'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' review: Tom Cruise pulls off his craziest, heaviest, and most heartwarming mission

In the opening of H.G. Wells' classic science fiction novel The War of the Worlds, we are told of the world suddenly being threatened by "sentient" beings with an intelligence "far greater" than man's own and yet as mortal as he is. I bring this up for a couple of reasons. One, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning presents a near-dystopian scenario, one that's brought about by an artificial intelligence called The Entity, introduced in the last film — a scenario could get progressively worse if Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt didn't do something about it. Two, Tom Cruise, who starred in a War of the Worlds adaptation twenty years ago, is placed in circumstances far riskier than what those Martian invaders conjured up, or any he had encountered in the previous Mission: Impossible films.

Final Reckoning, a direct continuation of the events of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, is surprisingly a cinematic adventure that feels small and big at once. Small, because it's, arguably, the heaviest in terms of plotting and lighter on action set-pieces. Big, because when the action set-pieces finally present themselves (in glorious IMAX), they are the most thrilling and dangerous Cruise has by far undertaken, with the threats growing increasingly palpable the deeper Ethan Hunt goes into the rabbit's hole.

When Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol presented to us the insane Burj Khalifa stunt, we thought that was the maximum extent to which Cruise could go. But we realised that wasn't the case when, of course, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation came with the aircraft stunt followed by the helicopter chase in Mission: Impossible - Fallout. But the underwater retrieval mission and the climactic set-piece involving two biplanes in Final Reckoning far outweigh the stunts attempted in all the previous Mission: Impossible films.

What about the plot, though? When Dead Reckoning came out, the primary complaints concerned the convoluted plotting and pacing issues. And I must admit that as much as I enjoyed that one, upon a rewatch I felt that maybe it could've benefitted from a tighter, faster-paced opening and a more polished, less confusing storyline. One may argue that these films are review-proof and that one doesn't go into a Mission: Impossible film for the storyline. I mean, take the John Woo-directed 2000 sequel, often referred to as the weakest of the franchise, but funnily enough, many defend it purely on account of its super-cool stunts.

Judging from some of the international reviews that leaned more towards the negative side, I can sense that Final Reckoning, too, might get treated with the same lukewarm reception that Dead Reckoning got. It has already been accused of being bloated. I don't share the same view. I found this one more entertaining, more suspenseful, and better-paced than the other. This outcome is mostly a result of McQuarrie bringing in more characters, splitting them into three groups and making all their involvements crucial to the central objective. By cross-cutting the action between the three, McQuarrie is essentially doing what Christopher Nolan is known for (even his weakest films are watchable for this reason alone). It's only natural that I bring up Nolan because I've often felt that the two filmmakers are quite alike. Remember for, instance, that prison truck sequence in Fallout that evoked a similar situation in The Dark Knight?

Is it necessary for us to understand every single thing that's happening in these films? I don't think so. Let me bring up the case of those noir classics of the 1940s, specifically The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep — both starring Humphrey Bogart — that have the central character, a private detective, undertaking a certain assignment. I'm sure a lot of people who loved those films (including yours truly) wouldn't be that confident enough to say they understood every single plot development. The statue of the titular 'Maltese Falcon', for example, is a classic MacGuffin — a plot device that's actually insignificant, but without which we wouldn't have a film. We could say this about a lot of thrillers across the fiction spectrum. How many of us remember the events in, say, The Da Vinci Code? I mention this book because there are areas in both Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning that give off not only the vibe of a Dan Brown novel but also something written by Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October, The Sum of All Fears).

What's most admirable about this franchise, though, is that every entry looks different in comparison to the one that preceded it. Imagine how boring it would be had every film looked the same in terms of storytelling approach. When Christopher McQuarrie took on the task of steering this franchise to even greater heights, starting with Rogue Nation, one imagines Tom Cruise wanted the rest of these films to have a unifying look. They only differed in terms of the raised stakes. I couldn't help but feel a whiff of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Resurrections given how Ethan Hunt has evolved from a junior spy to this messianic, Neo-like figure in whom the fate of the entire world rests. But in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this evolution would've felt tacky and unconvincing. Cruise, it goes without saying, continues to sell his character's resolve with utmost conviction.

However, Final Reckoning shows us that the real intention was to tie all eight films together in some way, no doubt a huge responsibility for McQuarrie. And as its trailer hinted at references to some of the previous entries, we see the after-effects of what Ethan Hunt did in the past — especially in the first, directed by Brian De Palma — would show up in some way in Final Reckoning, which opens, fittingly, with a neatly cut collage of some key moments in Ethan Hunt's cinematic journey. And we realise later why.

Just as how, in Dead Reckoning, we saw one integral character from Ethan's past making an appearance, Final Reckoning brings up more old connections, in ways I didn't expect, in addition to certain unforeseen developments with regard to other familiar (and favourite) characters. I must admit I felt quite emotional at how McQuarrie handled these developments. So, is this the final Mission: Impossible film? I hope it isn't.

Film: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Esai Morales, Angela Bassett, Pom Klementieff 

Rating: 4/5

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