My Cultural Diet

First, a confession: I’m still in denial that Ilsa Faust is dead. I know what Christopher McQuarrie said after Dead Reckoning Part One concerning her fate, and no offense to Hayley Atwell, but a part of me kept hoping beyond hope that Rebecca Ferguson would suddenly emerge from the shadows to save Ethan Hunt one last time. That aside, The Final Reckoning, as befitting its name, is a solid sendoff for our generation’s best action blockbuster franchise. (And yes, I really do hope it’s Tom Cruise’s final outing as Hunt.) Sure, at nearly three hours long, it’s unwieldy, bloated, and repetitive. But it also possesses a refreshing earnestness thanks to Hunt’s insistence on trust and loyalty above all else, Cruise’s constant willingness to defy death, and various callbacks to previous Mission: Impossible films — callbacks that actually make decent narrative sense and don’t feel like blatant attempts to curry nostalgia or “tie things together.” As for the film’s stunts, they’re as big as you’d expect, although you know Hunt’s going to survive somehow despite all of the odds because he’s, well, Ethan freakin’ Hunt. Much like the film as a whole, it’s about the journey, not the destination — and it’s been quite a journey for nearly thirty years.

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