With industry strikes, a global pandemic, and an expansive array streaming services combining to put the theatrical distribution model in perilous danger, it’s up to Tom Cruise to save the day. At least that’s how the sexagenarian movie star has repositioned his career in the wake of Top Gun: Maverick, parlaying his onscreen heroics into a self-assigned position as the avatar of movie magic. No skyscraper too tall, no ocean too deep; when it comes to preserving our great pop cultural pastime, no mission is impossible enough to stop him from propping up the art form, even if it means using the tools of the enemy. Any film franchise that stretches itself into eight individual entries risks cosplaying as a television series, and Cruise and company are wagering that our previous engagement with the Mission: Impossible saga will bring in the return customers that original content inherently can’t muster. As a business strategy, it’s largely beyond reproach, and if it ain’t broke, who is Ethan Hunt to fix it? He’s no stranger to a jam, but with The Final Reckoning, he’s finally delivered a message that’s on the brink of self-destruction.

The strain of three decades’ worth of elongation is evident from the opening frames, which play out like a sizzle reel from previous outings. Having ended 2023’s Dead Reckoning on a relative down note, Hunt is playing the hits as a means of soul searching, with footage reaching as far back as Brian De Palma’s 1996 original spliced in to reflect our hero’s inner monologue. His final mission, as all the marketing material would have you believe, once again concerns The Entity, an all-seeing, all-knowing AI program that’s wriggled free of its creators’ control, and is now hellbent on world-wide apocalypse. Ethan’s possession of the macguffin cruciform key, not to mention his unspeakable bravery, physical prowess, and formidable intellect, make him the only man capable of stopping this faceless villain before a nuclear holocaust subsumes our planet.

It must be a heavy burden, one whose weight is reiterated endlessly by our slew of returning friends and teammates, all basking in the glow of our cinematic savior while plowing through pages upon pages of clunky exposition. Rather than uncorking another signature set piece to get the audience in a tizzy, director Christopher McQuarrie and co-screenwriter Erik Jendresen spend over an hour setting up their stakes, with only intermittent hand-to-hand combat to enliven the proceedings. The deluge of dialogue appears to have been written by The Entity itself, scrubbed clean of any character development or moments of levity as it tirelessly explains a narrative that’s too convoluted to come together anyway. Abundant plot holes aren’t a problem if you’ve got momentum on your side, but no matter how many tricks editor Eddie Hamilton and cinematographer Fraser Taggart whip out to keep things moving, the whole thing is stuck in the mud.

Clocking in at an unforgivable 169 minutes, Final Reckoning doesn’t just refuse to truncate its runtime in any form or fashion; it seems determined to stay on screen as long as possible. The ceaseless flashbacks certainly help in this endeavor, though insisting on our interest in the story’s overarching lore is a losing gambit. Most Mission movies aren’t differentiated by their christian names so much as being ‘the one where Tom Cruise jumps/hangs off of (blank),’ our fondest memories forged through excitement and titillation rather than anything logistical. We don’t need all the table setting, yet here it is, stretching out the climactic chapter like a high school English paper that needs to reach a word count. 

Any figurehead needs proper backup, and Cruise is in ample supply with Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg headlining an absolutely stacked cast that has little more to do than dutifully relay what you’re already watching in real time. Only Tramell Tillman locates any enticing friction with Cruise, who’s otherwise deified to the point of being trapped in amber. A second act one-liner wherein Hunt tells a nameless assailant that he needs to stay off the internet might be played for laughs, but it also calcifies the problem of letting one man be the lone artibor of right and wrong. Even The Entity is powerless against Ethan’s cunning and saintly bonafides, and as fun as it’s been to watch Cruise’s unrepentant megalomania play out over the years, he’s desperately in need of a sparring partner. 

That is until the final 45 minutes, when the kinetic floodgates are finally opened, and all that shadow boxing becomes a bit more understandable. After all, who could match the thrilling majesty of watching Tom descend into the ocean’s overwhelming depths, or swing dangerously from the bottom of a biplane mid-flight? Spectacular isn’t strong enough phrasing, the stunt work here forcing the viewer to choose between clenched-fist duress and cackling awe as the 62-year-old defies both our imagination and notions of personal safety. It may be disingenuous to bury such lavish praise underneath a torrent of complaints, but it largely matches the viewing experience. The vast majority of The Final Reckoning is spent twiddling its own thumbs, but when the ball eventually gets rolling, it picks up velocity at a breathtaking rate.

Perhaps sustaining that level of gobsmacking pageantry is asking too much of an elder Cruise, but slimming down the preceding pair of hours would have at least balanced the scales. Instead we lay in wait, rehashing the highs and lows of a serialized tome that needs to be taken off the air immediately. Saying goodbye to our friends on the other side of the screen can be difficult, and Mission: Impossible stays true to its TV origins by overstaying its welcome. Everyone here is getting a little long in the tooth, and the death-defying stunt work of the grand finale feels more like a final gasp than a righting of the ship. Here’s hoping they don’t green light another season, because the ratio of exhilaration to back patting is tilting precariously in the wrong direction.