Review: 'The Final Reckoning' Amazes With Cruise-tastic Feats

HOLLYWOOD, CA — Nostalgia, daring exploits, and massive spectacles lead to feats of brilliant Cruise-tastic delight in what could be the megastar’s swan song as IMF agent Ethan Hunt.

For nearly 30 years, the “Mission: Impossible” actioners have all been grand in scope and execution, and the eighth installment in the series may be the franchise's most ambitious undertaking yet.

“Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” directed by Christopher McQuarie, opens with a rather intriguing 45-minute sequence, aiming to weave all the previous seven episodes together into one cohesive narrative. The presentation includes lengthy expositions, replete with flashback montages of former castmates, clandestine operations and high-octane thrills, dating back all the way to the series’ beginnings in 1996.

At best, the entire opening sequence feels nostalgic. At worst, it may feel overwrought as it strives in earnest to cultivate a gist. Ultimately, we are led to believe that Hunt’s eight missions are all interrelated. No spoilers here, so we can’t reveal more.

Picking up after the events of “Dead Reckoning,” “The Final Reckoning” posits a world where a sentient artificial intelligence called Entity has gone pervasively roguish and mad, having hacked into computer systems around the world.

The menacing digital miscreant, which manifests itself looking like a TV monitor, corrupts and manipulates digital data, all for the sake of hubristic and malevolent pursuits to feed its ego. In its most chilling threat yet, Entity warns the world that it could launch nuclear mayhem in the blink of an eye, and billions of people could easily perish.

Luckily, Hunt and his IMF team — tech whiz duo, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luthor Stickell (Ving Rhames), newly recruited pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell) and adversary-turned-ally Paris (Pom Klementieff) — are all set to stop Entity at all costs. How? They must find Entity’s source code and “poison” the algorithm with a malware. But it will not be an easy feat to retrieve it! The code is located beneath the polar ice cap in the Bering Sea, entombed inside a corroding carcass of the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol.

It will not be long before the IMF team braves the icy waters as they race against time to vanquish Entity. Meanwhile, mysterious terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales), POTUS Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) and the Russians are also trying to take control of the digital foe.

Will Hunt and his IMF team prevail against all odds, given that Entity can most likely evade their grasp?

“The Final Reckoning” amazes with Cruise’s death-defying stunts. They're absolutely impressive, and nuanced to the core. Among them are the seafloor submarine escape and the film’s final aerial sequence, involving a vertiginous dogfight between biplanes in South Africa.

As expected, the film defies logic and science along the way, so audiences must suspend their disbelief. Rest assured — it is all for the sake of providing thrilling escapism. After all, the movie franchise is in the business of making the impossible real and plausible.

In all, “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” may be too grand of a vision to execute, but in the end, Cruise effectuates all the well-deserved rhapsodies of praises. Simply put, the movie is brilliantly Cruise-tastic!