Movie #3453 ........................."Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning" (movie theatre)

 Movie #3453 ""Mission Impossible:  the Final Reckoning" (movie theatre)  Can I start by saying I am a big fan of this franchise, despite my attitude about most action films?  And can I  also say that I probably would like even a film bordering on the bad side in this franchise ?   Okay, well, this is somewhere a little above the worst..... mostly because it seems  a ridiculously (and for no reason) convoluted story....let's face it, we usually watch this franchise for the stunts --- and some emotional relationships tying in the small group gathered by head Tom Cruise.  And both work fairly well here --- there are two sequences that I thought were tremendous --- the plane stunt and the water sequence.  There are covert goodbyes and salutes to each other at the end, and that's good enough for me.  But the story?  Usually it's a bit easier to follow --- at least for me (John Q. Public, usually) and this was not.  It's like a game and we knew they had steps to go through to get to the winning prize, but they lost most of us on the steps.  Sorry, maybe it's just me, but it just lost me.  And got harder and harder to believe --- I don't want to give anything away, so I'll leave it at that.,  Because of the stunts, which were long scenes here, I would still give it a 4, but not recommend it to everyone --- I think this one will lose some people, and some audience members will stop caring after a while.  

"MISSION IMPOSSIBLE:  THE FINAL RECKONING"   2025      PG-13      2 hrs 49 mins

Our lives are the sum of our choices.  Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt.  (and that's all IMDB says --- maybe they gave up, too?)

Director:  Christopher McQuarrie

Writers:  Bruce Geller, Erik Jendresen, Christopher McQuarrie

Actors:  Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames