Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Review

 

The Last Temptations of Ethan Hunt

Exactly what I wanted out of an alleged last Mission: Impossible film and a huge W for people like me who personally dig the more meditative and existential elements of what Cruise/McQ are shooting for. The deck is stacked so absurdly and convolutedly firm against Hunt and his merry crew that even when you know this will probably all turn out fine they have you sweaty and on the edge of your seat picking hairs out of your head from anxiety. Huge props to McQ who, even with this epic runtime, constantly keeps this beast moving through war rooms, frozen tundras, sunken submarines and digital hiveminds with some of the snappiest and dialed-in cutting I’ve ever seen. He believes in our pre-built trust and love for these characters and keeps this at an almost elemental register as Ethan reconciles his choices and devotions with a fucking techno-god while committing clinically insane acts. I wrote in my most recent Fallout write-up that its finale was the peak of the franchise but this somehow has two sequences that handedly eclipse it. The Sevastopol sequence is straight up one of the most literally breathtaking things ever committed to film. Too many moments that just had me thinking “Don’t you just love the goddamn movies?!” A