Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

Is it Tom? Is It? Is it the final reckoning?

It's been nearly 30 years in the making (good golly I'm old). The Mission Impossible franchise finally comes to an end. What began as uncovering dirty agents and stealing a NOC list to save the world ends with the worst villain of the franchise...AI.

When we last left Ethan, he had keys to shut down a rogue AI and in the months since, it hasn't gotten any better. The intelligence is taking over the nuclear stock piles all around the world, one by one.

Ethan and his team are up against a ticking clock to doomsday. Will they succeed? Well, it wouldn't be that good of a movie if they didn't. Though a surprising ending would be the launching of all nuclear weapons by the AI and destroying the world.

While the movie was good, it was long. Too long. Full of "Previously on Mission Impossible..." to explain all the ways they were trying to tie every single movie to what was going on in this final installment.

Remember that nerdy guy in the clean room from the first one? No? Well, he comes back in an important way when the team needs to find a sunken submarine from a decade ago.

There were two highly intense stunt scenes, the first on the afore mentioned submarine (it was in the deep dark down and was rolling to go deeper) and the climax with two single engine planes between Ethan and the bad guy.

While they were intense and kept my attention, they could have cut them down, just a smidge. Because this movie was nearly three hours long and they didn't have the guts to end it the way they should have.

You could have cut 20 minutes or more from this and wouldn't have lost a thing. It was just too long and the pacing wasn't great. Also, might be biased cause I don't really like Tom Cruise. I didn't even watch the newer MI's until a year ago. Good actor and all, but personally? He stinks.

Because I know two things (how parachutes work and this is a film Tom Cruise is producing) I knew exactly what would happen when Ethan's chute burned up...the backup worked and he lived.

Personally, it would have been a much more rewarding ending having him die save the world. But that's just me.

He has his expanded team, a potential love interest, and they all head off in different directions...to inevitably meet up in another one in a few years. I hope I'm wrong on that.

Fitting end to the franchise. Let it end here.

While the team had moments to shine, it felt like it was more Ethan than anything else. Haley Atwell saved the world, but was a bit underused. I could have used more of her. Same with Simon Pegg. He's better than just comic relief and the sooner people recognize that the better.

It's not a movie/franchise I'd revisit often, but its popcorn action and the mystery and intrigue of a spy thriller. It's a movie I would recommend in theaters for the spectacle, but you can wait for it to inevitably drop on streaming.

3/5...only because of the pacing and length.

4/5 otherwise.