Movie review: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING 

• Paramount Pictures
• Greg Tarzan Davis, Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg and Hayley Atwell in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

In the opening minutes of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) plays a message from the U.S. President (Angela Bassett) which doubles as a "previously on ..." reminder of the cliffhanger from 2023's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 that left Hunt in possession of the only key to stop a sentient AI "Entity" from triggering nuclear Armageddon. But that "previously on ..." ends up covering more than just the most recent series installment; it turns into a greatest-hits medley from the entire 30-year, seven-other-films history of the franchise, one that reminds us how often the fate of humanity has rested in Hunt's hands. Ethan Hunt has a legacy, and by God, we all need to know it.

If, in fact, this is the swan song for the Cruise-centric incarnation of M:I, it's understandable that the series' current overseer, co-writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, might want to celebrate that commercially and creatively successful history. The thing is, he's also got a job to do in keeping viewers engaged with this particular movie. And while The Final Reckoning certainly manages to hit a few of its own high notes, it's also a bummer that the heavy-handed insistence on placing the weight of the world on Ethan Hunt's shoulders gets in the way of the fun.

As usual, a lot of that weight has to do with Hunt's devotion to his team: Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), Grace (Hayley Atwell), plus newer additions Paris (Pom Klementieff) and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) and the unexpected reappearance of a minor character from one of the earlier films. That focus never reaches quite the absurdist "how many times will someone say the word 'family'" dynamics of the Fast & Furious movies, and it often provides an interesting kick to these movies' moments of high danger when Hunt has to balance protecting those he cares about personally with—in words repeated by Luther on a couple of occasions—"those we'll never meet." It does feel here, though, that McQuarrie and co-writer Erik Jendresen end up with far too many supporting characters to keep track of, bouncing us from one theater of action to another with such regularity that it's easy to forget for nearly an hour of the movie that its theoretical main antagonist, Gabriel (Esai Morales), still exists.

All the character stuff notwithstanding, a Mission: Impossible movie has to deliver the goods when it comes to action set pieces, and there's been a high bar set over the years, from the CIA break-in of the original film, to the Burj Khalifa climb in Ghost Protocol, to Dead Reckoning Part 1's dangling train-car finale. The centerpiece sequence here involves Hunt's descent to the ocean floor to obtain the Entity's source code from the wreckage of a Russian submarine, and it offers a great mix of ticking-clock tension as the sub threatens to roll from its perch on the edge of an undersea shelf, and in-the-moment problems for Hunt to solve. Yet there's also a hat-on-a-hat problem as McQuarrie takes what should have been the big finish—a much-marketed bit with Hunt dangling from a biplane—and keeps cross-cutting to not one, not two, but three other life-or-death scenarios. There's an overstuffed quality to a lot of Final Reckoning, one that feels even more noticeable when one of the cleverest action twists involves Hunt's brutal dispatching of a couple of baddies taking place entirely off-screen, its extremity evident only through Atwell's reaction takes.

It's entirely possible that what feels a touch disappointing about Final Reckoning, despite its own undeniable pleasures, is mostly a function of grading on a curve for a series that has demonstrated a remarkable consistency in quality over the decades. Recent weeks have seen folks on social media re-watching and ranking the previous installments, and you could make arguments for at least half of them belonging at the top. I guess it just would have felt like a more fitting conclusion if McQuarrie, Cruise and company had thought more about focusing on giving Final Reckoning its own reason to be ranked with a best, instead of spending so much time doing a victory lap. Tom Cruise has done plenty to establish Ethan Hunt's unique cinematic heroism as a force of pure indomitable will. We didn't need all the characters around him to keep reminding us.