Mark Kermode reviews Mission: Impossible, The Final Reckoning (video).

Mark Kermode drops by to review Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Or as we’ve come to call it here at SFcrowsnest: Tom Cruise Finally Tries To Die On Camera But Still Fails. Yes, the eighth and allegedly final* (*until Paramount smells sequel money again) outing of IMF agent Ethan Hunt is here, and it’s everything you’ve come to expect from the franchise: gravity-defying stunts, geopolitical gobbledegook, gadgetry so advanced it makes the iPhone look like a potato, and more Cruise than a Mediterranean yacht party.

At this point, the Mission: Impossible films are less movies and more endurance tests for their star’s bones. Tom Cruise—now presumably held together with titanium pins and the sheer force of his own self-belief—performs a stunt in which he clings to a biplane flying upside down, as if the insurance companies have simply stopped returning his calls.

The plot? Well, it involves AI (because of course it does), a submerged Russian submarine (because Cold War nostalgia is back, baby), nuclear doomsday clocks (tick tick boom), and a mole inside the CIA who is the son of Ethan’s old traitorous boss. Yes, we’re into deep lore territory now, so buckle up if you haven’t watched the last seven. Or just nod politely like you do when your uncle starts explaining how Bitcoin works.

In this swan dive of cinematic chaos, Ethan’s facing off against Gabriel, a villain so on-the-nose he sounds like he’s moonlighting from a Dan Brown novel. Gabriel wants a thing called the Rabbit’s Foot (no, not a real rabbit’s foot—we checked), which will give him control over an AI called The Entity. Why? Because reasons. Ethan and his ragtag gang—Benji (comic relief), Luther (hacker emeritus), Grace (ex-thief turned moral compass), and a woman named Tapeesa (best new character and also best name)—must globe-trot and punch things until democracy is saved. Or at least until runtime hits three hours.

There are sunken submarines. There are sonar arrays on arctic islands. There are resurrected characters from the very first film, including poor old Donloe, now living in exile with a suspiciously competent Inuit wife. There are airborne dogfights. There are bombs with countdowns that hit one second and then… stay there for an implausibly long time while someone has a feelings monologue. It’s as if Christopher McQuarrie decided that if this really was the last film, he was going to use all the plot.

But let’s not pretend we’re here for the story. We’re here to watch Tom Cruise do daft things in high places while violins scream at us in Dolby Atmos. And on that front, it delivers—though the baton has apparently passed from composer Lorne Balfe to Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey, who do their best not to blow out the speakers or our inner ears.

Will this be the last Mission: Impossible? Cruise says so. The studio says so. But then again, so did Daniel Craig in Spectre. If past franchises have taught us anything, it’s that nobody really retires in Hollywood until their likeness can be deepfaked convincingly and set loose on a digital stunt bike.

Still, if this is the end, it’s a suitable one—big, bombastic, and as subtle as a rocket-powered elephant. Here at SFcrowsnest, we’ve enjoyed the ride. And if Tom wants to come back at 70 in Mission: Impossible – Arthritic Protocol, we’ll still show up. Though next time, maybe let Simon Pegg drive the plane, eh?