Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Reminded Us of the Franchise’s Grossest Moment… Twice

Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible was released in 1996 and marked Tom Cruise’s first outing as Ethan Hunt. No one could have predicted the franchise would still be thriving 30 years later. The eighth (and potentially final) installment is now playing in theaters, and it has many connections to previous films. From bringing back Mission: Impossible‘s Rolf Saxon as William Donloe to giving more meaning behind the Rabbit’s Foot from Mission: Impossible III, the nods in the new movie are plentiful. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning uses many clips from the first seven films, and showcases the franchise’s grossest moment… twice!

Remembering Emilio Estevez’s Death in Mission: Impossible

There have been some gnarly M:I deaths over the years, but nothing tops the loss of Jack Harmon (Emilio Estevez) . In the first film, Ethan’s entire IMF team is killed, and no one gets it worse than Jack. During an operation in Prague, Jack is in charge of hacking an elevator system. Due to ’90s technology, he has to sit on top of the elevator during the mission. When the team is betrayed, Jack loses control of the lift, which causes him to slam eyeballs-first into a spike above the elevator shaft. Ouch!

As someone who first watched Mission: Impossible at a young age, Jack’s death has always shaken me. It’s not bloody, but it’s still gruesome. To this day, I instinctively close my eyes while watching that part of the movie. Joke’s on me, because MI8 decided to show a flashback of it two separate times. The first time was funny, because you don’t expect to see an old moment you’ve trained yourself to look away from. You have to laugh when a sequel attacks you with your weak spot. However, the second time was just plain frustrating.

MI8 Spends Too Much Time on the Past

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is the longest film in the franchise, clocking in at 2 hours and 49 minutes. Showing a few clips from previous movies is acceptable, but they overdid it. There’s a big montage before the opening title sequence that works nicely. Unfortunately, that’s not the only time the movie features flashbacks. When your runtime is pushing three hours, there is no reason to replay a 30-year-old character death more than once.

It’s nice to see director Christopher McQuarrie honoring previous installments, but some of the connections felt forced. I’m not just saying that because I’m bitter about having to train myself to look away from Jack’s death whenever I watch The Final Reckoning. It’s one thing to catch up casual viewers, it’s another thing to bog down the story with a clip show. If you can’t trust your audience to follow the story, you should rethink the story.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning stars Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman and Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, and Mark Gatiss, with Rolf Saxon and Lucy Tulugarjuk.

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