Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning, took me some time to watch because Im not really attracted to this franchise anymore honestly but I knew at some going I was going to watch, this movie is one of those movies where Tom Cruise does some absolutely insane shit on screen and you sit there thinking how the hell is this guy still alive at sixty two years old because the stunts in this thing are no joke and worth the price of the theater ticket but it has some holes in it, the movie. The submarine part where he is diving down into this Russian sub thats rolling down an underwater mountain is probably the best action sequence in the entire franchise and then that plane part at the end where he is hanging off these old biplanes doing flips and fighting Gabriel mid air while trying to save the world is just nuts, but here is the problem with this movie, everything else around those crazy stunts feels like a two hour and 49 minute meeting where people just keep talking and talking about what they gotta do next or what just happened or what could happen if they dont do this or that. The whole thing tries way too hard to tie the entire franchise together by bringing back stuff from Mission Impossible 3, none of it needs to be there at all because it just makes everything more confusing. Christopher McQuarrie clearly wrote the action scenes first and then scrambled to build a story around them and it shows big time because the pacing is all over the place, the first hour could have been thirty minutes shorter if they cut out all those repetitive flashback scenes and exposition dumps that slow everything down.
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For the most part the movie is not bad so here some of what actually works here because there is some impressive stuff happening when the movie shuts up and lets the action do the talking, like that submarine sequence is just spectacular and you can tell its all real water and practical effects with Tom Cruise actually doing this stuff himself at the bottom of a tank or wherever they filmed it, at least that was my first impression. The way the sub spins around while Ethan is inside trying to grab this thing called the Podkova, witch is basically a hard drive with the AI source code on it and torpedo are sliding around and he has to time his movements perfectly or he dies, its just insane filmmaking that reminds you why this franchise has lasted so long in the first place. You feel the weight of the water and the pressure and the danger because its all actually happening in front of the camera instead of looking like a video game cutscene like most action movies these days, and the same goes for that biplane sequence at the end where Tom Cruise is literally on the outside of these planes flying around at sixty two years old doing stuff that should not be possible for anyone much less a guy whos been doing this for almost thirty years now. The guy is in better shape than most people half his age and he is out here risking his life for our entertainment, you got to respect that level of commitment even if the story around it is a mess, these are the moments that make Mission Impossible special and this one delivers on that front big time even if nothing else works.
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The problem with Final Reckoning is that it spends so much time trying to connect everything from the past movies that it forgets to tell a good story in the present, like the first hour is just constant old data dump reminding you about stuff that happened in previous movies. They show you clips from Mission Impossible 3 about the rabbits foot witch turns out was actually the proto AI that created the entity, so now Ethan is personally responsable for this whole mess witch could have been interesting if they actually did something with it but they dont, its just there to make you go oh wow everything was connected all along when really it just feels force. Then they bring back that scientist from the very first Mission Impossible and make this big deal about how a knife getting dropped during that heist ruined this guys life for thirty years but then the guy is like actually it was great I found my wife so no hard feelings and its just like why did we spend ten minuts on this if it doesnt matter at all. The movie keeps doing this thing where it introduces a character or a plot point and then immediately has to pause everything to explain it with flashbacks, so you never get into a rythm because you are constantly stopping to look backwards instead of moving forwards and they even do flashbacks to stuff that happened in Dead Reckoning Part One, like we remember Rebecca Ferguson dying you dont need to show us clips of it again we were there, I know I'm actually ranting a bit for a movie that I did enjoy watching but I'm ranting about the story that was suppose to build up during the movie, its over two hours so you expect character build up not tons of flashbacks.
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Gabriel is suppose to be this big scary villian but he is one of the weakest ones in the franchise, he just shows up and talks in this weird way about how everything is written and the entity has a plan for everyone, but then halfway through the entity abandons him so now he wants to control it himself for some reason that never gets explained properly. The actor does his best with what hes given but the character just isnt interesting at all, he doesnt have any real motivation beyond being evil and serving this AI, and when he finally dies at the end its in the most boring way possible where he just falls off a plane and hits the tail and thats it, no big fight or emotional payoff just dead. Compare that to how they handled villain like Solomon Lane or even Sean Ambrose from the second movie, those guys felt dangerous and had actual reasons for doing what they did, Gabriel is just there because the script needs someone for Ethan to fight every now and then, and the entity itself is also boring as far as AI threats go. Its just doing the standard take over all the nukes and destroy humanity thing witch feels like something from a ninety s action movie, there is no new ideas here and the movie doesnt have anything interesting to say about AI or technology even though we are living in a time where AI is everywhere, they had a great chance to make some kind of statement but instead just went with the most generic plot possible witch is disappointing.
The best parts are when Ethan is underwater fighting for his life or hanging off planes, lest face it the movie is all action no story just flashbacks, thats only time when the movie comes alive and you remember why people still care about this franchise after all these years but they needed a way better script to hang all these amazing stunts on instead of this mess, if Im not mistaken they did this movie to kinda kill it because its just too much, even for the Fast and Furious there was a time they had to pivot and create the monster that it is today, there has to be a stop. The emotional side of the story dont land at all because we dont spend enough time with anyone, like Luthers death should have been this huge moment but it feels rushed and we barely get time to process it before moving on to the next stunt, same with Benji getting shot and having to talk someone through defusing a server while he is getting emergency surgery, witch should be super tense but its just one of like seven impossible things happening at the same time so it loses all its impact. The movie throws so much at you in the final hour that it stops being exciting and starts being silly and over the top, there is a nuclear bomb counting down and a server that needs unplugging at exactly one hundred milliseconds and an assassination attempt on some president and Ethan flying planes all at once, instead of feeling cool it just feels like too much, you stop caring because its all so over the top and ridiculus. Sometimes less is more and this movie really fail that test, its like it just keeps stacking more and more until your brain shuts off from overload. I give Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning a 7 out of 10, its worth seeing for those two big action sequences alone specially on the biggest screen you can find but the messy story and weak villian and bloated final hour keep it from being anything close to great, if this really is the last one then its a decent enough send off but definitely not the epic conclusion the franchise deserved after almost thirty years.
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