blade Runner, and it just didn't work for me. But we get the wonderful Vanessa Kirby again as the White Widow arms dealer, along with the usual team of Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg. 

And then there's Henry Czerny, back for the first time since the 1996 original, as former IMF director Kittridge. He's wonderful, of course, and his presence keyed me into something special about this installment. It feels more like Brian De Palma's first film than any other in the franchise, even after the soft reboot of aesthetics and style with Ghost Protocol in 2011. Director and writer Christopher McQuarrie seems ecstatic to be able to close the loop, so to speak, and bring things back to the beginning. It's not just in casting, or even in themes, though the screenplay works hard to open up Ethan's mind for us as he questions why he's doing these impossible tasks and what end he imagines for himself. It's hard, given Cruise's age and work, not to read lots of parallels between the actor and the character, and that was much the same back in 1996. But McQuarrie and his cinematographer also use a lot of similar visual cues in this film that hearken back to the original, most often with the close-up Dutch angles during intense conversations. Similarly, this film relies on two key things often associated with this franchise if in lesser amounts: earned suspense (not just action), and a focus on constant kinetic movement, perhaps best summed up in the climactic fight atop a speeding train.

I suggested it earlier, but coming back to it now: there's something scarily timely about a celebrity like Tom Cruise attempting to stop AI while questioning his livelihood and purpose. Of everything I anticipated and expected from this movie -- and it was considerable, after Fallout quickly climbed the list of my favorite action films -- I certainly did not expect to feel so much unease deep in my stomach while watching this amazing movie. 

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

This is one of those rare instances where a sequel is so amazing, it changes my opinion of the previous installment. Fallout is the fifth-act balls-to-the-wall, nonstop action, crazy complicated, knockout finale I wanted from Rogue Nation that we never got. Director Christopher McQuarrie returns as the first director to helm two Mission: Impossible films, and he proves his mettle not only in style and class and ingenuity (which he demonstrated almost ad nauseam in Rogue Nation) but with a level of insane action that, in my opinion, surpasses all that has come before in this franchise and in many others.

Fallout takes place not long after Rogue Nation with the splintering of the Syndicate and the capture of their leader, Solomon Lane. Now reorganized as the Apostles, the Syndicate remnant seek small, portable nuclear weapons in the form of plutonium spheres, which they acquire as a result of a botched mission by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team. Well, I say "botched," but that just means Ethan did his usual thing where he saves someone he cares about (in this case, Ving Rhames's beloved Luther) instead of accomplishing the mission the easy way. It's this heart of gold that will make it difficult to swallow another character (or actor) leading one of these movies, God forbid the day should come.

Then again, this film introduces a few new characters who are at once welcome and prove themselves extremely capable to carry the mantle. This time we still have Simon Pegg's Benji and Alec Baldwin's director-turned-secretary Hunley and thank heaven we still have a glorious amount of Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust. But now we have a new CIA director in the form of Erica Sloane, played by a fierce and formidable Angela Bassett, who really should have been featured more. We also have my personal favorite addition: Henry Cavill as August Walker, a CIA assassin (I know, I know, it's just too great) sent to shadow Ethan's team and make sure they succeed. Not only is he dark and more than a tad frightening, but Cavill shrugs off the mantle of CG action and superheroic world-smashing to reveal his incredible ability to match Cruise for every punch, every jump, every bonkers stunt, and even supercede him in panache and -- forgive me -- hunky appeal. That's no small feat.

Oh, and I almost forgot. There's a magnificent little performance by one Vanessa Kirby of recent fame as the White Widow, an arms dealer in the black market. Her glassy wide eyes and charming-if-scary grin made me guess at her identity about two seconds before it was revealed: the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave's "Max" from the first Mission: Impossible. What a great addition to this picture. I just can't even.

The film itself is long; perhaps too long. Its action sequences drag on and get increasingly violent and spectacular. Each one feels like a climax, and so the film becomes a test of our endurance as well as that of its characters. Its plot features numerous subplots and technical dialogue that frankly I couldn't follow and didn't really want to. Of course, because of the nature of these films, I didn't really need to. It's like a roller coaster: You can analyze things and anticipate them and reason around them, but ultimately it'll still take you on the same track with the same feelings and sensations if you're only there for the thrill. That's the magic of this franchise.

Unfortunately, the film will not go down as my favorite Mission because of its bloated length, convoluted plot, and surprising lack of "spy" genre trappings. Its humor is also at a series low-point, not in terms of quality but simply because everything in this one is just so serious. Its charms are many but its comedy is light, which is totally fine except that it doesn't always feel like a Mission: Impossible so much as a straightforward, unattached action movie. Then again, it's a damn good action movie; certainly one of the best this year if not the last decade. The cinematography is stunning, the editing fierce, and the sound mixing breathtaking. And the stunts -- the stunts. I've never seen so many climactic, death-defying stunts in one movie that I actually cared about. The filmmakers keep outdoing themselves with lengthy takes and outrageous stunts that I started to feel overwhelmed.

What else can I say? I love this series and I loved this film. I hope there's three more coming down the line, and more still. That might truly by an impossible mission, but something tells me Tom Cruise is up for the challenge.

IMDb: Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Ready Player One (2018)

Score: 3 / 5

In 2045, the world is apparently so wretched that people live for escapism. Columbus, Ohio, is such a highly populated and poorly regulated city that trash is piled almost as high as "the Stacks", a neighborhood of trailer homes on metal scaffolds that reach as high as skyscrapers. This is where Wade Watts lives (played by Tye Sheridan), a young orphan who obsessively lives in the OASIS, a virtual reality where pretty much everyone spends their time. Wade, however, is looking for the ultimate goal: the maker of the OASIS (a typically magnificent Mark Rylance) has included an Easter Egg; its finder will win control over the game.

Thus begins a science fiction adventure not unlike those that made Steven Spielberg famous. Wade gathers a group of oddball friends (including Olivia Cooke), pits himself against industry big-wig and power-mad poser Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), and leads a rebellion against big business seeking monopoly.

Ready Player One is in many ways a game within itself. It's so packed with movie, video game, and tv show references that I don't think there's a single person alive who knows them all. Apart from major set pieces and crucial plot points -- including King Kong and the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, Mechagodzilla and the Iron Giant, and a particularly fabulous scene inside The Shining -- almost every scene in the film includes figures such as Marvin the Martian and Freddy Krueger, who appear so quickly and so insignificantly that you could easily miss them. And that's assuming you even know all the references! I certainly didn't know half the things onscreen. At one point during the climax, a kid sitting behind me got excited because a squadron of Halo soldiers ran across the screen. I'm not even sure what Halo is.

These visuals present themselves in a mostly computer-generated world. It's awesome to behold, of course, much like things in The Hobbit or Avatar. Unlike those films, however, I found this movie to be particularly draining to view, because it moves so quickly and includes so much to watch for and pay attention to. There's only so much spectacle I can take before it all turns to mush in my brain, and with two hours and twenty minutes of running time, I was exhausted well before the halfway point.

Spielberg's gifts for amazing filmmaking aside, I did find myself disappointed with the story. It's really not a fresh tale, and it's not told in any original way. Visually, the movie rocks. Narratively, it falls flat, concerns flat characters, and can't outmaneuver sizable plot holes. Often I found myself wondering logistical things about the world of the film rather than giving myself over to the nostalgic pleasure; that detracts from what was obviously intended to be absorbing spectacle.

Then again, maybe that's just because I've never been a pop culture guru. I haven't read the book, but its author is credited as one of the screenwriters, so it's probably a close adaptation; I wonder if the novel suffers the same flaws in construction. But the movie surely speaks mostly to avid players of video games and creative fanatics who love to immerse themselves in fantasies of any media. And for that audience, its final message of taking a break and learning to engage with reality should be particularly poignant.

I don't know. I feel sort of "meh" about the whole thing. I could take it or leave it. It's diverting and fun (especially its soundtrack), but there's not much to chew on. Come for the spectacle, stay for Mark Rylance, and you'll walk out happy.

IMDb: Ready Player One

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Finally, the summer blockbuster we've been waiting for. Tarzan failed miserably, and the last good major flicks were from Marvel. In a hot season this devoid of decent action movies, just about anything might have done the trick. And while the newest Star Trek certainly delivers in all the crucial ways, it also leaves me feeling a bit underwhelmed.

As someone who has never seen anything Trek-related besides these reboot films, I may not speak with the most authority on these matters. I've heard that the film works best with its nostalgic, retro vibes and its pervasive senses of joy, humor, and adventure. We get more of the Spock-Kirk-McCoy bromance, the Spock-Uhura drama, and some nice insight into Sulu and Scott. This picture, far more than the first or second installments, fulfills the franchise's promise for exploration, adventure, and wonder. All fun, all the time. I totally get that. It's a rapturous fantasy, dazzling and wondrous in scope, layered with hue upon hue, vibrant and explosive, original and utterly absorbing.

The mind-numbing CGI and whirling cinematography through amazing alien worlds do their trick too: distraction. I've heard it argued both ways, and convincingly, but after the emotional and intellectual power-punches of the first two, this film really lets its heart take a break. Perhaps that was the smart decision, as the emotional climax of Into Darkness was so intense. But even what could be character-building arcs here are sacrificed in favor of blatant gags and quirky one-liners. The revved action sequences and heated style render the more sentimental dialogue tepid at best. And maybe that's okay for what amounts to a placeholder film in a franchise as extensive as this. But I just spent the time thinking and typing all this out to say that I'm just not sure, which may suggest the filmmakers weren't sure either, either in conception or execution. My bet is on the latter. Why? Because even some basic plot devices are illogical and filled with holes. I know I missed some, too, because of the frenetic pace of the film, but one that really pissed me off occurred when Scotty tells the captain that the dilapidated spaceship is impossible to fix, and in the next scene everything is fine and they're blasting off.

And that's to say nothing of the action sequences themselves, which are occasionally stupid and usually incoherent. They're a hell of a lot of fun, but I had trouble lining up placements and even location. Not that it even mattered most of the time; the film is so full of salvific coincidence and that it's hard to care much how our heroes escape or succeed because we innately know they will. Important plot pieces just click into place as they are needed with little or no explanation beyond screenwriting laziness.

For all that, though, it's a hell of a picture, and loads of fun. I'd watch it again, and be happy the whole time. It certainly whetted my appetite for another rollicking adventure. Tempered, I might add, by remembering that Anton Yelchin won't be there. Rest in peace.

IMDb: Star Trek Beyond

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Score: 3 / 5

This franchise has a lot to be said for it. I don't really want to try and give a concise opinion of all five films here, but I think this installment draws on each of the previous films so much that I'll probably reference them all at some point. And, in fact, that's probably my biggest problem with this picture as well: It feels totally derivative, a misshapen amalgam of images and ideas from its predecessors, wrapped up in a story that, though promising, never delivers its fifth-act knockout. And yes, I just mixed my metaphors. On purpose.

This film really was a great idea for the series. Our hero Ethan Hunt searches for proof of the Syndicate, a secret organization of criminals, while the IMF is disbanded and he himself is sought by the CIA for going rogue (and for his past recklessness). Along the way, Hunt learns that the Syndicate seems to largely be made up of agents thought to be dead from similar organizations around the world. I mean, how cool is that? Two mysterious "rogue nations" going at each other while both are hunted by the CIA. That sounds like a lot of room for elegant intrigue, travel and adventure, and good old-fashioned spying.

Unfortunately, that's not what happens. In strictest sense, yes, that's the plot, but writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and his team spend all their time and energy on endless chase sequences and fast, jittery violence that feels more an assault on us than on the characters. There is little (if any) sleuthing or sneaking, only momentary elegance (found, surprise surprise, in the opera sequence), and a plot so big-picture oriented that the details get lost in the action. Yes, it's a rogue organization, we get it, so can we make it a little less obvious? A little more subtlety would do well for both the characters and the filmmakers here.

We have a chase through the dark streets of London (like in the first movie), motorcycle chases (like in the second), gritty, color-graded violence (like in the third), and an aging hero (like in the fourth). And those are just the most obvious thefts. I'm not saying these are bad things. Indeed, the finale's chase through foggy London alleys is probably my favorite scene in the picture, precisely because it is so iconic (it clearly recalls moments from the opening sequence of film #1, by far my favorite sequence in the series). I would argue, though, that the only original moment in this film is (again) the opening sequence, though it feels more like a mini-film than an introduction. Actually, Cruise's obligatory descent into a high-security room to do something tech-savvy on a supercomputer is also riveting here, because said room happens to be full of fast-moving water. Other than these moments, though, the film is just a rehashing of old, well, hash.

That's not to say it's not well done. Even the oldest ideas are the most exciting, if presented skillfully. And here we have some lovely costumes, set pieces, and acting. In fact, newcomer Rebecca Ferguson is easily the most novel presence on screen. Smart and sexy, she brings proper enigma to the film, parrying Cruise's antics in every scene. She also, perhaps the greatest virtue of the script, proves herself a vicious, intelligent, and fully capable spy, both saving and beating Tom Cruise repeatedly. She is autonomous, makes dangerous decisions, and ultimately emerges victorious from her many struggles. She is the real hero of this movie. And of course Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames are a stellar combination of humor and heart. Besides introducing Ferguson's character, though, the script delivers no development for any of these men, making the heart of the film disappear beneath violence and extended chases.

Beyond these, there is little of novel interest. The mysterious Syndicate are caricatures, which might work if the film presented them as a constant, ever-present threat. But it doesn't. Rather, the dialogue repeatedly refers to them as such, but only visually presents them through their purported leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). This minimizes most of the enigma about the Syndicate, and, in case you disagree, the film repeatedly shows a close-up of his face just to remind you that he's the bad guy. And even this wouldn't be such an issue if he was a decent bad guy. But we barely see him fight, he's got weak screen presence (sorry, Harris, but you just don't compare to Philip Seymour Hoffman in #3), and it seems that the only reasonably scary thing about him is his voice.

For summer entertainment, you could definitely do worse. And it's not the worst in the series, either. For me, it's just difficult to swallow this picture after Ghost Protocol, with its clean action, rousing comedy, fresh faces, and palpable heart. Rogue Nation instead has shaky, handheld action, less plot (and intelligence), little humor, and mindless chase scenes. Let's hope we go back to basics for the next mission, should Cruise choose to accept it.

IMDb: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation