The adrenaline-pumping,  Dead Reckoning (2023), was going to be a hard act to follow, ergo, expectations were high for this MI series finale. Expect extra-strength running scenes with bonus, Tom training-in-undies or swimming à la boxers fart-targe.
Cruise, as ever, plays Agent, Ethan Hunt, supported by familiar faces – Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Pom K, etc. Unfortunately, this time round the MI team are about as credible as secret agents as my local bowling team, actually, I think they’d have more survival skills. The casting hasn’t (time?) travelled well, and the acting, generally, is woeful. Can you even call it acting?
The story’s central theme, AI taking over the world, isn’t original – ‘The Entity’ as an evil moniker hardly inspires fear, does it? Voldemort, Hannibal Lecter, Nurse Ratchet, Hal, names that convey meaning, in this movie, we get the wishy-washy, ‘Entity’ — not even remotely unsettling.
The screenplay is so heavy on exposition that you’ll think it’s your car’s GPS. There’s also too much ersatz moralising from a screenplay that’s so lacking in depth, imagination and wit that you can hear it clearing its throat before every scene. Doesn’t anybody know how to write good dialogue anymore?
The highlights of the movie are the impressive stunts, which ultimately, is what makes this film watchable. This is where director Christopher McQuarrie excels, notwithstanding the entire stunt crew, including Cruise. The submarine, Bering Sea, and biplane sequences are truly thrilling.
Overall, the film runs too long and maybe the editor was too in awe of the Cruise persona to tell him “less is more, Tom,” or rather, “2.43 hours? Yeah, nah, Mate!”
If only they’d dumped the moralising twaddle, worked at a better script, and stuck to the action, this could have been a true, MI classic and a fitting finale to the series.
My Rating:     Stunts thrilling, script a dogpile.
                     Three and a half aviator sunshades out of five