“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning”, which is a direct follow-up to “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” (2023), does not disappoint you in case of action despite being weaker than its recent predecessors. Yes, again, it will thrill and excite you with several spectacular action scenes to behold, but it is also rather solemn and ponderous as getting a bit too serious at times, and that unfortunately dissipates its enduring sense of fun to some degree.

The mood is quite grim right from the beginning. After what happened at the end of the previous film, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has been hiding from everyone during next several months, and things have been getting quite worse for everyone on the Earth thanks to the growing power and influence of his mighty AI opponent. It is about to take the control of all the nuclear missiles around the world and then will bring the almost total destruction to the human civilization, and, of course, Hunt and his team seem to be the only chance for the humanity.

Around the time when a desperate message from the President of the United Sates is directly delivered to Hunt (Don’t ask me how the hell that is possible), he seems to be fully ready for what might be his final mission. Thanks to Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), he gets a chance to beat that evil AI, but, not so surprisingly, his mission seems to be quite impossible in many aspects. For example, how can they possibly locate a certain sunken Russian submarine which has something crucial for his mission? And how can they also handle several other matters including another dangerous opponent eager to take control of that AI? 

As usual, Hunt firmly believes in himself and others around him because, well, he must do for any possibility of getting his mission accomplished, but he also comes to face some consequences of his frequently risky actions in the past. Sure, he has saved the world more than once for more than 30 years, but he has also been recklessly daring for getting his missions accomplished in the end, and there are several figures who were influenced by his actions in the past in one way or another and remind him of that hard truth along the story.  

The screenplay by director/co-producer Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen accordingly becomes more serious, and that is what holds the movie a bit too much when it wants to go up so high or so low. Yes, there has always been some gravitas on what is being at stake for Hunt and his colleagues throughout the series, but the series has been always about fun and thrill above all else, and being serious about the story and characters is the last thing the series needs – especially when it has become less fresh along with its aging lead actor these days. 

After spinning its wheels to some degree during its first act, the movie fortunately gets some of its good old groove back during the next two acts to our relief. While there is an intense physical action scene unfolded inside a little cabin located in a remote island near Alaska, we also get a rather quiet but undeniably suspenseful underwater sequence associated with the aforementioned Russian submarine, and everything in the story eventually culminates to a climax sequence which busily juggles a lot of things including another extremely daring moment of realistic action you can expect from its lead actor.

Cruise, who is soon going to have the 63rd birthday, surely throws himself into a lot of action from the beginning to the end. Looking much fitter and healthier than me despite being more than 20 years older than me, he demonstrates again that he is still an engaging action movie star both fearless and peerless, and his several action scenes in the film will certainly make you curious about how much he actually put himself into these risky moments. In my humble opinion, he should slow down a bit considering his current age, but I will not deny that he is still capable of impressing me and other audiences as he has diligently done since his first Mission Impossible movie in 1996.

Many of the other cast members in the film simply fill their respective spots as required, and that is particularly evident from several returning cast members, who are relatively less fun compared to their previous appearances in the series. While Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are dependable as before, Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff have some good moments to shine, but these wonderful performers are not often allowed to bring more personality to the movie as it hurriedly runs from one narrative point to another. In case of a heap of notable performers including Henry Czerny, Esai Morales, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Rolf Saxon, Katy O’Brian, Tramell Tillman, Mark Gatiss, Charles Parnell, Shea Whigham, and Angela Bassett, they simply come and go as demanded by their thankless parts, but Bassett manages to overcome as ably filling her character with a lot of dignity and authority.

In conclusion, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is not good enough to meet the expectation built up by the previous film. Its huge production budget, which is estimated to be 400 million dollars at most, is not wasted at all, and I was not bored much during its 169-minute running time, but now I wonder whether the series needs to get recharged as much as it was boosted in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (2011). Perhaps, Cruise should pay more attention to this impending matter besides his age and physical condition, and you may agree with me after watching the movie.