Certification. 12A
Running Time. 2 hours 49 mins
Director. Christopher McQuarrie
Cast. Hayley Atwell, Angela Bassett, Tom Cruise, Henry Czerny, Greg Tarzan Davis, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Shea Whigham.
Rating. 47%
Is Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning the conclusion of the franchise? Or the final involvement of Tom Cruise? Who knows? If it is indeed the conclusion, then it is sad that the franchise culminates in such a dismally underwhelming manner.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning would dearly like to deliver a resolution to the franchise in a similar vein to Avengers: Endgame. The problem is that the filmmakers behind Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning don’t trust the audience. Specifically, they don't believe you know or will remember anything that happened before.
The first half of the film labours to put all of its pieces in place through a mixture of cumbersome exposition dumps (primarily, multiple clip montages of earlier entries in the series), unwieldy dialogue and surprise cameos. Even the date of the first Mission: Impossible premiere becomes a crucial plot point, but the tedious self-congratulatory breadcrumbs soon disrupt the pace of the film. Together, these elements prevent Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning from being the emotional farewell it wants to be.
Returning to the director’s chair for the fourth time is Cristopher McQuarrie, who Tom Cruise first brought onto the series to perform an uncredited rewrite of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol back in 2010. While the appeal of the earlier films centred around the principle of letting auteurs like Brian De Palma, John Woo and J. J. Abrams imprint their stylistic interpretation on the franchise, McQuarrie’s instalments instead brought a heightened sense of pace to the franchise. He was responsible for two of the franchise's high points - Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) and Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018).
In Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, The Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence model, has asserted its control in virtually every corner of cyberspace, infiltrating governments and information systems around the globe as it plots to wipe out the human race via an all-out nuclear war. To prevent such an apocalypse from happening, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) must locate The Entity’s original source code, buried deep within a sunken Russian submarine somewhere in the Arctic Circle. Yet, the film is strangely devoid of action sequences. As a result, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning feels small. Small, not intimate. Trivial, and that might be Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning's biggest sin.
The only set piece of note takes place inside the aforementioned, abandoned submarine, The Sebastopol. No other action sequence stands out as particularly memorable. Neither does The Entity itself. The decision to make artificial intelligence the villain is a resonant choice, but it is never truly developed beyond an abstract concept. Equally, Esai Morales' character (Gabriel) is an afterthought - a two-dimensional pastiche at best.
Boasting what might be the franchise's largest ensemble cast, McQuarrie devotes a significant amount of time to introducing us to a mix of new and familiar faces. But, while the cast is expanded, the supporting players now have far less to do, save raise a sporadic eyebrow in Hunt’s direction. Greg Tarzan Davis' character, Degas, perfectly sums up the position,
"I'll stay with them. There's nothing for me to do in the server room. Good luck."
I inferred this to mean, 'There's nothing for me to do here. I'm bored. I'll stay with them and die.' Too unkind?
The magic that once turned a faltering franchise into something special is nowhere to be found in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning. Instead, the audience is subjected to a pompous, supercilious narrative and a massive Tom Cruise ego-trip. As the opening credits proclaim, ‘Tom Cruise in a Tom Cruise Production.’ Oh, please.
Comments
Post a Comment