I was invited on short notice to watch this at the cinema with family, so in preparation I binge watched films 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 over a couple of days. I knew I’d seen 1 before so I skipped that, and I’d seen 3 as well but wasn’t sure so watched it again. I was quite surprised at how consistently decent films 4 through 7 were, so going into film 8 I thought it would be at a similar level. I was shocked by how bad this film was, I’d say it’s the worst in the series by an absolute mile.

The tone is nothing like a Mission Impossible film, it’s got that generic third film in a Hollywood action trilogy feeling where they spend so much time beating the audience over the head with how big the stakes are, and how only our protagonist can save mankind, that it sucks away all of the spontaneity and fun. I don’t think the classic theme plays a single time during the actual film (only during the opening and closing credits), there is no crazy opening, no car chase, no comedy, no “we’ll figure it out” madness. The big action finale is a rehash of the finale in film 6, while the other one is slow motion underwater suspense that, while technically impressive, feels entirely out of place in this franchise.

The Final Reckoning feels like some self-indulgent love letter from Tom Cruise to himself, with tons of time spent trying to pretend Mission Impossible has a deeper and more complex storyline than it ever did in reality. It is filled with these completely unnecessary connections to older films which are made redundant because this is a very direct sequel to 7, so everything has already been setup, and because none of them actually do anything to enhance the story of film 8. Like why does this random CIA agent side character need to be the son of Ethan Hunt’s original team leader? Why does the ‘Rabbit’s Foot’ from 3 need to suddenly be revealed as The Entity? None of these connections matter or have any time spent developing them.

The writing is horrendous, this film treats you like an complete fucking moron and repeatedly explains the same basic plot points so often that it actually becomes an unintentional joke. There’s a scene towards the end of the film where most of the cast are literally standing around a nuclear bomb that is ticking down while they explain the plot to each other for the billionth time. CIA agent side character man questions why they are doing this - in a previous film this line would have actually been a real joke that the writers planned, but they were so clueless here that we’re supposed to take it seriously instead.

Anyway, I could go on and on but this film is just so unnecessarily bad, I really wonder why they deviated so heavily from their successful formula. Was it an ego decision from Cruise, or was this about the (relatively) poor box office performance of the previous film?