Mission: Impossible -The Final Reckoning (2025)

Let me tell you how old I am. I'm old enough to remember when Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning was titled Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. I loved it, and I didn't even think about the problems that might be lying ahead for those aiming to satisfyingly complete the one grand action epic that could serve as a jewel in the crown of the series. Unfortunately, there were problems. Not only did the film not perform as well as expected, it was stuck with a weak human villain and a ridiculous non-human obstacle to be overcome.

I still had faith though. Of course I did. Tom Cruise has enjoyed taking things to another level in his successful working relationship with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (writing once again with Erik Jendresen for this adventure).

I don't want to spend too much time on the plot. It feels needlessly complex, but it's actually quite simple. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) needs to get the gang back together. That gang now comprises of Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), Grace (Hayley Atwell), Paris (Pom Klementieff), and one or two other familiar faces. The latest mission is the same as it was in the first part of this two-parter, despite the title change and exposition dump at the start of this film. Gabriel (Esai Morales) needs to be apprehended, and the dangerous AI, still stupidly referred to as The Entity, needs to be stopped. Time is running out though, and The Entity will very soon be able to wipe out humanity once it has control of every major nuclear weapon facility.

I'm going to be quite negative about this, but I should clarify now that there are moments here that are fantastic. Two set-pieces make this worth seeing on the big screen. It's just a shame that they're the only real set-pieces in a film that clocks in at a hefty 169 minutes. I would argue that it feels as if a whole hour is spent reminding viewers of highlights from the past movies in the series, giving too much screentime to big names who add nothing worthwhile to the proceedings, and having the title repeated over and over again, as well as a mantra about everything being the sum of numerous choices made throughout an entire life. The second half really delivers though, with the long-awaited submarine sequence and the heavily-advertised aeroplane antics giving us the death-defying Cruise stuntwork that has become a staple of the series.

The biggest problem here is the screenplay. McQuarrie and Jendresen seem to have no handle on the pacing, the tone, or how to weave the exposition and character moments in between fun thrills and great dialogue exchanges. It's odd to think of how well they succeeded with the previous instalment, because this feels like the antithesis of that. I almost lost patience and swore at the screen when one scene played out for the sole purpose of letting characters appear, nod knowingly at others, and then disappear again. 

I suppose Cruise is fine, although he struggles with the constant weight being put on his shoulders (both onscreen and generally, in my view, battling against his advancing years). Atwell and Pegg are given some really good moments, and both do well, while Rhames becomes the strong heart of the group. Klementieff does better with the action than she does with the character development, and Morales remains one of the worst villains that the series has given us, although he has more fun this time around than he did in the last film. Henry Czerny remains fantastic as Kittridge, Shea Whigham is shown to have an intriguing connection to some past events, and Angela Bassett must have been delighted with the journey of her character, Erika Sloane, since first appearing in Mission: Impossible - Fallout. Nick Offerman has at least one good moment, which is more than I can say for Hannah Waddingham and Tramell Tillman, but the real shining stars of the supporting cast turn out to be Rolf Saxon and Lucy Tulugarjuk, the former given what I think could be the most intriguing and wonderful journey of any character to have featured in these movies.

Despite not being up there with the best that he's done before, McQuarrie directs the action well enough when it happens, once again helped by cinematographer Fraser Taggart and editor Eddie Hamilton, there's an undeniable appeal to the bombastic and rousing score (that theme tune has served every composer well over the years, I hope everyone involved remembered to give thanks to Lalo Schifrin), and everyone works hard (perhaps too hard) to deliver something consistent with the continuity and aesthetic of the IMF world as we've come to know it over the years.

If you have enjoyed these movies over the years then you should head out to see this on the big screen. Everyone involved deserves what should be seen as a celebratory, if a bit self-indulgent, swansong for these movies, or these movies being fully planned around Cruise anyway. And viewers are equally deserving of having one more opportunity to enjoy spending time with these characters, and being able to bid them a fond farewell. 

It's just a shame that it wasn't better. The first half hour or so feels like a clunky straight-to-streaming movie, the excessive callbacks and winks feel like McQuarrie and co. were scared into delivering something intent on keeping fans happy a la Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, and a lot of viewers might grow impatient as they wait for what could have been called A Hunt For Red October. When that is happening onscreen though, it's tense and awesome and enough to make you temporarily forget how often you were just wondering whether or not this could take the lowest position in any ranked list of the M:I movies.

6/10

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Prime Time: The Killer's Game (2024)

The second feature film directed by J. J. Perry (after the enjoyable Night Shift), I have to start this review by saying that there was a lot here that seemed to be appealing directly to me. I like both Dave Bautista and Sofia Boutella, who have main roles here. I like a lot of movies about hitmen, of which this is one. And I like a lot of people in the supporting cast, from Scott Adkins to Terry Crews, and from Alex Kingston to Pom Klementieff . . . and I suppose that Ben Kingsley does okay in the right role. So it's a shame that this was so awful. 

Bautista plays Joe Flood, one of the best hitmen in the business. He meets a beautiful dancer named Maize Arnaud (Boutella), and that makes him start to consider retirement. Retirement isn't always a luxury afforded to hitmen though, especially when they have been as busy and successful as Joe. But when he is given bad news by a doctor, Joe decides the best thing to do is to put a contract on himself. Unfortunately, he soon discovers that he has a big reason to renegotiate, but Antoinette (Klementieff) isn't interested. She's sent out the call and a number of flamboyant killers have answered.

Apparently based on a book by Jay R. Bonansinga, The Killer's Game has a screenplay, written by Rand Ravich and James Coyne, that is one of the most derivative and tired I have encountered in the past year or two. The hitman ordering a hit on himself is standard stuff now, as is the change of circumstances coming along too late to stop the onslaught of greedy mercenary murderers, and everyone involved having their own quirky style makes it feel like something that would have been much more fun about twenty years ago, before that choice was used in far too many other movies.

Crews is a lot of fun in his role, and Scott Adkins has fun putting on a Scottish accent to work alongside Drew McIntyre, but they are the only ones who liven things up. Okay, Dylan Moran is an unexpected delight in his small role, playing a priest who receives quite the confession, and Kingston has a couple of amusing moments, but nobody else seems to stay awake in front of the cameras. Bautista seems very stilted and slow, and he has no chemistry with Boutella, who is hampered by being the love interest kept in the dark for most of the runtime. Klementieff fails to make her potential villain truly menacing or memorable, Kingsley is so low-key that he seems to have wandered in from a much calmer movie, and that covers the people who actually made any impression on me. 

Perry can showcase some action that feels visceral and impactful, but he even undermines that aspect of the film by trying to make everything more fun and funky with each main fight sequence choreographed to some pop song that, at best, ensures the film has zero tension and, at worst, reminds you of whenever tht song was used in some other, much better, movie.

The pacing isn't bad, some of the scenes look nice enough, and I am easily entertained by groups of people descending upon one another to engage in a mass brawl, but this is generally not worth your time. It's a huge disappointment, and every single main cast member has a handful of better films that you could enjoy checking out instead of this.

3/10

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

I couldn't resist. The usual "Prime Time" blog post will appear tomorrow, apologies to anyone who likes me keeping to a more rigid schedule.

Here we are then. Is it the beginning of the end for the Mission: Impossible movie series? It certainly feels that way. We all know that Tom Cruise can only keep risking his life for our entertainment for so long. We also know that each time the stakes are raised can make it harder to find ways for the next instalment to top the previous one. This certainly feels like it could be a great mission to go out on, and there are some interesting parallels between this film and the De Palma blockbuster that started it all.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise, like you need me to tell you that) has to go rogue once again, this time on a mission to collect two parts of a special key. Nobody knows quite what the key unlocks, or where it needs to be used, but it's all connected to a world-threatening AI enemy, referred to through most of the movie as "The Entity". Hunt enlists the help of his old friends, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), as well as reconnecting with the tricksy Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). There are many others after the key, although some know more about it than others, including a slippery thief named Grace (Hayley Atwell), a deadly figure from Hunt's past (played by Esai Morales), and a few other key players (no pun intended).

Although this movie series has been on great/top form for some time now, and you could easily argue that not one instalment is a complete miss, I did go into this feeling one small pang of regret. I felt the importance of the marriage of the films with their respective directors had disappeared, especially when you consider how much De Palma and John Woo stamped their style on the first two films, for better or worse, but maybe I am completely wrong. It’s perhaps the case that other directors are still very much doing their own thing, but their own thing happens to be presenting what they want to see in these movies. Director Christopher McQuarrie has certainly done as much to elevate the films, and maintain them as essential cinema viewings, as his star, and this film exudes a confidence gained from previous success. There’s no big song to use/promote, there’s no big stunt during the prologue (although it’s still a fantastic, extended, opening act), no teasing for an extended cinematic universe, and there aren’t really any surprises. You have seen what you’re getting in the trailer and marketing, to a degree, and McQuarrie, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Erik Jendresen, knows that he has something good enough to satisfy everyone who buys a ticket. And the big stunt that has been promoted so heavily in the run up to this release? It’s a highlight that the film builds to as the third act builds, with everyone involved seeming to relish the moment, nodding to the viewers and saying “we know you came here for this . . . here it is, and it’s something special”. And you know what . . . it IS something special. Because almost any other film would have executed that stunt in any number of different ways. But this is Tom Cruise, enabled by McQuarrie, in a bloody Mission: Impossible film.

If you enjoyed this cast in previous adventures then you will enjoy them here. They maintain great chemistry with one another, they each bring something to the table, and viewers should care about whether they live or die. Other familiar faces returning are Vanessa Kirby (still entertainingly flirty and dangerous as “The White Widow”) and Henry Czerny as Kittridge, a man who seems to be in the habit of upsetting Ethan Hunt. Atwell is the standout from the newcomers, always trying to stay one step ahead of Hunt and co. while being unaware of the full picture forming around her, and also being unaware of just how much danger she is in. Morales is fine, although hampered by the contrivance needed to make him feel like a physical embodiment of the AI threat, and there are very entertaining performances from Shea Wigham (an agent who quickly becomes exasperated while trying to capture Hunt), Greg Tarzan David (working with Wigham’s character), and Pom Klementieff (a skilled and determined assassin). Eagle-eyed viewers will also spot the likes of Rob Delaney, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma, and Cary Elwes, although you don’t need to be too eagle-eyes to spot Elwes, as he has a bit more screentime than the others, portraying the Director of  National Intelligence.

McQuarrie may not be doing his best writing work here, but he throws enough exposition around during the earlier scenes to set everything up for a film that can then rush headlong from one impressive set-piece to the next. The 163-minute runtime doesn’t ever start to feel tiring, thanks to the pre-credits sequence and that jaw-droppingly fantastic finale, coming along after numerous gunfights, a brilliantly inventive car chase, a couple of big brawls, and a sequence set in Venice that underlines just how slim the chances of success are (“well, this is not mission difficult”).

I wouldn’t rush to call this the best of the series, that’s a high bar indeed, but it certainly comes close. It’s so good that it has me thinking I was too harsh when I reviewed the last instalment, because this is easily on a par with that one and I find myself more inclined to overlook the minor issues in favour of the sheer thrill of the energy and spectacle of it all. Oh, and I'll eat my hat if I don't make numerous The Ethan Hunt For Red October gags when the second part is released.

9/10

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Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

It took a while, a span of time that saw writer-director James Gunn move from Marvel to DC and then back again, and then back AGAIN to accept a very senior role at DC, but we got there eventually. The third, and final (at least in this incarnation), adventure for the Guardians Of The Galaxy. A lot of people are happy, most seem to think that Gunn managed to stick the landing. I am not in agreement with those people.

Our main group aren’t in a great place when the film starts, with Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) spending time drunk and sad while the others are unable to snap him out of his funk. Everything gets much worse when Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) turns up, picks a fight with our gang, and then leaves after being seriously wounded. He isn’t the only casualty though. Rocket (Bradley Cooper) ends up in critical condition, and the fact that he has some kind of killswitch inside him makes it impossible to immediately heal him. The guardians have to figure out how to bypass the killswitch, which means they have to find out more about Rocket’s past, putting them on a headlong path towards someone known as The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). Well, we find out about Rocket’s past as we see many flashbacks showing us everything that the Guardians may or may not find out about at a later stage.

While I am not going to say that this is the worst Marvel movie since Thor: Love And Thunder, there are a lot of the same problems dragging this down from the great ending it could have been. Much like Waititi being encouraged to further indulge himself with his second Thor movie, Gunn seems to have been given free rein to cut loose and go crazy for the final instalment of this trilogy. With the exception of The High Evolutionary, who is a fantastic main villain, almost everyone now speaks in banter and gags. There are very few instances without an abundance of jokes. I get that these movies have been full of humour throughout the previous instalments, but it’s all overdone here in a way that jars with the more serious moments. And, hooo boy, are there some serious moments here. The whole backstory for Rocket is an upsetting and emotional look at animal vivisection, and the third act feels even more callous than some of the other Marvel movies, when you fully consider the impact of the large-scale destruction. So I can see that Gunn would have wanted plenty of humour to offset these moments, but it just doesn’t work well enough, mainly due to him twisting other characters too far away from how they used to be. Even a surprising Groot (still voiced by Vin Diesel) moment feels a bit disappointing and at odds with the charm of his essence.

The production design is wild throughout, and that also feels as if it has gone too far. Gunn wants every scene crammed full of alien species and strange environments, but too much of everything just has you wishing for a moment or two of something refreshingly normal. And then there’s the soundtrack, which people have once again marked as a highlight. No. This is a selection of obtrusive needle-drops that simply don’t work as well as by soundtrack choices from the first two movies. I love most of the songs used here, but they rarely felt like a natural fit for the scenes they were shoehorned into.

The cast generally do a good job, working well with what they are given. If you enjoyed Pratt, Cooper, Diesel, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, and Sean Gunn in the previous movies then you should enjoy them here. Poulter is sadly wasted in his role, as is Elizabeth Debicki (playing his “mother”), Maria Bakalova provides the voice of Cosmo, another fairly wasted character, and I am sure fans of Gunn’s work will enjoy seeing a small role for Nathan Fillion. Iwuji would steal the film though, were it not for the fact that many of his scenes involve him interacting with a super-cute, younger version of Rocket. His genuinely threatening and cruel villain is good enough to lift the whole film up a notch or two.

It’s hard to stay angry or disappointed with Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 though, knowing that everyone involved really wanted to come back and do their best to ensure a fitting end to this particular chapter in their cinematic incarnation, but it’s not one I will be revisiting, as opposed to the previous two adventures. Not only is the main storyline surprisingly predictable, it’s also surprisingly unsatisfying. One moment near the very end had me thinking that Gunn was actually committed to making the most of this opportunity to provide a properly emotional ending for this ragtag bunch of reluctant heroes, but it was soon undercut by one of the many easier options available in his storytelling toolbox. And it's also worth noting the most egregious and unnecessary "f-bomb" I can think of, seemingly just to take full advantage of the 12A rating here in the UK.

There are still moments here to enjoy, and many other people found less to be critical of than I did, but I was disappointed, and it feels like yet more proof that Marvel will struggle to get back to the consistent greatness they made seem so effortless as they built everything towards the cinematic conclusion of the Infinity Saga.

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Thunder Force (2021)

I really like Melissa McCarthy. I am fed up of saying that to people who think that she does nothing more than fall over and swear. It gets more depressing when she then goes on to appear in a movie in which she seems to do little more than fall over and swear. Although he's done some good work with his wife onscreen, writer-director Ben Falcone is one person who misunderstands the best way to use McCarthy comedically. In her best roles, and two of those were starring in Paul Feig films, she is smart and competent, but with an ability to swear enough to make a sailor blush while everyone arounds her underestimates her.

Thunder Force is set in a world in which some people have suddenly received superpowers, leading them to a life of super-villainy. After losing her parents at a young age, Emily Stanton is determined to devote her time to creating a superhero worthy of taking on the villains. Unfortunately, after decades of working on this main goal, Emily has her work potentially ruined when her old childhood friend, Lydia Berman visits her place of work. Lydia ends up being given super-strength, while Emily continues a treatment schedule that should give her the ability to become invisible. Perhaps they can still protect people, but do it as a team. The Thunder Force. Or perhaps they won't agree on the best way to do things. Emily has always been very cautious, after all, while Lydia is the kind to act first and think later.

I am sure it's already obvious to you, but McCarthy plays the Berman character here. Stanton is played by Octavia Spencer, who has spent the past couple of years in movies that focus on delivering some fun (yes, that includes Ma). Neither lead is given good enough material, leaving both of them desperately trying to create some additional chemistry that, I'm sorry to say, doesn't ever appear. Taylor Mosby helps, playing Tracy (the daughter of Emily), she's a lively presence, but the rest of the fun here really comes from the other supporting players. Melissa Leo is Allie, a strait-laced head of operations, and is the butt of one or two good gags, Bobby Cannavale is The King, a candidate for mayor who has a plan involving the super-villains, Pom Klementieff is Laser, having a blast as she tries to blast people, and Jason Bateman is a highlight as The Crab, someone with crab appendages where his arms would be. 

I am sure that Falcone and McCarthy make each other laugh loudly many times each day, and I'm sure that happened while making this movie, but the former really needs to take a step back, or sideways, to remind himself of just how much better he could do behind the camera, in both the writing and direction, instead of resting so much of the film on his wife's shoulders.

It's not as terrible as many people will tell you it is, but Thunder Force doesn't do anything to make it truly worth your time. There are too few laughs sprinkled throughout, the superhero side of things is all too silly (although an exchange between the head villain and a henchman that he may have killed is very amusing), and it feels like everyone may have had so much fun behind the scenes that they forgot to capture any of it on camera.

4/10

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