Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is Tom Cruise’s Tree of Life. 

One film is a largely wordless meditation on the key formational experiences of a man’s life in light of the death of a loved one held in contrast with the fate of the world, a spiritual journey of reconciliation through space and time with all the most important people in that man’s life; an invocation for peace on earth and in the heart of every individual on it; a Jobian discourse with God about creation’s proper relationship with its creator; MORE! it is a thesis, a poem! from one of cinema’s greatest artists about why he creates and what he hopes to achieve in the world through his art. The other film is directed by Terrence Malick.

I don’t believe we are living in a simulation, of course not, but if you wanted to trick me into thinking that maybe all of this is oriented around my experience of it, you would be rather effective if you just showed me this movie. I have a long, steady relationship with the Mission: Impossible movies. The first in the series, 1996’s Mission: Impossible, directed by Brian de Palma, was one of three films that I watched obsessively as a kid. When I was twelve years old and making my first “adult” style decisions, I took a picture clipped from a magazine of Tom Cruise as “Ethan Hunt” into Pro Cuts to show my barber the haircut I wanted. I maintained that haircut for a decade. (It was supplanted only by “Jason Bourne’s” haircut in 2006, but that’s a story for another review.) When I went to France, I flew into England solely so I could ride the train through the Chunnel like they do in the finale of that first M:I film.

And here we are, thirty years later, and I’ve been watching Mission: Impossible movies every few years ever since and loving all of them, and now, as a send-off to the series, Cruise and his current collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie—McQ, as I’ve learned to call him by listening to the many, many hours of interviews the two filmmakers have done together on these films in the last decade—Cruise and McQ have crafted this transcendent (yes, “transcendent” – see opening paragraph) celebration of this singular series of films. Using M:I’s distinctive flack-back, flash-forward montage style, The Final Reckoning rockets audiences and Hunt himself through this series’ history. For me, with my connection to these films, it was like holding onto the top of an emotional bullet train and flying through three-quarters of my life. It feels like it was made just for me, in particular. It turns out Ethan Hunt’s greatest caper was breaking into the vault of my heart.

It is well known that these Cruise/McQ M:I movies are constructed by first imagining the stunts and set pieces they want to accomplish and then writing a story to string them together. Some balk at this method, claiming the stories are either too convoluted or thin to hold up the movie. I think this method works fine because the emotional beats land, and the imagery associated with them is the right mix of literal with regards to what’s happening in the story and symbolic on an mythic scale.

For example, Tom Cruise and I have almost nothing in common, but we do both have a predilection for tenacious, pretty, brunette women. I married the best one; sorry, Tom. Cruise has dated or married a string of similar-looking women over the years and cast others as his romantic partners in many of his films. The previous M:I film had both Rebecca Ferguson and Hayley Atwell in it, and that was too much for any man, even one who can hang from the side of an airplane and escape unscathed. So in this film we have only Hayley Atwell. She is enough.

Without spoiling anything, there is a scene in The Final Reckoning in which circumstances take Ethan—

Sorry, I have to pause here to say that it feels strange to write about “Ethan Hunt” and not about Tom Cruise. Critical custom dictates that I write about the character and not the actor in describing events of the film. But the fact that it is Tom Cruise doing these stunts and not a digital double or a stunt man stand-in has become such a huge part of what these M:I films are, it feels more appropriate to talk about Tom Cruise in these scenes and not the character he is playing. Forgive me for diverting from best critical practices for this review.

So, there is a scene in The Final Reckoning in which circumstances take Tom Cruise, symbolically, to a prenatal state. (Like I said, Tom Cruise’s Tree of Life.) He is drawn from those amniotic waters by the arms of a beautiful brunette woman who urges him into life by pressing her hands to his heart and her lips to his. This rescue was part of Ethan Hunt’s team’s plan. This deeply emotional scene is also the culmination of an astounding series of set pieces and physical stunts. Finally, it is an evocation of the relationship between son and mother, man and lover, humanity and Life itself. And it is all exhibited in the monumental splendor of IMAX. It is practical. It is mythic. It is glorious. There are symbolic moments like this all throughout this film.

And you think, well, the rest of this film is going to be a letdown, because no one can do more than what is accomplished emotionally, narratively, and spectacularly in this sequence.

But you are wrong.

Because in addition to being all the things I’ve said Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is, it is also the most elaborate way any film has ever dealt with The Problem of Cell Phones.

What’s The Problem of Cell Phones? Basically, since the complete societal inundation of cellular technology, movies must go out of their way to remove them from the narrative lest solving the problem become too easy. So a character’s cell phone battery dies or everyone has to put their phones in a bucket when they arrive at a party or Godzilla’s blast also has an EMP effect that takes networks offline. Smart phones are an extra sticky problem to solve.

M:I – The Final Reckoning’s villain is a digital artificial intelligence. It infects every network on earth, so, our heroes have to communicate either face to face or via non-digital means. (Twelve-year-old Elijah, who wore out his VHS of the first Mission: Impossible movie, practically squealed when Hunt receives his first act mission if he chooses to accept it via VHS tape.) They also cannot use connected vehicles of any kind, including digitally-connected submarines, ships, and airplanes. It is a narrative manifestation of the Mission: Impossible franchise’s insistence on doing practical stunts. Now, of course, these stunts are digitally augmented in the end, but Tom Cruise really jumps his motorcycle off that cliff. He is really hanging off the wing of that biplane.

So you fear you’ve reached the emotional peak of the film when Grace rescues Tom Cruise from the waters, but the entire film has been setting you up for a practical, physical climax that is so jaw-dropping you can hardly believe what you are watching.

I’ve written a thousand words, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of all that I love about this movie.

How about the many group conversation scenes that set up the action scenes?

There are two kinds. In the first, Ethan Hunt’s team discusses what they are going to do before they do it. Telling the audience in great detail what is about to happen and then showing it happen is what Mission: Impossible has always been since its Desilu days on CBS.

The second kind of conversation scene involves various groups of people trying to make what are ultimately moral decisions as a group. These scenes are shot like Sidney Lumet would have shot them (Fail Safe, 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon). They are about moral universes in opposition to one another, seeking consensus. The Final Reckoning is concerned, explicitly, with how fear and the resulting violence can be deescalated, how the morally upright choice is always trust. Lumet’s style is a perfect match for these sorts of conversational conflicts. McQ has always been good about sampling appropriately from the style of other great filmmakers in his M:I films.

What else? So much else…

• Every. Single. Moment. Tramell Tillman is on screen. Begin the campaign now for his eyebrows to win Best Supporting Actor.
• There’s a shot of Hayley Atwell in an Inuit parka against a slate Arctic sky. Blush pink and the color blue have never had it so good.
• The film brings back characters from throughout the series and actually does something meaningful with them.
• I’m just so happy for Nick Offerman. He seems like the kind of guy who would love to be in a Mission: Impossible movie, and there he is being awesome.
• The most intense fight scene in the movie happens off screen. Keeping it off screen is a stroke of genius.
• I hope James Cameron and Michael Bay watch this movie and feel loved.
• A cliche hug. A cliche handshake. An actual spoken cliche. I revel in well-executed cliches. They are so comforting. It’s like you and the filmmakers are sitting side-by-side sharing a bowl of popcorn.

Okay, I’ll deal with all the god-talk a little. Tom Cruise was raised Catholic and attended seminary for a year before getting into acting. He’s also the world’s most famous Scientologist. There is an odd stew of religious imagery and vaguely theological ideas in this film. It’s… interesting. It all feels intensely personal. Many filmmakers turn to spiritual matters in their advanced years. No one wants the words “Tom Cruise” and “old age” to appear in the same sentence, but I don’t know how to explore this part of this film without doing do, and I don’t want to think about being old when I watch a Mission: Impossible movie. I want to think about being twelve years old, so if you want to talk about the religious stuff in this movie, I’ll gladly talk about it with you but I don’t want to write about it right now.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is probably the last movie anyone will ever make. It feels like the filmmakers think it might be. There is an urgency to everything, a dervish-like intensity. It’s like a high school graduation party – everyone is clearly having fun but there’s just a hint of “party like you’re never going to see each other ever again” to it all. It’s all exactly what you think it’s going to be, but it’s also unpredictable. In the end it’s just right.

I don’t know if anyone—maybe my friend Kevin—will have as much fun watching this movie as I did. I’m not even rational about this. I just loved it. I will go see it again as many times as I can. I think Tom Cruise has enjoyed making these films. I feel his enthusiasm. At least I think I do. I hope he has. These Mission: Impossible films have been some of the best movie-watching times of my life.