The Mission: Impossible franchise has defied all Hollywood conventions for the past thirty years, the rare television adaptation to vastly outshine its source material’s cultural staying power. From the franchise’s fourth entry, Ghost Protocol, onward, Tom Cruise’s passion project has grown from a bankable action series into one of the world’s biggest franchises. Cruise’s obsession with topping himself in defiance of all aging norms is practically worth the cost of admission.

There has been a mission along the way that Cruise has not exactly chosen to accept while continuing Ethan Hunt’s adventures into his sixties. Part of the charm of the original series was its ensemble nature. Each mission needed a team. The team mattered.

The Mission film series has always had its ensemble somewhat baked into its DNA, with Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell aiding Hunt in every iteration of the franchise (though he was limited to a cameo in Ghost Protocol). The franchise has invested more heavily in its supporting bench as it’s rolled along, most notably Simon Pegg’s Benji, who first joined the team as a minor played in Mission: Impossible III. The latest release, Final Reckoning, purportedly claims to be the final entry, containing numerous callbacks to every one of its seven predecessors.

Final Reckoning has two glaring issues that it struggles to overcome. Mission has always been Cruise’s vehicle, but the supporting cast is nearly irrelevant, leaving Hunt on his own for much of the exceedingly bloated 170-minute runtime. The supporting cast is greatly expanded even as the film finds relatively little for any of them to do. Only Hayley Atwell’s Grace truly rises above the label of window dressing. The film does carve out an attempt at a special moment for one key player, falling short due to the ridiculous nature of the narrative.

While the film is a direct follow-up to Dead Reckoning Part One, Final Reckoning takes the franchise’s lore way too seriously. There are far too many clips of previous films that bog the first act down in exposition. There’s certainly middle ground to be had between the relative stand-alone nature of the early entries and its greater lore it has built over the first two installments.

At times, Final Reckoning’s plot borders on incoherent, rarely aided by the extremes that director Christopher McQuarrie goes to explain the stunts. Cruise’s other recent big tentpole Top Gun: Maverick spent a lot of time diligently explaining its mission. The implausibility of Ethan’s stunts here are not really helped by the extent to which the film decided to educate its audience on every rule he was naturally bound to ignore. Here, Mission: Implausible gives way to Mission: Farcical.

The Entity continues to be an empty shell of a villain. The method to combat the all-powerful AI hardly passes any kind of smell test. The Entity’s human ally, Gabriel (Esai Morales), receives little character development beyond his meager introduction in Dead Reckoning Part One. This film has a weird way of simultaneously having too much going on and dragging its feet toward an inevitable end.

There are some redeeming qualities. While the stunts represent Cruise’s insatiable need to top his own absurdity, there’s no denying that the results are top-tier blockbuster entertainment. The film’s sloppy execution undercuts its suspense, but it’s still a sight to behold on the big screen.

A certain sense of suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy a franchise like Mission: Impossible. Responsibility for maintaining that balance falls on the film more than the audience. The longer Final Reckoning meanders, the more you’re bound to question the sheer nonsense that lies at the heart of an AI program that’s powerful enough to take over the world’s nuclear arsenal, that can only be stopped by a 60-year-old man and a few of his versatile buddies. This film doesn’t play to its character’s strengths at all.

The film’s saving grace lies in its ability to wrap up a franchise with relative grace. Thirty years in, Mission: Impossible is showing its age. There is ample entertainment value to be had here, but Final Reckoning is not a particularly good movie.