Film Review: Mission: Impossible –The Final Reckoning 

Mission: Impossible –The Final Reckoning
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Skydance and TC Productions
In Theaters: 05.23.25

In 2023, on the heels of Top Gun: Maverick making venerated superstar Tom Cruise synonymous with the future of Hollywood and the return of audiences to theaters, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part 1 self-destructed at the box office. It was a spectacular and thrilling mission, but audiences simply didn’t choose to accept it, and between the lackluster reception and the SAG strike, Part 2 was delayed and eventually retitled Mission: Impossible –The Final Reckoning, and this time, the fate of the entire world is at stake like never before.

Picking up a few months after Dead Reckoning left off, The Final Reckoning finds Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) gearing up to finish the job and face his most powerful enemy yet: the Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence capable of triggering global nuclear war. After obtaining a digital key that can shut it down, and with the help of the computer wizardry of fellow agent and former cyber criminal Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames, Pulp Fiction), who has developed a malware called the Poison Pill designed to stop the Entity, Ethan must locate a Russian submarine resting on the floor of the Bering Sea, which holds the AI’s source code. Together with his team, Benji (Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead, Star Trek), Grace (Hayley Atwell, Captain America: The First Avenger), Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis, Top Gun: Maverick), and a ruthless assassin turned reluctant ally named Paris (Pom Klementieff, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2), Ethan sets out. Meanwhile, Gabriel (Esai Morales, La Bamba, Ozark), a dangerous figure from Ethan’s past who was allied with the Entity until things went wrong, seeks to gain control of it himself, and take Ethan down in the process. Their deadly game leads to a midair showdown in vintage propeller planes, where Ethan fights to gain control and complete his mission. As world powers fall under the Entity’s influence and chaos spreads, Ethan is the last line of defense against humanity’s destruction, racing to neutralize the ultimate digital threat before it’s too late.

If you saw Dead Reckoning, you were treated to one of those thrilling collections of spectacular stunt work and the most intricately-staged action ever crammed into one feature film, and while there were times when it felt like it might be too much, it was about as entertainingly over-the-top as popcorn moviegoing can be. There were those who felt that the break-neck pace of the action became too central a focus over the story; however, The Final Reckoning takes a surprising shift into a weightier tone, focusing on a slower buildup, establishing the full measure of the impending doom and the personal losses along the way — and if you’re just looking for another high-octane stunt show, there are long sections of the movie that are likely to leave you feeling a bit frustrated. The pacing is slugging at times, and at nearly 170 minutes, The Final Reckoning is a bit overstuffed. It is, however, extremely well made, with a moody atmosphere that recalls Brian De Palma’s 1996 original entry in the film series, and long-time fans will enjoy the callbacks and the way things come full circle. The too-often shortchanged relationship between Ethan and Luther gets a lot of focus this time around. The middle set piece aboard the sunken submarine is more effects-based than I like to see from Mission: Impossible, though it delivers just enough impressive practical work to still be quite memorable. Ultimately, Mission: Impossible –The Final Reckoning becomes a can’t-miss experience for action fans in the final third, and the chase/fight sequence between Ethan and Gabriel with two small propeller planes may be the most astounding and groundbreaking “Did he really do that?” action sequence since the truck chase in Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. 

Cruise, ever the consummate movie star, is terrific, but there’s an undeniable feeling this time around that he’s not the young hot shot anymore. He’s still in incredible shape and doing things that any person half his age would balk at, but it’s hard not too watch the film and feel that if this isn’t truly the final installment, it does signal a transition to the inevitable era when Ethan Hunt has to give more of the leg work to the next generation of agents (if there’s any actor out there who is crazy enough to put a Tom Cruise level of commitment into action filmmaking, and that’s a pretty big “if”). The ensemble is strong, though the tone of this entry doesn’t give Pegg enough chances to be funny. Atwell and Klementieff each have nice moments, and the return of Henry Czerny as the smart chief, Kittridge, is very satisfying for fans. Even more so, again, is the emphasis on the 30-plus year bond between Ethan and Luther, who have remained the only constant in each other’s lives though it all, and there’s some real emotion here for those of us who have followed it from the first go around 

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is mission accomplished for Cruise and his team, delivering a marvelous experience for fans of the spy genre and of movies that were meant to be seen on the big screen. If you’re trying to decide whether to accept this mission, it wouldn’t hurt to do some catch up on the previous entries, but it’s well worth the effort. —Patrick Gibbs 

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