Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Review: An Uneven, Visceral Capstone

“I’m going to miss being disreputable,” Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell grumbles to Tom Cruise’s now-iconic superspy after their first of many impossible missions. It’s 1996 and these brazen upstarts sip beer outside a pub, preparing to part ways forever. “Well, Luther,” Ethan assures with a smirk, “if it makes you feel any better, I’ll always think of you that way.” It’s a lovely, quiet moment, germinating the earnest warmth that makes Mission: Impossible endure.

That endurance, longevity, and the ever-increasing scope they persist under both fuel and plague Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. In its aims, director Chris McQuarrie and co-writer Erik Jendersen’s script serves as a capstone to this monumental action franchise. It also attempts the semblance of a standalone film, accessible to any viewer who is (for some reason) fresh to the series in its eighth, presumably ultimate entry. One sympathizes; the task is certainly McQuarrie’s most impossible mission. The inevitable critical mass Mission: Impossible has reached causes The Final Reckoning‘s to lumber and veer under the immense weight––for a time. While admirably avoiding prep and homework for the audience (two things required by most current blockbuster sequels), standing alone means resetting the table, not just from the conclusion of Dead Reckoning, Part One, but the entire 30 years prior. The Final Reckoning’s first hour is both catching-up and carrying-on at the same time. Its key visual distinction is being the sole Mission with flashbacks to other films––a juggle of visual rhythm for which editor Eddie Hamilton is an MVP.

There’s a swarm of callbacks, retcons, and tie-ins. Some are clunky and labored; others are graceful and poetic. Rolf Saxon’s return as the sandbagged CIA technician William Donloe from the first film adds an unexpected tenderness to Final Reckoning‘s brooding atmosphere, and the reemergence of a certain MacGuffin is a clever thread haunting Ethan Hunt, whose most emotional choices bear the greatest cost. This is a roadmap for the uninitiated and potential redundancy for those in the know. A closet of skeletons pile up as we rejoin Ethan Hunt, finally crumbling under the pressure of being Ethan Hunt. His pleading with everyone in the chain of command for their trust in order to kill his cataclysmic A.I. foe “The Entity” is a lot of red tape to get through. The resulting structure of the film, though never boring, is lopsided. Yet that plea for trust is earned: once The Final Reckoning pulls the ripcord, its peaks are far greater than its valleys, and the heights are unparalleled.

From the depths of the North Atlantic to the skies above South Africa, the film’s second half hones things considerably as it enters a “hold my beer” mode. Here McQuarrie and Cruise are ever-reverent cinema scholars. Though they’d deny resorting to deliberate homage, they evoke the likes of 1968’s Ice Station Zebra, featuring a magnetic submarine captain in Tramell Tillman. The marquee biplane sequence is an amped-up version of the breathtaking wing-walking in George Roy Hill’s The Great Waldo Pepper. There’s even a bit of Porco Rosso thrown in by Esai Morales’ gleeful, scenery-chewing villainy. All of this is timed to a ticking clock of atomic anxiety: McQuarrie’s own rendition of Fail Safe starring Angela Bassett. The one-two punch of these key setpieces––a deep dive through a derelict submarine as it imminently tumbles to the ocean floor, a breakneck plane chase in the eleventh hour––is a high point for this series and some of the most breathless action you’re liable to see on the big screen.

Though these disparate influences and aesthetics aren’t as cohesive as previous entries, the second-to-second oscillation between laughter and terror is a joy to endure. The Final Reckoning‘s sum is not necessarily equal to its parts, but where the film stumbles technically, it soars viscerally, bolstered by the simple comfort that it’s just nice to hang with our friends in the IMF (even if they are stressed beyond measure). Finding it hard to say goodbye, there’s a precious nature to each of The Final Reckoning’s 169 minutes. Mission: Impossible, if nothing else, is a film education wrapped in big entertainment. It set itself apart from contemporaries by evolving, taking risks, and fostering a respect for the medium and its history. How many other franchises would prompt a curious viewer to seek out Topkapi, Hard Boiled, Safety Last! and What’s Up, Doc?

Ethan, Luther, Benji, and the IMF may not stick around to be disreputable, but I’ll always think of them that way.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning opens in theaters on May 23.