Is it any wonder that the "Mission: Impossible" series is getting just a little tired? All that running! All that flopping about of Tom Cruise's hair! All those endless rehashes of the (admittedly banging) theme music! All those faces being ripped off! "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning," the eighth entry in the movie franchise that began in 1996 (based on a television series that began in 1966), is a competent, smart, expensive and sometimes thrilling action movie; it is also a very long one, in which we are given time to wonder whether spy/superhero/very intense runner Ethan Hunt (Cruise) ever just gets up in the morning and decides to take it easy that day. (Spoiler alert: In this movie, he does not.)

In what may or may not be the final film of the franchise (Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie have been noncommittal, but the final scenes of "Final Reckoning" seem, um, not so final), Ethan and his team assemble to save the world from a vicious artificial intelligence program called the Entity, as one does. In typical "M:I" fashion, doing so involves various death-defying feats by Ethan, including a harrowing descent into frigid waters to enter a sunken submarine and a stint dangling from the wing of a lollipop-red plane that's soaring high above the South African landscape. As Luther (Ving Rhames), who's been at Ethan's side since the beginning, puts it: "What are we going to do, retire?"

"Final Reckoning" does take note of the passage of time; it's filled with brief flashbacks of stunts and plotlines past, which allows us to admire the evolution of Cruise's haircut. But this greatest-hits format backfires a bit — some of those archival scenes seem like more fun than the ones we're currently watching. Even the last film, "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One," had rather more lightness to it than this one; I missed the playfulness of that movie's car chase (Ethan and sexy thief Grace, played by Hayley Atwell, zoom through Rome in a tiny car while handcuffed to each other), and the over-the-top madness of the train sequence, during which I'm not sure I ever drew breath. The plane sequence here is undeniably thrilling — as always, you watch Cruise doing his own stunts and think with sympathy about the film's beleaguered insurance broker — but maybe 29 years of impossible stunts have numbed us a bit. At this point, I'm pretty sure Ethan/Cruise, now both in their 60s, can fly.

During its nearly three-hour running time, "Final Reckoning" provides us with much to enjoy: Angela Bassett's supreme badassery as the president of the United States (the ice with which she delivers the three words "let's hear it" could float the Titanic), Esai Morales' smooth silver-fox villain Gabriel, Simon Pegg's welcome comic relief as teammate Benji and an action scene in which a dude jumps through a bookshelf for no reason whatsoever except that it looked really cool. And maybe that's the right note on which to leave this series, at least for now. Surely Ethan — and all of us — needs a rest.

———

'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING'

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of strong violence and action, bloody images, and brief language)

Running time: 2:49

How to watch: In theaters May 23

———

© 2025 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.