MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING (2025) **

The last Mission:  Impossible ended on a cliffhanger and was even titled Dead Reckoning Part One.  This sequel scrapped the “Part Two” and is just subtitled The Final Reckoning.  The only problem with that is that the last one, while entertaining, wasn’t exactly memorable.  So, going into it, I was kind of worried I was going to wrack my brain to remember what the hell happened in that one.  (The Christopher McQuarrie era of M:  I films have kind of started to run together for me.)  

The Final Reckoning anticipates this and gives us a bit of a refresher in the beginning.  (Ethan Hunt, once again played by Tom Cruise, has to stop a rogue AI from taking over the world.)  However, McQuarrie goes overboard with all the exposition dumps and needless flashbacks to the previous movies (and flashbacks to stuff we just saw ten minutes ago).  All this does is add to the already jaw-dropping run time.  (It’s nearly three hours.)  Shit, this could’ve been a three-parter.  The constant stream of exposition from scene to scene makes for an awfully clunky narrative and gets in the way of the fun.  In fact, the whole enterprise seems like a bet McQuarrie made to see how much exposition he can fit into a movie.  The answer is a shit ton. 

I hate AI as much as the next guy, but a faceless “Entity” doesn’t exactly make for a compelling villain for a long-running franchise.  It doesn’t help that it’s merely a thinly veiled stand-in for “Fake News” on the internet (“It wants us fighting each other!”) or that Esai Morales isn’t much of a human villain either.  I mean, everything Hunt has always tried to steal to the “Knock List” to the “Rabbit’s Foot” has simply been a McGuffin.  A plot device.  We don’t need to explain what it is.  We just need to know he has to get it to save the world.  This time out, the plan seems to be talking it to death. 

This definitely feels like the last one.  There are lots of references and clips from the previous adventures, although all that really does is eat up more screen time.  We also get dumb plot twist involving someone being related to a previous member of the team that just lands goofy. 

Maybe all my quibbles wouldn’t have amounted to much if the action was strong.  However, the gun fights and hand-to-hand stuff feel weak, and the big set pieces pale in comparison to the other installments.  I mean, in Rogue Nation, Cruise hung outside of a real jet.  In this one, he hangs off the side of a biplane.  Yes, the stunt is impressive, and I commend Tom’s desire to entertain audiences, but it just seems like a step backwards.  The series’ batting average has been strong till now and since this is the only real clunker in the franchise, I’d say it would be easy to forgive it if it hadn’t been so damn long. 

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to sit through nearly three hours of exposition in order to get to a few ho-hum action sequences that lack the kick of the franchise’s best work.  Judging by the mediocre box office, the series will probably self-destruct in five seconds. 

AKA:  Mission:  Impossible:  Dead Reckoning Part Two.