Mission Impossible 8: A Fitting Finale?

The Mission Impossible franchise has always been famous for its over the top, completely real, stunts. From hanging off the side of a plane to riding a motorbike off a cliff, Tom Cruise has continued to push the boundaries of practical stunts since 1996. So does this newest entry continue the streak and bring the Mission Impossible franchise to a fitting, explosive, finale? Even though it may not be the best in the franchise, I can say with complete certainty that this is a perfect end to Ethan Hunt's story.

This movie is, simply put, a wild ride. There's not a moment where you'll feel bored or even less than exhilarated. Even in moments where we're not seeing these stunts or amazing action sequences, there's still a good amount of tension to keep us glued to the screen. However, this may be a little long. That's not to say they don't use the time well, because they very much do, I just believe this could've been cut down a bit and still been just as good.

I only have a few issues with this movie, so I'll get those out of the way now. I think it mostly boils down to repetitiveness, which comes in two forms throughout the movie. First off, a lot of the first two acts would consist of just trying to tether this movie to the rest of the franchise. This felt like a big issue to me because, not only was it just a lot of exposition being dumped on us in the first 30 minutes - all of which was just someone sitting there monologuing to Ethan, but also you could tell this wasn't the original plan for the franchise. They were retroactively changing things from the other movies to fit this new narrative.

The second form of repetitiveness was carried all throughout the movie. A lot of the runtime would consist of somebody explaining a plan, then telling us what The Entity would want them to do, then carrying out the plan. I'll give it to them, occasionally the plan would go awry, but it just wasn't enough to differ from the formula they seemed to create.

My final criticism of this is that The Entity just wasn't really there for most of the movie. We were told and shown at the start that The Entity had infiltrated all of cyberspace and the world had been plunged into chaos, but after that first little moment, that idea was somewhat forgotten. Additionally, throughout most of the second act, they weren't really worried about The Entity because it wasn't really doing anything. Yes, they'd remind us of its existence by saying it knows what they're going to do or it will activate the world's nuclear warheads, but that isn't very tangible if we're simply being told about it. It would also constantly get outcomes wrong, I don't think Ethan Hunt's team ever fell into its trap at all - their biggest worry was Gabriel. Surely this ever growing, ever advancing artificial intelligence would think about plan Bs, right?

Now that I have my problems out of the way, let's talk about what I did like. First off, I loved Victor's sacrifice. It was imperative to the story and it never felt like he died it vain or it didn't have enough impact. His death was felt throughout the entire rest of the movie in so many ways. Not only was this simply a beautiful end to his character, it also made us feel like nobody was safe, not even the people closest to Ethan. While I do think they could've utilised this idea a little more throughout, it was felt in a big way when we thought Benji was dying.

I think possibly my favourite scene in this whole movie, which I'm sure will go under appreciated, was Ethan's mission in the submarine. It may not have been the most action heavy scene, but you could feel the full force of both the immense water pressure and the submarine continuously rolling. Everybody could feel what he was experiencing in this scene, my entire theatre was silent as if we were under that water with Ethan. I think this was helped a lot by the fact it didn't cut away to a different fight or anything, allowing us to fully digest what was happening.

To conclude, while this may not be the greatest entry into the Mission Impossible franchise, it has its fair amount of flaws, I wouldn't change a thing about the third act. That was the perfect send off to Ethan and this franchise as a whole. My only hope is that this doesn't get the John Wick treatment, with countless spinoffs to milk this cash cow for all its worth before people stop showing up to the cinema. Stay tuned for my thoughts on Ballerina!