starring: tom cruise, hayley atwell, simon pegg, and pom klementieff

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REVIEWER: Lyall carter

Ethan Hunt and the IMF team race against time to find the Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence that can destroy mankind.

It’s all come down to this. After seven films over nearly thirty years and over 4 billion in box office revenue with critical claim to boot, this is the final installment. While the first act gets slightly caught up in narrative exposition, the rest of the film soars, ratcheting up the tension with skill and precision with a finale and stunt that will snatch your breath right out of your mouth. Go see it on the biggest screen possible. 

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Picking up months after Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt must complete the mission with which he’s been entrusted: to vanquish the Entity, the all knowing AI being, as it gains further control of the world. To do so, he must dive deep into Arctic waters to procure the Podkova, from a sunken Russian submarine, which contains the Entity’s source code. Only then can Ethan destroy it with the Poison Pill, a killswitch crafted by the IMF team. 

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My critique of Dead Reckoning: Part One was that instead of a simple plot stuffed full with action like my hands down favorite of the franchise Rogue Nation, we were given a film that tied itself up in a convoluted plot that did very little to serve the main thrust of the story. While it's not quite as severe in The Final Reckoning, the opening 20 odd minutes is stuffed with subplot and talking heads that is just unnecessary. 

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Thankfully, director McQuarrie and co right the ship, managing to craft a tale that is both a war film crossed with a Cold War espionage thriller. This time the world really is at stake and at Ethan’s every turn it gets more and more wildly impossible to complete his mission. This massively ratchets up the tension, making the nearly three hour runtime fly by. There are also some little Easter eggs from the previous film that are thrown in which artfully add not only to this story but the the overall arc of the franchise. 

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And Mission: Impossible doesn’t forget its roots either with some slick and equally brutal hand to hand combat scenes that keep it completely grounded. But the big, bombastic set pieces, especially the final one will have your jaw on the floor. To think that Tom Cruise is doing these stunts practically after all these years is nothing short of impressive. The last great movie star in a thrilling, crowd pleasing, blockbuster. Can’t get better than that. 

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While the first act gets slightly caught up in narrative exposition, the rest of the film soars, ratcheting up the tension with skill and precision with a finale and stunt that will snatch your breath right out of your mouth. Go see it on the biggest screen possible.