I brightened up over the The Final Reckoning part of the new Mission: Impossible title, figuring if it really is the final reckoning, we all have something to celebrate. After all, retirements are happy occasions.

And Tom Cruise is finally showing his age a wee bit, looking in certain shots as if his face had puffed up like a Pillsbury crescent roll and in others as if it had melted slightly like ice cream. Though of course the body remains ripped, and Cruise always has his shirt torn off in fight scenes to prove it. The whole Mission: Impossible franchise that kicked off in 1996 is very long in the tooth by now. I had a brief, admittedly delusional hope that it could be exciting again if all the main characters die in the end because that last mission to save the world really did turn out to be impossible.

But in the end of this sequel, it’s clear that this doesn’t have to be the final reckoning at all. And given the enormous profits — along with the hit Lilo & Stitch live-action remake, Mission: Impossible 2025 has made this Memorial Day weekend the biggest box-office haul in history — there will always be somebody in Hollywood with a new idea for a sequel.

So I was disappointed and bored as hell by writer-director Christopher McQuarrie’s latest entry in the series. He’s on his fourth, out of a total of eight films, and this one is almost three hours long. The first hour is a slurry of incoherent flashbacks to catch you up on all that’s happened in the franchise, as if you cared. Does anyone really want these massive plot dumps impeding the lumbering progress of the rote narrative, or the elaborate explanations of the latest world-destroying doohickeys? Whatever the high-tech gadgetry, the unkillable Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is going to wind up hanging off the underside of an airplane in flight, right? So let’s literally cut to the chase.

My “meh” reaction, however, was countered in the theater by the two middle-aged men who were avidly following every detail of the film, grunting and chuckling with approval and identifying with Ethan 100 percent. As we heard about the latest global crisis involving the takeover of the world’s computer systems by an evil AI force called “the Entity,” they muttered apprehensively to each other to indicate, “Uh-oh, Ethan really has his work cut out for him this time!”

But when Ethan came through once more, ripping off the fake head that perfectly obscured his identity, or running for miles to escape something or reach something or save something while the ticking clock announced he had mere seconds before kablooey, they shared in Ethan’s inevitable victory fondly, because absurd triumphs against all odds are just, like, so Ethan!

In other words, this ain’t my movie — it’s their movie.

I tend to have a hard time with action films when the hero is clearly being compared to Christ Almighty as is the case here. In these later Mission: Impossible films, lesser characters have this habit now of gazing at Ethan awestruck as he’s told he’s the only being that can save all of humankind or the only creature so saintly and incorruptible he can be trusted to contain a force of total world-controlling power. He sits with bent head, contemplating his vast burdens, then looks up with glowing determination to bear them for the good of all those little people out there.

But when Christ figures like Ethan keep not dying, always rising again no matter how absolutely dead they seemed a minute before, it gets monotonous. Ethan’s Impossible Missions Force (IMF) crew — the supporting cast — isn’t making things any more interesting either. IMF agent Luther (Ving Rhames) is now suffering from some unnamed but serious illness that makes him talk with great spiritual gravity at all times, and IMF field agent Benji (Simon Pegg), who used to bring a lot of humor to the team as I recall, is now mostly earnest, dull, and prepared to explain high-tech gizmos. The romantic interest, Grace (Hayley Atwell), a former thief turned IMF agent introduced in the last film, is about as low-wattage as can be without the screen fading to black. And there are a few other young IMF hangers-on, including Paris the stylish French assassin (Pom Klementieff).

Esai Morales, graying but still handsome as he gnashes his perfect teeth, returns as the villain Gabriel. Angela Bassett plays the former head of the CIA and current president who’s being forced into a nuclear Armageddon by “the Entity.” And there are several well-known faces among her advisors, such as Janet McTeer and Henry Czerny. Nick Offerman plays General Sidney, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a chest full of medals, and he’s so naturally funny when he plays old-fashioned authority figures in crewcuts, it seems odd when the punch line never comes.

Hannah Waddingham of Ted Lasso shows up as a naval rear admiral, and Tramell Tillman of Severance, playing a formidable submarine commander with a stealthy adventurous streak, does so well he steals a few scenes from Tom Cruise, which is no small feat. Cruise has been a star for forty-some years and even in his more annoying roles, he has no trouble commanding the screen.

Probably the film’s best sequence is the central one involving Ethan’s deep dive in arctic waters to retrieve something from a sunken submarine. It has the advantage of being pared back to a few elements and concentrated on Ethan Hunt vs. this mission that maybe really, truly is impossible. There are so many ways to die horribly, you figure the grim reaper has a real shot at him at last. He can die of hypothermia, or get the bends so bad he drowns convulsing, or get crushed by the movement of untethered missiles knocking around inside the submarine, or drown if the escape hatches get blocked, or — on the off chance he gets out of the sub alive — he could run out of air before he reaches the surface. My favorite of the killer options piled one on top of the other is the way the submarine rolls so far because of Ethan’s floundering around inside it, it’s just about to plunge down a mile into a kind of Mariana Trench of the Arctic where the depth pressure will crush the sub like a tin can.

The stunt team is to be commended for its usual good work in these spectacles, especially the biplane fight scene. And the CGI work is subtle enough throughout that, for once, you aren’t constantly slapped in the eye with the phoniness of everything you’re watching.

The film concludes with a lot of language about how the world can only stay safe if we love and trust one another on a personal as well as a national level, or some damn thing. It’s part of what seems a vaguely anti-Trump tone to the film, or what can pass for one in this toothless era. Anti-humanist tech-driven aggression such as what “the Entity” represents can only be countered by daring acts of compassion and allyship. Women and people of color in positions of command keep surging into scenes in defiance of anti-DEI rhetoric and policies.

But as always, the safety of the world depends on a few good Americans running things for everybody. Are you sick of that message too? I know I am. But those two middle-aged guys in the theater loved it.