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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nThe eighth \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d movie, \u201cThe Final Reckoning,\u201d sees Tom Cruise\u2019s secret agent Ethan Hunt strive to save the world yet again. But this movie has \u201cFinal\u201d in its title, so maybe Hunt won\u2019t succeed this time. Maybe the world will be destroyed by the evil A.I. program known as The Entity. Or even worse, maybe Hunt will meet his end and the world will be denied any more of Cruise\u2019s smoldering star power, at least in this franchise. At any rate, Hunt has to defeat not only the all-powerful computer program, but also old human enemy Gabriel (Esai Morales), who is somehow working \u201cfor\u201d The Entity. The odds of surviving are really long \u2013 and at 170 minutes, so is the movie\u2019s runtime \u2013 but Hunt is up to the challenge of saving the world and Cruise is clearly up to the challenge of keeping the audience entertained for that long. I can\u2019t say he succeeds in the latter mission, but he chooses to accept it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Things don\u2019t get off to a great start. We pick up a few months after the end of the seventh movie, with The Entity already causing damage across the world. World powers worry that their weapons programs are about to be compromised, making them wonder if they should launch weapons before they lose them, or before other, non-compromised countries can launch their own weapons first. Hunt has gone underground pondering what to do next. At least he has his team, like hacker Luther (Ving Rhames), gadget guy Benji (Simon Pegg), and con artist Grace (Hayley Atwell). He even breaks former enemy Paris (Pom Klementieff) out of prison to fight for good, and convinces Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis), one of her guards, to join them as well. They learn that Gabriel will be attending a formal charity event, and Hunt sees it as an opportunity to beat up bad guys while wearing a tuxedo\u2026 I mean, extract information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve made the film\u2019s first act sound more exciting than it is. The business with Gabriel is there, sure, but so much of it is just characters talking about how dangerous The Entity will be if it falls into the wrong hands and how Hunt is crucial to the survival of the planet. Much of it is exemplified by U.S. President Sloane (Angela Bassett) debating with her cabinet, which consists of so much star power (Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Janet McTeer, Charles Parnell, and Mark Gatiss) that the film seems to want to give them their own movie. There was so much talking that I was questioning if the film had somehow forgotten to add action sequences. The second act wasn\u2019t much better, as Hunt has to rescue an item from a sunken submarine in the Arctic. I appreciated the danger and suspense, but the plan was so convoluted that I could never tell if Hunt was succeeding or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the third act kicked \u201cMission Impossible: The Final Reckoning\u201d into gear. The fate of the world is on the line and it\u2019s going to come down to a matter of seconds. More importantly, Cruise\u2019s beautiful face is on the line as the actor engages in some of his trademark dangerous stunt work. The action is tense, creative, and even funny at times. In other words, it\u2019s exactly what people come to these movies to see. If the whole movie had kept up this spirit, it would have earned a recommendation from me, but so much of what comes before it is a slog that I can\u2019t recommend the movie overall. Fortunately, for all the talk of finality, Hollywood is certain to keep milking this franchise, ensuring that \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d won\u2019t really be going out on this disappointing entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning\u201d is rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence and action, bloody images, and brief language. Its running time is 170 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver The eighth \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d movie, \u201cThe Final Reckoning,\u201d sees Tom Cruise\u2019s secret agent Ethan Hunt strive to save the world yet again. But this movie has… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":60777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60778,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60776\/revisions\/60778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}