I read somewhere that Tom Cruise might do Mission: Impossible movies till he's ninety. That's "crazy town". I mean there's no way that could happen but you've got to admire Tommy boy's ambition. At 62, he's rolled out 2025's Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, a 170-minute sequel and supposedly the last installment in the franchise. Yeah right. Based on the closing shot of "Final Reckoning", I "reckon" no. Hey, you heard what the Cruiser said.
Anyway Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning unfortunately does what "Dead Reckoning Part One" did two years ago. It provides an uneven, elongated script that nearly dumb-s down the actors. The film is about Ethan Hunt and his buds trying to stop an (AI) called the Entity who could destroy mankind. Yup, that was off of "Final Reckoning's" wiki page, I'm not gonna lie. Otherwise everything else in terms of the flick's diegesis is balderdash in the purest form.
So what's left to admire with "Final Reckoning?" Well you have shootout and/or fistfight scenes and the Cruiser risking his life doing his own stunts. I mean isn't that why we pony up $10.50? Sadly either said scenes are cut too quickly or Tom's Hunt takes forever to retrieve a submarine module underwater or chase down a baddie in a biplane. Yeah, I'm thinking Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning needed an editor with a tighter sense of craft or someone with the legendary pedigree of Thelma Schoonmaker to sift through the whole lumpy shebang. "This can't all be true". But it is my dear, it truly is.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is directed by Christopher McQuarrie, a sometimes meat and potatoes filmmaker and Tom Cruise's cinematic, Siamese twin. I mean I liked his touches in the first hour, what with all the psychedelic fast cutting and the flashbacks, a sort of greatest hits collection in regards to the other seven M:I pics that came before it. But ultimately, "Final Reckoning" is a slight letdown, an almost blatant excuse to put out another one of these bloated things in 2-3 years. More of Tom Cruise running (eh), more of Simon Pegg acting like well, Simon Pegg (ugh), more globetrotting than the TV show Where in the World is Matt Lauer (double ugh), and Hunt having to save the world because no one else can fit it in their darn calendar. Um, there's no "self-destructing messaging" going on here. Natch.
Written by Jesse Burleson
