After not really caring about the Mission Impossible movies for the majority of this franchise, but having been drawn in by its last few films, I was looking forward to the alleged final film in this franchise, despite the reported 170-minute runtime. These films have built up enough good will for me to enthusiastically look forward to whatever they bring me next. I went into Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning with excitement, because I was under the impression this would be the culmination of everything and this would be where it all came to a conclusion. After seeing the film, I think it’s quite clear this is not the end of this franchise. And while I appreciate Tom Cruise’s chutzpah and appreciation for the theatrical experience and his insistence on making these films the most bombastic cinematic spectacles they can be, The Final Reckoning can’t help but feel like the monumental ego trip that it is.

Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning picks up about two months after the ending of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Part One). Ethan Hunt (Cruise) still holds the key that controls the dangerous AI known as The Entity, and refuses to relinquish control of it, because in the wrong hands it could lead to the end of civilization as we know it. We are treated to a series of monologues about how Ethan Hunt is simultaneously the reason everything has gone wrong and the only person who could undo all of it. He is sent on the second half of a mission where he must defeat those who threaten to weaponize The Entity once and for all. 

The Final Reckoning does not need to be 170 minutes long. I think that’s our biggest problem here, but it’s not our only problem. It’s so repetitive and so tedious. If we cut this down to around two hours, there is a lot I would forgive here. The first hour or so of this film serves as the most painful kind of exposition dump, where you have some of your favorite character actors saddled with some of the clunkiest expository dialogue, and then the realization sets in that this is the only reason why these people are in the film. We have people like Angela Bassett, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman and Hannah Waddingham (with a not-great American accent) who basically all have to move out of the way to let Tom Cruise have his big moment as if he hasn’t been having that big moment for the past seven movies in this franchise. But the viewer coming to the eighth Mission Impossible movie probably knows what they’re in for at this point. I just wish the film remembered that these are the most fun when Ethan Hunt is part of a team working together towards a common goal, and didn’t frame the action like he, alone, is the only person who could fix everything. And I wish the film itself felt less like a self-indulgent slog.

Tom Cruise is having fun here, and if he is to be believed, he’s once again doing all of his own stunts. And I will say that the climactic sequence  that’s this film’s signature moment, involving Cruise jumping around the edges of two small airplanes, is thrilling and viscerally intense. Especially if you see this in some kind of premium format where the theater’s seats shake and move to the action of the movie. However, that’s kind of all there is here, and there’s no action sequence here that eclipses the visceral excitement and terror of the climactic train sequence in Dead Reckoning, or even the moment where he rides a motorcycle off a cliff. We have one big action sequence in The Final Reckoning and that’s sort of it. There’s a smaller sequence earlier in the film that involves some impressive underwater choreography, but it’s brief. 

Co-writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has been making these films since 2011, and he returns here alongside co-screenwriter Erik Jendresen. And I feel like the most unfortunate thing about this movie is the sense of fun and strong energy present in McQuarrie’s last few Mission Impossible films is totally gone here. The tone is so somber and self-serious that the film forgets to be any fun. And really, the story here wants to say something about the dangers of artificial intelligence but it’s also utter nonsense and almost none of this feels like it takes place in the world we live in. And one could strike the correct tone balancing those two tonal extremes, but McQuarrie doesn’t do that. Instead, The Final Reckoning must be primarily what it is first and foremost – a big, extravagant, endless tribute to Tom Cruise, largely brought to you by Tom Cruise himself. Cinematographer Fraser Taggart and composer Lorne Balfe return to the franchise, and the technical aspects here are once again, top notch. I just wish the film had an editor that was actually doing their job.

In conclusion, Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning feels like a bit of a letdown for me, but I can see if you’re a fan of these movies who has been locked in from the beginning, how you might be on board for all of the nostalgia and exploration of the lore we have here. For me, it felt like that thing we have in a lot of superhero movies where the tone becomes so self-aggrandizing and so deathly serious that we forget that these movies are primarily supposed to be fun summer popcorn movies. Also, where we end things here suggests this is not an ending to the franchise, and I think the film needs to have ended in a different way to give it all the gravitas it so obviously needs. Because I have no doubt in my mind Tom Cruise will try to make another one of these, and this is an almost 30-year old franchise. I think it might be time to put it to bed, but if audiences show up and this reminds them why they love going to the movies, I’m happy they had that experience. I unfortunately found The Final Reckoning to be an endless, self-indulgent slog that feels less like a victory lap and more like an endurance test.