I took an unusual amount of time to go see The Final Reckoning. I was a little unenthused and figured I’d wait ’til after the holiday weekend. Avoid the crowds and not deal with three hours of explosions. But that risked some YouTuber posting a spoiler-filled thumbnail so I put on my bigboy pants and went. And was surprised by A) how much I loved it and B) good grief what a weird first hour.

So The Final Reckoning picks up shortly after the events of Dead Reckoning which almost no one saw so they have to A) remind us how teh awesome this whole franchise has been and B) what they hell even happened in the previous movie. And that extended recap must sound like 50 pounds of nonsense to the uninitiated since it was kind of 40 pounds of nonsense for folks who did see it.

But, yeah, basically 45 minutes of recap and about an hour combined to get the engines revving. It was entertaining but also mystifying so much time was spent like that. But once the film finally hits its stride, it’s a pretty taut thriller… that takes even longer get to its action set pieces.

But wowzers does it kick in hard in its middle and final acts. There’s an unlikely (need I say impossible?) sequence aboard a sub that starts out familiar but then… New Fear Unlocked! It’s a great sequence as you sit back and remind yourself Ethan Hunt has survived seven increasingly unbelievable movies and I should shut my physics and biology brain off.

The marketing has been all about the crazy biplane stunt show… it’s impressive and I wonder how much of it was real. I mean, certainly they CGI’d out Cruise’s safety wires but how much was over these landscapes? It’s an impressive sequence that kinda went on too long. <checks watch> Yup… Tom is still hanging off that strut.

Also… total failure. Nobody fights a Poiar bear? Shocking. I was promised a polar bear.

When I got home and checked my ratings for the other films, I was surprised to realize this is actually my favorite of the bunch. I’ve never been a HUGE fan of the franchise – most all the films are good to great – but something about the second half of this one and its emotional ending hooked me. Maybe all that navel gazing at clips from older films actually worked on me.

So, yeah, if this is the Final film, I’m saying it went out on an all-time high (the secretary will disavow any 007 references in the previous sentence).

Score: 91