So, saw Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning yesterday… Gonna chime in with @Kent - it was not the most enjoyable experience. But then again, I fully expected that after the last movie. The pacing is all over the place, the first 30+ minutes especially, where it obsesses with flashbacks from previous movies, trying to force connections all over the place (and continues to do so throughout the whole movie, so we´re suddenly getting stuff like conveniently turning the McGuffin that was the Rabbit´s Foot in MI3 into the beginning of what the Entity is, Phelps Jr., or the return of that one CIA computer guy from the first movie, though I admit he was enjoyable). Picking up on what Dead Reckoning started, the story about the all-knowing Entity AI, global nuclear armageddon, doomsday cults, and talks about destiny and blah blah blah is bonkers garbage riddled with the worst of cliches. It´s all trying to be super serious, but just makes you grin half the time (and makes those few sections where it tries to be more on the lighter side feel out of place).
There are some good parts. I think the whole section on the aircraft carrier, island, and both submarines is great (the implausability of Ethan surviving the whole thing aside), and occasionally feels like it would´ve fit right into one of the older Jack Ryan movies. Both the Sevastopol and biplane sequences are impressive and give you the proper “How the hell did they shoot this?” feeling, but at the same time feel nowhere near as exhilarating and fun to watch as the Langley infiltration in the first movie, the Burj Khalifa bit from Ghost Protocol, or the opera sequence from Rogue Nation.
Indeed. Though I think the problem started with Fallout. M:I as a series benefited from changing directors every movie, so each one felt very distinct and worked as a standalone experience, moreover so because there was very little continuity between them aside from Ethan, Luther, and later Benji. De Palma made a classy old-school espionage flick with a Cold War-esque plot; Woo turned it into his typical action schlock that was all about style (possibly his worst American production and I only ever watched it once); Abrams made the action more sober, focused on the cool infiltration stuff, and tried to make it all more personal for Ethan with the killed protege and kidnapped wife stuff; Bird dropped the personal stuff, adopted a lighter tone and made it all about the cool infiltration stuff and team action; then came McQuarrie and blended the cool stuff, the fun stuff, the slightly personal stuff, and the classic espionage stuff into one highly cinematic experience. And it worked so well that he went on to make the following three movies.
Unfortunately, in Fallout, he decided to double down on the personal stuff (bringing back the ex), started forcing connections to previous movies where it wasn´t necessary (e.g. Max), and introduced blabbering about fate and destiny and whatnot. But at least Fallout was a well-paced film with some great action (and Henry Cavill). Dead Reckoning still kept the good action, but doubled down on the idiotic stuff about fate/destiny, global threats, and everything being somehow connected to and more personal for Ethan (Gabriel, Ilsa, etc.). Which brings us to the mess that is The Final Reckoning.
It kinda felt like when Sam Mendes did Skyfall. Suddenly you had a Bond movie that was not just a fun spy-action flick, but also a pretty damn good piece of cinema, so they had him do the next one. But instead of being more of the same, Spectre was an overtly long slog which was trying to make it all more personal for Bond (granted, that was a thing with pretty much all the Craig movies, but Spectre just felt forced) and force connections all over the place (No Time to Die had the same issues, even though it wasn´t directed by Mendes anymore).
Then you have the lore and character decisions. I hated how Dead Reckoning turned the IMF from what seemed like a highly secretive but still properly official organisation which recruits the best of the best in the intelligence community into a “we recruit skilled people who face prison and force them to work for us” type of outfit (correct me if I´m wrong, but I believe that was never the case, and effectively contradicts previous movies, which is funny given how it tries to make everything connected). I hated what a pulled-out-of-the-arse villain and supposed ultimate nemesis Gabriel was/is (made worse by the fact that in Final Reckoning, his role is even smaller and he´s more ridiculous than sinister; not to mention it doesn´t work, because all we know about him is that he killed some chick Ethan liked and had him framed for it), and the dumb backstory it suddenly added to Ethan. And I found it annoying how since Fallout they turned Luther from a cool and chill character into the blabbermouth for all the supposedly deep dialogues along the “Ethan, it´s your/our destiny” stuff. And of course how they tried to make the whole plot even more “impactful” because global cyberspace, economy, nuclear annihilation, blah blah blah. The last two/three movies just steered the franchise into waters where it never needed to go / should´ve gone.
Sorry for the long rant, lol.
” can’t be scary 
