Those biplanes may be soaring in the sky in Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, but critics feel like the movie is too heavy to really take off. Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri said the film suffered from “Solemnity Overload,” and he was not the only one to feel that way. The farewell to Ethan Hunt and the gang is full of pomp and portent, which is antithetical to the whole “aw, here it goes!” spirit of the series. In theaters May 23, this final Mission: Impossible film sees Tom Cruise fighting AI. Just like the new Pope! The film saw a respectable 6-ish minute standing ovation at Cannes, but that may have more to do with Mr. Movies Cruise ginning up enthusiasm. The Variety review noted a screening peppered with “derisive hipster laughter” during some of the more ludicrous stunt pieces. But aren’t ludicrous stunt pieces why we all go to a Mission: Impossible movie?
But it wasn’t all bad news for Paramount. Many praised the film’s set pieces for being Big and Dumb and Fun. Cruise also got a lot of props for once again putting his life on the line for our amusement. Here’s what critics are saying about Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning.
“Is Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning a disaster or a triumph? I genuinely enjoyed watching this picture, although I worried constantly during the first hour that we were in for a total shipwreck. (At least, until we got to the actual shipwreck.) That worry doesn’t entirely dissipate during the second half. The whole enterprise reeks of Marvel-itis with its endless callbacks.” — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
“It is a wildly silly, wildly entertaining adventure which periodically gives us a greatest-hits flashback montage of the other seven films in the M:I canon – but we still get a brand new, box-fresh Tom-sprinting-along-the-street scene, without which it wouldn’t be M:I. Moreover, this eighth film gives us a terrific new character, US sub commander Capt Bledsoe, played with suavity and the tiniest hint of camp by Tramell Tillman (from TV’s Severance) who has the chops for M:I9 whenever that happens.
“And just as it wouldn’t be M:I without a sprinting scene, it wouldn’t be M:I without Tom hanging on for dear life at some unfeasible altitude; here he gets to cling to the wing of an old-fashioned prop plane in the blue Empyrean. As Anthony Hopkins put it way back in MI:2: ‘It’s not Mission: Difficult’ is it?’” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“Absurdly astronomical stakes are one of the biggest issues with The Final Reckoning. A good-old fashioned nuke or biological weapon – those live in Mission: Impossible’s sweet spot: life-and-death at a massive scale, while also real enough to be relatably scary. But all life on planet Earth is just too much to plausibly wrap your head around, particularly with how seriously everyone takes everything else compared to say, Rogue Nation or Fallout.” — Clint Gage, IGN
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“In The Final Reckoning, Cruise is doing something on that plane that no stunt person could do as well — he’s acting. He bends his limbs around the metal with every fiber of his fear and desire, showing us the ferocity of Ethan’s will to defeat evil, which matches up with Cruise’s own will not just to entertain us but to leave us in a state of rapt amazement. In The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise is out to save movies as much as Ethan Hunt is out to save the world. He’s doing what he does on that plane so that we don’t have to.” — Owen Glieberman, Variety
“If Dead Reckoning risked overkill with its barrage of spectacular set-pieces — that car chase around Rome and down the Spanish Steps with Ethan and Grace in a Fiat Bambino was an all-timer — Final Reckoning spends a disproportionate amount of time trudging through recaps, reams of exposition and mind-numbing cyber-speak. There are so many round-robin conversations about the gravity of the situation, it feels like being trapped in an endless committee debriefing. At times, it borders on self-parody.” — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
