20 Recent Movie Plot Twists NOBODY Saw Coming
19. Jasper Briggs Is Jim Phelps' Son - Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
Considering that Mission: Impossible filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie vocally decried the excess of fan service in modern franchise cinema, it's a bit baffling that he committed a lamely fan-serving sin of his own in the series' most recent and apparently final entry.
Mid-way through Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, we learn that Jasper Briggs (Shea Whigham) - the U.S. intelligence agent who has been pursuing Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team - is actually really named Jim Phelps Jr.
As in, he's the son of Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) - the IMF leader from the original Mission: Impossible who was controversially revealed to be the film's surprise antagonist.
It was definitely a surprising reveal, though less because it made sense and more because it came so wildly, randomly out of left field.
More to the point, the rest of the film does so little with it and Phelps Jr. as a character that you have to wonder why McQuarrie bothered at all, especially in a film that's already so excessively bloated with subplots and characters.