I have been a big fan of the recent Mission: Impossible franchise, so I was looking forward to the final film, and, like everyone I wanted to see Tom Cruise running and doing a massive stunt. Well, he ran throughout the movie but his massive stunt did not come until late in the movie… and it was a long movie.

I do think the last hour or so of Mission: Impossible-The Final Reckoning was sensational. The problem was that the film was almost three hours long.

The first hour and a half of the movie was so packed with exposition and flashes to previous movies that I was getting a little bored, and that is something that a Mission: Impossible movie should never be.

Tom Cruise was great as Ethan Hunt. You can tell how comfortable he is with the character. His stunt work in the final confrontation of the movie is typically stunning. It was good to see the return of Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg as the team that has backed Ethan for so many missions. Hayley Atwell is back from the last film and she has decent chemistry with Cruise. Rolf Saxon and Lucy Tulugarjuk appear in the film as a couple of characters who become two of my favorites from the film.

Esai Morales is not my favorite character in the film. I do not think he worked as the villain of this movie. I think he was better in the previous film and his transfer over to this one was not great.

I did not love the final scene of the movie either. I wanted some more resolution for the characters than what was done. Perhaps that is in case this is not the final MI movie.

I do not think this was a fantastic finale of this franchise, but it was still a solid action movie. The last hour or so of the movie was really great and engaging. The first hour and a half spent way too much time explaining things and trying to set things up. Mission: Impossible-The Final Reckoning was a touch underwhelming, but that is probably because the franchise had been so sensational for the last five or six movies that you do not expect it to only be okay.

3.5 stars