Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning | Film Review

 

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team race to find an artificial intelligence with the power to destroy the world.

I can't say that I was especially excited for this one. I love the Mission Impossible movies, but of them all, the one before this was the only one that I couldn't really remember. So seeing part two of that story wasn't something I was really looking forward to - but I was excited to see the end of the franchise.

This film was fine. I didn't love it, and it's definitely not the best of the franchise.

But it wasn't bad!

For a start, the theme of AI is so relevant to today's world, so it was really interesting to see the film lean into this more than in the first part.

The opening of the movie is great - it calls back to the rest of the franchise, it reminds us why we're here and why we love these stories.

And while I may be a bit tired of these stories now, I'll never get tired of these characters. The new additions are great but the ones that we've been following through multiple films are the reason we're still here.

Although speaking of the new additions, there were too many new people this time around that we don't really care about, including the AI that is the centre of the film.

As I've already said, I wasn't a fan of the story this time around, and I definitely don't think it needed to span two movies. It didn't feel like a fitting end to this franchise.

It's also a lot more complicated than it needed to be. You can kind of follow along with the basic premise, but it gets much deeper into things than we need it to. Particularly because we care more about the characters than the story itself anyway.

The action scenes are great as always - though there weren't as many memorable stunts this time around. But Tom Cruise was on top form as always!

I don't mind films being long if it makes sense, and if the pacing works, and while the pacing of this film is fine, the story didn't really need to be told in 3 hours, there was a lot that could have been cut to make things flow better.

And while I liked the ending, I was happy for this to be the end of the franchise, full stop. I'd recommend this to anyone who's a fan of the franchise - but to me, for these characters that we've spent years loving, it wasn't a worthy ending.

6/10