Cruise-ing along: The final (?) ‘Mission: Impossible’ film is perhaps the worst—but it’s still worth seeing

Tom Cruise’s supposed last jaunt as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning might be the weakest film of the franchise.

It’s long (11 minutes short of three hours!); it’s a little on the somber side; and it may be a little too self-important for a goofy secret-agent series. But by the time Cruise is dangling from a biplane battling villain Gabriel (Esai Morales), as Gabriel cackles maniacally like he is in the wrong movie, you’ll probably forgive all the nonsense and mostly enjoy the final ride.

If you don’t remember what happened in the last film, don’t worry, because this one goes to great lengths to remind you of the prior film’s happenings. In a series that often got confusing, this installment comes with a lot of CliffsNotes.

Hunt is still being hunted and must decide between his personal freedom, turning himself in, and, of course, saving the world. That pesky AI from the last film is still at it, trying to conquer Earth; it wants to create global thermonuclear war, much like that Joshua computer in the 1983 Matthew Broderick movie WarGames.

It’s all total bullshit, with Cruise often running around at top speed and looking really, really concerned. Still, there are enough effective sequences—including bomb-dismantling, a powerful set piece inside a dead submarine, and that plane battle—that will ultimately leave you feeling, “OK, stupid as stupid can be, but still enough fun to satisfy.”

This is not a euphoric recommendation, but it’s a recommendation, nonetheless. Go see Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning on a big screen for the biplane sequence alone, and marvel one last time in how truly insane Tom Cruise is.

In the end, the franchise was a winner, even if its swan song is one of its weakest chapters.