We finally saw Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning in the theater this past weekend. Overall I liked it. There were numerous callbacks to previous movies throughout the franchise, and it pretty well stayed on-brand for what the franchise settled into starting with the 4th installation, or maybe the 3rd, depending on your opinion.
Although I never found those movies particularly memorable, I always enjoyed watching them and I was never sorry I spent my time on it. This one is no different. It's Tom Cruise doing a bunch of crazy action stunts in crazy situations in crazy-beautiful locations.
I've seen quite a few criticisms levied at the film and its predecessor Dead Reckoning, which this new movie completes, but I found I didn't agree with most of them. Some thought the villain being an AI entity was off-brand and didn't work as well the typical Bond-super-villain type, but I thought the idea worked well. Some thought the plot was goofy, but I thought it was no more or less goofy than any of the other movies. Some thought it had too much exposition, but I didn't feel the same.
My criticisms, if I had to find some, were that it lagged a bit in the middle and probably some of the film could've been edited down. And it seemed too contrived at times the way they tried to incorporate plot points from previous movies into this one when the earlier movies clearly never had any intention of leading anywhere. But I can easily forgive that because it was done as fan-service and because it was the last movie of the franchise, and that's the kind of thing you do in those situations.
Anyway, whether you catch it in theaters while it's still there, or consider renting on streaming services when it's available, I'd say if you liked the other installments, you'll like this one too.
I saw the first MI movie in the summer before my senior year of high school. Crazy.
