Mission: Impossible - The Reckoning Reviews
The Mission: Impossible movies have long been a favourite series of mine. Actually - I've not seen many of them if I think about it. The first movie is definitely my favourite. I didn't like the second (but you can't deny it's style), and thought the 3rd was a great return to form. The rest? Uh...I'm not familiar with them. I am pretty sure I saw Rogue Nation but can't recall.
Still, I really wanted to see the final two movies. I intended to watch the movies I hadn't seen before, but I didn't get around to it. I probably will, at some point. I hear Fallout is a good one.
There may be minor spoilers in the reviews but I don't think there's anything that would ruin your experience of the movie. If you're extremely spoiler-averse then you should probably watch the films first.
Dead Reckoning (2023)
65/80
★★★★
There was a lot happening in the first installment. There were a few blind spots for me that resulted in confusion because I missed story beats from previous films, but it wasn't too difficult to fill in the gaps from info provided throughout the movie itself.
The first thing to note is that the movie is relatively short for an action movie. The runtime is 164 minutes (2 hours and 44 minutes). (The Final movie is longer but we'll get there.) The pacing of the movie makes it feel a lot longer. There's a lot of setup the movie needs (or thinks it needs?) to get the movie underway, but once the stakes are set and it gets going, it gets going.
I won't say too much more about the movie beyond overall thoughts, but I will say what is likely the best sequence in the movie is the yellow Fiat car chase where Cruise's Ethan and Hayley Atwell's Grace are handcuffed together which makes for interesting driving challenges. What I think is the best stunt is saved for the end of the film, but I'll leave what it is as a surprise.
The structure of the film for the first bit reminded me a lot of Fast X (2023), with Gabriel filling in as a more reserved version of Jason Momoa's character. Thankfully Dead Reckoning does us a favour and actually concludes the movie (although with clear objectives to resolve for the next movie), where Fast X ends on a cliffhanger and a post-credits scene teaser.
I really liked this one and recommend it. Even though the overall story isn't technically wrapped up, I feel like you could watch this one as a standalone feature and not miss anything if you never saw the follow-up.
The Final Reckoning (2025)
60/80
★★★½
I had some trouble with The Final Reckoning and didn't enjoy it as much as the first part. I think one reason might be watching the two films back-to-back. There are two years separating the two films, so despite the fact that in story time only two months have passed, there is a little bit of a need to have what amounts to a "previously on Mission: Impossible" sequence to remind you of what's happened in the last 29 years AND the last film. Watching them back-to-back makes for a slow experience at the start of the film.
Speaking of length, Final Reckoning clocks in at 170 minutes or 2 hours and 50 minutes. While it's only slightly longer than Dead Reckoning it feels a lot longer and in some spots, a slog.
Apart from the lengthy exposition, there are some drawn out character moments as well as some action sequences that don't actually involve a lot of action. I think the biggest stunt piece is a moment when Cruise needs to go underwater on an improbable mission; it probably cost a lot of money and was technically tough to direct, but it was slow and ponderous and it did not hold a lot of tension for me. "Oh, I can see that object will block his escape route and he'll have to find some other way out."
There's also an action sequence involving a couple of bi-planes, but compared to the first part, the action and stunts pale in comparison. Additionally I felt the characters in general apart from the core group (Cruise, Atwell, Pegg, Rhames) felt very cartoonish (the way Gabriel is handled at the end of the movie illustrates this very well).
One thing the movie does extremely well is focus on the team component. What made the first movie work so well is that the missions were operated using an entire team of people who are good at their individual job. No single person could complete these missions on their own. Yes, characters like Ethan Hunt have great all-around skills but he's never going to be the one hacking into the server and manipulating door locks. It truly felt like everyone on the team in this movie had a job to do and each one relied on the other.
Unfortunately - I hate to go back to a negative - there's a real lack of tension and real stakes in the movie. The basic plot hinges on the rogue artificial intelligence (introduced in the first film) gaining control of the world's nuclear arsenals, and it needs to be stopped before it is able to launch them across the globe and destroy humanity. Now, I know that in most movies we're aware that the main character is going to save the day, the world won't be destroyed for real, yadda yadda yadda. But usually movies do a good job of at least making you feel some sort of tension. But that's the problem with this entire movie - it moves too slowly for you to really feel any kind of way in general.
Movies can be cut and edited to make you feel a certain way. Films have done it all the time - it's what makes this visual medium unique. The way directors play with cameras and angles and lighting, they have the ability to manipulate your reactions. A movie like Uncut Gems (2019) does this by blasting you with such a frantic pace that it feels stressful to watch.
Alas, that's not the case here. There's a point in the film where the US government has the chance to launch their nuclear weapons (against the other countries AND one of its own cities as a "peace offering") before the Entity takes control, but the President refuses to push the button at the last minute. It's a very familiar story beat, one we've seen many times. It's unfortunate that we don't see any of the other countries' reactions, intimating that only the United States leadership have the strength of character not to act.
It feels like I'm being really harsh on Final Reckoning but I really did enjoy the movie. It's just not the finale I think it could have been. I would be okay with the franchise walking away with a two-movie finale, but I think they should have avoided all of the callbacks to previous films and left these two as a standalone story. Or maybe do a better job at tying things in. I really liked the way that Only Murders in the Building did this with its most recent season, for example. Anyway, despite my negative-sounding review I think it's worth a watch.
Some other notes from watching:
- Haley Atwell being a fish-out-of-water CIA agent was done rather well, I thought; you couldn't tell right away if she was just a really good thief pretending to be out of her depth, or a spy like Hunt
- The whole nuclear standoff thing reminded me of Arrival (2016) but it's not exactly the same situation
- There's a moment in Final Reckoning when the power goes out across the world; at that exact moment our smart plug lights turned off while we were watching
- The whole sequence on the Orient Express was a great callback to the first film, but just a bit different. An example of how to do callbacks well.
- I thought that Vanessa Kirby's White Widow character was a lot like Max in the first film. After I looked her up, turns out that she IS Max's daughter, so well done there
- There are a lot of knives in the first movie, and knives in general in both of them. Weird.
- I don't think Tom Cruise ever fires a gun in the movie. I struggle to think of an example where he doesn't just punch people.