Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

 Blu-ray, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025) film

Long, bloated, comfortable stunt-mush was what I expected, and that's pretty much what I got, they aren't going to change the formula at this stage and at least by 'M:I4' they'd settled into a repetitive rut that was enjoyable enough, but not very different film after film. This one bucks the trend in some ways: yes, he still has long hair this time, it's even commented on, and the gang's all here (with one exception), there's gadgetry and stuntery, but it's a lot less wisecracking, there's a much more serious tone. I appreciated that, but where was the thrill and excitement of those early entries in what became such a long-running series. It chugs along like a behemoth as if it's got the weight of the seven previous films dragging it down, but it's not like it's crucial to have seen them - even the previous film of which this is a direct sequel is summed up at the start, as you'd expect for newcomers, and while it's fun to see the series tie in to some of what came before, like the film as a whole, it's rather heavy-handed. I was relieved they didn't try and make every film and villain lead to this moment, although there was some of that with the Rabbit's Foot, or the 'Anti-God' device, somehow connected to the Entity (maybe - I didn't quite catch all the details), and Jim Phelps' son, Jim Phelps, showing up (I've watched every episode of the series from the 60s and 70s in recent years, but it took them revealing police detective, or whatever he was, 'Dan Briggs' to be Phelps, Jr., for me to remember Briggs was the name of the original IMF leader!). It was nice in some ways to see clips from the other films, but I dreaded the retroactive turn into some major plot of interconnectivity that would push even the bounds of this series' believability! But it didn't.

The other thing that gave me pause early on was this cult of the Entity that was given a quasi-Christian feel with the adherents talking about Noah and the Ark and the flood wiping everyone out, but again, fortunately that side of things got about as much development and depth as most plot points (though someone does mention Noah again later, saying something about he must have wondered what it was all for - destroying the wickedness of the time and restarting, but fortunately, if anyone knew their Bible they'd know a second worldwide flood was promised never to happen, sealed with the sign of the rainbow when the atmosphere of the planet was changed forever), and it all settled down into a reasonably inoffensive trudge. What we're all waiting for, and it seems the film is, too, is the Big Stunt, the one Tom Cruise gets to do for real. I first thought it might just be the vehicle rolling over earlier in the underground car chase, but that was too small fry to be 'it' and then I remembered the Blu-ray case and its image of an upside-down biplane, so I knew what was coming, and it was almost worth seeing the film for, but my advice for the curious but uninvested would be to skip straight to that and bypass all the needless wild goose chase - a goose chase makes it sound more exciting than it was! It really was a stodgy mass of grind up to the big moment, and I sometimes found it hard to fathom characters' motivations. I suppose Gabriel, the big villain, whom we never learned any more about, simply wanted to control the entire planet and remake it in his own image, but he wasn't the most interesting opponent (if not the worst we've seen, either - that award still retained by the old guy in 'M:I4' who... pretty much wanted to do the same thing).

The big early 'shock' was Luther Sloan, the loyal computer whizz who's been in every film to lesser or greater extent since the beginning, the only one to be alongside Ethan all the way across this thirty year series, is killed, and setting the style, it's in a bit of a needless, pointless way as if merely to up the jeopardy, but I can imagine the actor didn't fancy running around at his age any more. His role was largely taken over by Benji (to the extent this supposed 'Q Branch'-style boffin is first involved in an actual fight, albeit one that ends with a bookcase on top of him, and later given team leader status when Ethan isn't sure he's going to make it back, which is patently ridiculous!). All the way through I was expecting Luther's demise to be a blind and really he'll show up at the end, alive and well, 'surprise!' It was purely due to the moment of death not being shown on screen. I was almost as equally surprised that Rebecca Ferguson didn't return as I'd thought it had been confirmed that she wasn't really dead in the last film and she'd be a part of this one somewhere, so right to the last scene I was expecting her to appear. I wasn't surprised they didn't kill off Ethan, ever since they almost did at the end of 'M:I3' and then Jeremy Renner seemed to be coached to be the action man to take his place, and then wasn't, Hunt's been certain to survive, though I'm at a loss where he got both a parachute and a backup, since it seemed like, as Gabriel said, there's only one, and he's got it. I expected Ethan to leap out after the villain's dead body, free-fall down to where he was dropping and recover the parachute, but no, although having seen the behind-the-scenes extras on the disc I was impressed Cruise did an actual drop with a burning parachute himself. Insane!

The real star of the show was William Donloe, the surprising breakout character that began the series as a hapless victim of Hunt's necessary deeds, a comical character only really there for amusement at his baffled gormlessness - I knew he'd be coming back, but was expecting a minor cameo, so it was nice that he got a proper happy ending to his story, one I kept expecting to go badly (at least twice it seemed he was about to die - in the fire at his house and then with the bomb in the tunnel), but it definitely seemed they wanted to redeem this guy from the Purgatory he'd been exiled to in the first film, and they gave him an understanding wife (very understanding, apparently, since she never even batted an eyelid at the fact their home of thirty years had been burned down - unless William never got around to telling her that bit since she was off on dogsled adventure when that happened...), and a happy, fulfilled life, which again, I kept expecting to end since he is an expendable character, but he gets to be the hero not once, but twice! Delightful, and redresses the balance of the past in a neat little bow. Who'd have thought he'd end up being part of the IMF team Ethan assembles, haphazardly as it is, joining Benji (whom we just can't seem to shake from the series!), and Paris, Degas and Grace from the previous film. I especially enjoyed having characters return, particularly Paris and Briggs: the former gets to continue her redemption as former 'Mayday'-like bad-gal, the latter revealed as Phelps' son whom Ethan has to impress by succeeding at the end. Disappointed no one else from the old films showed up, other than Angela Bassett as the President (!), and Kitridge there to cause trouble again, but considering this is supposed to be the final film (dependent on Paramount's need for dollars, I suspect), it would have been nice to have assembled more characters from past escapades.

No one else on the team dies so they could easily continue the series, but as far as I know this was meant to be the last, at least until they reboot it or do something different with it in the same continuity. But then that could be a marketing ploy - I almost went to see it in the cinema for sentimental reasons, even though the first one in the series I saw 'live' was 'M:I2' and the last was 'M:I5,' so I haven't been enamoured enough with the direction of the last four to make the effort and I was glad I didn't: it was fine as it was, but it's far too 'fate of the world'-level to really care, when you go that far it's too far beyond the personal and so you get confusing plot points like the President has to decide whether to blow up an American city for some reason (which seemed ripped right out of 'The Dark Knight' and its two ships with a button to blow up the other on each). I don't know, to prove they won't use their arsenal against Russia and China, maybe? For such a momentous part of the plot, it didn't come across very clearly. In reality, on realising their Cold War enemy no longer had the means to defend itself the other two countries would immediately demand the US capitulate to any and all demands, but the whole set up was so plotty: the Entity is going to blow up the world, but only after sealing itself in a vault, but that's also when it'll be at its most vulnerable and they can trap it. But Gabriel wants to control it... And everyone's second-guessing what they're doing because it could all be an elaborate ruse by the artificial intelligence to get them to comply... I can imagine a far better film full of paranoia and only the true friends sticking together can pull victory through, and anyone could be someone they're not - even in the older films they had the face masks, but now the Entity can digitally recreate anyone, but that never got explored.

Plotty, that's just the word for it. Maybe they were trying to squeeze in too much because a popcorn thriller doesn't need to be almost three hours long, it's supposed to move deftly and efficiently, not trundle and bump along like a jalopy. The characters have never been developed enough for it to be an enjoyable experience merely to be in their presence, and as much as I like most of them, it was quite hard work in the first two-thirds of the film. There wasn't even that much to note or nitpick because the story was progressing so glacially. It became more of a man on his own mission, so there's not a lot of interplay or split-second teamwork. So what else to say? It showed that it's time to put the series to bed, Cruise can't hide his ageing any more, not that I mind seeing people older than me still repeating their greatest hits, and I seeing how they accomplished some of the plane stunts only adds to their glory, but as an entertainment experience it's far too weighed down. They try to throw in some positive messages about working together, and only by trusting each other can we defeat entities that are out to divide us, but it's all very simplistic and shallow. Would I really choose to wade through this and the last few films if I was after something good to watch? Probably not, they've become more of a mere accompaniment to life, continuing something that's been around these last four decades and is familiar and comfortable, but nothing more than that, where when I was younger I was blown away by the excitement, ideas and execution.

Part of the fault must lie with Director Christopher McQuarrie who I take it is someone malleable for Cruise to collaborate with, but I feel a director needs their own definitive vision (for that matter, why doesn't Cruise simply take on the full reins of directing himself?), and for the first two-and-a-half they had that with well-established action directors giving each film in the series its own very unique style and approach. Once that formula misfired with the fourth in the series, they settled on McQuarrie for these last four instead of branching out and having a James Cameron, a George Lucas, or a Spielberg, a Nolan, whoever, but someone that brings something visually entirely different. McQuarrie's fine, but I liked the idea of each film having its own strict identity. Having seen the entire TV series in the years since, however, I do understand that all the stories start to blur together and if you keep trying to top the stakes of the previous one you get, well, 'Fast & Furious.' I assume it's all about money and Cruise control, because the music was another area that doesn't stand out at all and I discovered the two composers are people I've never even heard of before so it seems they're trying to go cheaper to keep the profits high. Not to say all these people don't need to break out and find success, and maybe that's the reason (I assume), no one's particularly excited to make an 'M:I' film since it's been around so long and is just more of the same.

One thing about this film in particular is that it's no longer escapist, they're trying to hit on current themes, supposedly to hit the 'zeitgeist,' but what was great about the older films was you didn't have to think about modern problems, it was just expert, cunning precision plotting and action. Granted, I'm now older and harder to impress, I've seen it all before in this and other films, and I suppose that's why these things tend to be aimed at teens or twenty-somethings, because they don't have either the life experience or film-watching experience to be as unimpressed (though I did enjoy the references back to 8-inch floppy disks, the kind used by the Commodore 64 in the 80s - although I'm not sure it made sense for the data to be on such an old medium in the late-90s...). I didn't have many actual nitpicks for the film because it didn't seem all that detail-oriented, although I did baulk at the President of the US directly contacting Ethan until we later find out it's Bassett's character who obviously has history with him. I did find myself surprised he doesn't seem to have the same aversion to killing that he used to - I know when he ordered 'zero body count' in the first film it was because they were breaking into the CIA, but he's generally been quite a moral hero regarding such things, only killing when necessary, but here he violently goes after the goons that were threatening Grace and himself when all that was required was to knock them unconscious. At least we didn't see it all, happening off-camera in a semi-humorous way with the violence portrayed in shock on Grace's face. In fact this was one of the more restrained films in the series, especially considering it's the most recent one and films tend to be increasingly graphic, always have to use their quotient of one really nasty swearword, etc, but there was very little bad language and the violence wasn't extreme, so I appreciated that side of their decision-making.

Hunt/Cruise loves to run, so there's always got to be scenes of him pounding through streets or whatever, but it does make you wonder why he didn't simply borrow a car, hot-wire it and be on his way? I also did not buy Luther's reassuring words about being right where he wanted to be, born to be there, etc: what, strapped to a bomb that's about to go off? For all the series' reliance on gadgets and intelligence, they're beaten by a metal gate? Come on! Hunt would have found a bulldozer and smashed through the wall to save his friend. Occasionally there's a spot of realism to appreciate, like when Donloe's Inuit wife whacks a Russian soldier with a shovel and he merely looks at her! But then shortly after that is when you see Benji in a fight, which stretches credibility... It's hard to sum up a series I first loved and has been going for thirty long years, even though I wasn't there right from the beginning. I'm glad it exists, and to be honest, wouldn't be shocked it keeps going with a ninth and a tenth instalment if Cruise's appetite for stunts entices him back, but you can't keep putting your body on the line year after year in your 60s, so maybe he has retired for good. I can imagine a limited TV series being a suitable alternative with Cruise either absent or the boss giving out the orders, but at the same time that just doesn't seem his style. Where next for the IMF? I don't know, but let's have some serious editing next time, it really doesn't need to be as long as 'The Fellowship of The Ring'!

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