The death-defying movie star hangs off another plane to further his legacy and push the impossibilities of cinema.
Cinephiles, rejoice! Popcorn munchers, remember the butter (awkward?)! The world has now reached Defcon 1 with the supposed last entry in the Mission: Impossible film franchise, produced by and starring the absolutely passionate and probably insane man of stunts Tom Cruise. Throughout the previous seven (!) movies, audiences have seen almost everything from the casts and crews, ranging from knife fights to helicopter explosions to motorcycle chases to tower climbing to mountain scaling. Pushed past the brink of danger, the people who made these movies deserve all the recognition available.
The Final Reckoning – the second part of a story that began with Dead Reckoning – as a production, went through incredible challenges brought upon not just by the structure and logistics of its action set pieces, but by the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in pauses and halts of the entire film industry. In what is now a minor meme, leaked audio came out of Tom Cruise himself yelling at the crew and, in the end, giving them a ra-ra inspirational speech, to follow safety protocol and keep the movie going. Say what you will about that moment, but it worked.
Cruise, who IS a FILMMAKER despite being known primarily as a star, has earned the chops to do almost anything with his flicks. Will he shoot his next picture in outer space as has been rumored? Maybe. He certainly tests the human reach of the Earth’s atmosphere in The Final Reckoning, and the depths of the ocean to which venturing is beyond scope.
For New Orleans, Cruise is familiar as having done a sequel to his Jack Reacher here. A fight scene on the top of the French Quarter that ended in (spoilers) a ferocious climactic neck break was more than worth the watch, I felt. He even came to the metro area of Elmwood for a red carpet at the local AMC. Odd, since the Prytania and even the Orpheum were nearby. Final Reckoning has its own connection to the city with homegrown supporting actor Greg Tarzan Davis, who greeted fans before a recent preview screening to deliver some anecdotes and a fine speech of inspiration for young actors in the crowd.
It’s safe to say that these movies aren’t just for film buffs or snack hoarders, but everyone. Just watch Cruise savor his popcorn, and you’ll know.
In Final Reckoning, the tale of an out-of-control artificial intelligence known only as “The Entity” continues, only now the world’s population has become split between those afraid and those excited by the prospects of technological takeover. This is a first for the series, with the main threat no longer in the shadows with our heroes, now as an event. The Entity is speedily gaining control of the global nuclear arsenal, essentially threatening all-out chaos and destruction. With only a few days to resolve this, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team must hurry and get the job done.
This is the silliest movie of the franchise by far, but also the most emotional. Many references and callbacks to what’s been done in the past films and the people encountered litter this movie, to show not just how important Cruise as Ethan Hunt is to the world, but how everything has been connected to this final battle with a virtual God. All things considered, from the real Tom Cruise being a true cinema evangelist to the digital revolution and de-evolution of media, Final Reckoning kind of reeks of self-importance and legacy building (or concluding). Don’t get me wrong, as Cruise isn’t messianic in his movie, just more key than ever in his catalog of feature films. Center, but not front too. There is an effort to make the other actors shine, like Greg Davis and Hayley Atwell for example, and to give the entire production crew its due – how impossible is it to not appreciate the behind-the-scenes mechanics of a movie like this – and the effort is strong.
Still, this is the Tom Cruise show. And that’s ok. His name holds weight, his presentation has importance, and his mission to push the boundaries of stunt cinematography and what’s possible in a single production is almost Nobel Prize-worthy. Watching Cruise dive into what the movie states as freezing water and an environment with heavy pressure, for his character to nab a device from the inside of a sunken submarine, all with the instability of the vessel and a ticking clock against his health…it all gave me chills. This is cinema at its most chilling and body-clenching. For someone prone to panic attacks, I was on the edge of my seat – to steal the most cliche of phrases. I was imagining falling out of my seat since my showing was an AMC IMAX one, and the canvas was big, crisp, and loud. I’m not talking about watching the documentary Everest in true museum-style IMAX, but Final Reckoning has come closest to replicating that kind of stress.
Is this a wanted stress? A welcome stress? If those pre-show advertisements of people jumping from their seats are to be believed, the ones where popcorn goes flying everywhere in excitement, then the answer is yes. Mission: Impossible movies are, at their core and throughout, pure escapism. For the three hours I was in the theater watching (yes, it’s a long-ish film), I forgot if my car was locked, the new gig training I was scheduled for in the morning, and if the home air condition unit was holding up. My troubles were gone and for that, The Final Reckoning is a perfect motion picture.
The story is almost irrelevant, as only the main points are important for dressing up the heavy action sequences, whether it’s Cruise making his way around a bi-plane in the air, or his teammates disarming a nuclear weapon at the same time. Everything arrives in a split second and at the last possible moment, which surely would be a tired trope if it weren’t so damn effective. Hats off, my friends. They knew what to do, they knew how to do it, and they knew it could work, one more time.
And how could this be emotional too? Maybe caused by a rush of adrenaline? Maybe the sappy but genuine sentimentality shared by everyone in and behind the film? Maybe. All I know is that others in my audience were crying. I mean, openly weeping by the end. It was a staggering site. How can an action picture do such a thing? I guess, in the end, such a thing IS possible. 4/5
Bill Arceneaux has been writing about movies in Hollywood South since 2011. He’s a voting member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and has a newsletter blog called Moviegoing with Bill. Follow him on Letterboxd and Bluesky.
