MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Stars: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Hayley Atwell, Greg Tarzan Davis, Esai Morales, Janet McTeer, Angela Bassett, Henry Czerny, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Charles Parnell, Nick Offerman, Holt McCallany, Shea Whigham, Tramell Tillman, Hannah Waddingham, Mark Gattis.
In 1996 Tom Cruise revamped the popular 60s spy series Mission: Impossible and brought it to the big screen. But whereas on tv the Impossible Missions Force used subtlety, subterfuge and psychology to outwit the enemy Cruise, as IMF leader Ethan Hunt, and his team used brawn and brute force to achieve their aims. And now, after thirty years and eight films, it has all come down to this one final mission to bring the behemoth franchise to a close.
The Final Reckoning follows on from the previous film Dead Reckoning and Hunt’s pursuit of the sinister rouge AI software known as “the entity” in order to keep kit out of the hands of master terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales). The entity has been evolving and has now gained access to the nuclear arsenals of several countries, thus threatening global annihilation. Hunt and his team – which consists of technical genius Benji (Simon Pegg), hacker genius Luther (Ving Rhames), pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell), and newbie Paris (Pom Klementieff) – are given just 24 hours to save the world from destruction.
Returning writer/director and regular Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie takes Hunt and his team on a global odyssey that races from London and its underground railway to the Hague and to a research station on a remote island in the Arctic, to a sunken Russian submarine and on to South Africa and the famed, secure Doomsday Vault. McQuarrie maintains a fast pace throughout, except when he slows down the action to allow for exposition dumps and pay homage to the other films in the series through flashbacks, allusions or reprising characters. Most notable is the reappearance of CIA analyst William Donloe (Rolf Saxon) from the first film, who is now the head of an arctic monitoring station.
Benji, Grace and Paris make their way to a remote Arctic monitoring station on St Matthew island in the Bering Sea to access some vital data from the Cold War-era sonar array. Meanwhile Hunt dives to the bottom of the ocean to gain entry into the Sevastapol, a sunken Russian submarine. There he makes his way through a succession of watertight hatches and waterlogged chambers to access the source code for the entity. His movements though destabilise the vessel.
Despite the sometimes-convoluted plotting, the film is technically well constructed with a high quotient of action. But the 170-minute running time is a little too generous and the film could have been tightened up to increase the tension and sense of urgency. A suspension of disbelief is sometimes required.
One of the key standout sequences from Dead Reckoning was the climactic showdown on a runaway train. Here it is an aerial dogfight featuring two biplanes. There are more aerial acrobatics and manouevres here than in The Great Waldo Pepper. Kudos to Cruise though for his commitment to authenticity by performing his own stunts in these dangerous scenes, albeit under tightly controlled conditions.
Cruise brings his usual earnestness to his role as Hunt. And as usual the seemingly indefatigable star does a lot of running in the film. Pegg brings some touches of humour to his role, while Atwell brings charm to her role. Rhames gets an opportunity to bid a poignant farewell to his character while Henry Czerny continues his ambiguous and oleaginous role as the untrustworthy and duplicitous Kittridge. Among the supporting cast are Angela Bassett, who brings strength to her role as Erika Sloane, former CIA director turned US President (a character obviously modelled on Kamala Harris), and comic actor Nick Offerman who essentially plays it straight as a general.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a fine conclusion to this franchise and will please fans of Cruise. If it makes a fortune at the box office will that be enough to bring Ethan Hunt out of retirement for one more mission? That remains to be seen. Given its reported $400 million budget, the film would need to gross over $1 billion to be considered a success. However, Cruise has proven himself at the box office for nearly four decades now, and his Top Gun: Maverick did gross over that magical milestone. So, a return to the franchise sometime in the near future is not entirely beyond the realms of possibility. Good luck!
