The Best Action Movie of the Year
Summary
The Final Reckoning isn’t without its flaws and the runtime is definitely bloated, but I was still 100% invested and the major action sequences are some of the best you’ll ever see. If this is indeed the end they went out on the biggest high possible. Thank you, Tom Cruise for your dedication to keeping real action alive.
Plot: Ethan Hunt and the IMF team race against time to find the Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence that can destroy mankind.
Review: I watched Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning for the second time last week and enjoyed it more this time around; I still think it’s far too long, but if I’m in the comfort of my own home then I don’t really care about the length of a movie as I can pause it whenever I want. This week sees the release of the (possibly) last entry of the franchise – The Final Reckoning.
Tom Cruise has long since proven he is the real action elite, never afraid to perform some of the craziest stunts ever put on film purely for our entertainment. The Final Reckoning is no different and although it isn’t quite as action packed as some other entries there are still several jaw dropping set-pieces with the finale involving the plane maybe the best stunt sequence I’ve ever seen. There are several fight scenes throughout and the underwater sequence is incredible too; watching how it was all put together shows what a true labour of love this movie was from all the cast and crew.
Like Dead Reckoning it’s nearly 3 hours long, but I feel like this one is paced a little better and was never boring, keeping things tense.
Esai Morales does his best as Gabriel, but he’s not that interesting a villain; he is still utterly hateful and his comeuppance is quite epic. The AI aspect aka The Entity (voiced by Simon Pegg) is very prescient however, and doesn’t seem overly far-fetched. At times it feels reminiscent of Skynet and provides a stark warning on the world’s over reliance on technology.
There are several callbacks to the earlier films, especially parts 1 and 3 and this actually will make me appreciate the third entry a little more.
I feel like the storyline of the past two films doesn’t really warrant the overlong runtime and could easily have had several scenes cut down or removed just for pacing reasons. Despite these gripes there are so many scenes that keep coming back to me and this feels like it has a pervading sense of dread from beginning to end; there aren’t too many quips as the entire world is literally in danger so you’re not going to be thinking of one-liners.
Up until this movie I’ve liked the crew of Cruise, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, but I’d never felt any great emotional connection to the characters. I find these movies mostly empty spectacle, but I enjoy them for the rollercoaster rides that they are. All that changed with this entry as there were genuinely huge stakes and it feels like a fitting send off for the franchise and characters. I really enjoy the newer characters like Hayley Atwell (who really should be cast as Lara Croft) and Pom Klementieff who bring some new blood.
I can’t imagine any other action movie this year coming anywhere close to this in terms of set-pieces; really, Ballerina is the only big movie I’m really looking forward to and even then I doubt it will top this.
Overall, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning may be far too long, but the climactic plane sequence is arguably the best action scene ever committed to film and for the first time in the franchise I was emotionally involved and felt like there were real stakes. I saw it in IMAX which I feel is the only way to watch a picture of this scale; some movies you can wait for streaming for, but this needs to be witnessed on the big screen.