Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, 2025.
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie.
Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Mariela Garriga, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Angela Bassett, Marcin Dorociński, Katy O’Brian, Bella Glanville, Pasha D. Lychnikoff, Tomás Paredes, Martin McDougall, Katie Bernstein, and Erin Battle.
SYNOPSIS:
Ethan Hunt and the IMF team continue their search for the terrifying AI known as the Entity — which has infiltrated intelligence networks all over the globe — with the world’s governments and a mysterious ghost from Ethan’s past on their trail. Joined by new allies and armed with the means to shut the Entity down for good, Hunt is in a race against time to prevent the world as we know it from changing forever.
While catching audiences up to the story so far, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning also uses that as an opportunity for a montage celebrating Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in such an adoring manner that if he ever received an honorary Oscar for his contributions to cinema (through action, death-defying stunts, and an enthusiastic champion of the theatrical experience), it could serve as that clip.
Admittedly, such reverence started to creep into the franchise with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, but director Christopher McQuarrie (once again writing the screenplay alongside Erik Jendresen) have taken that aspect to a more intrusive, often distracting level here, bringing back plot points from past films, obsessively connecting characters to previous villains, and bringing inconsequential characters back seemingly for a laugh until it settles and that, no, the filmmakers want to accomplish something emotional there as well.
This is at the expense of narrative momentum (crucial for a film bordering on three hours), characterization, and themes. When the film isn’t reiterating the same broad-stroke message of unity and faith that people will set aside their national allegiances or vengeful grudges to work together for a sustainable future, it’s indulging the type of nostalgia-farming that one presumed these filmmakers would be above. There is a mountain of exposition and plotting to get to, often stylized through kinetic editing, which helps digest that the specifics of what everyone is trying to do are muddied, even if the gist is understandable. Apparently, the all-knowing, all-threatening AI known as The Entity has amassed a doomsday cult, a fascinating element with which the film doesn’t do anything.
The filmmakers also know that the primary reason most viewers are here is to feel the pulse-pounding adrenaline rush of how Tom Cruise put his life on the line this time for the sake of cinema. Setting up those dangerous set pieces is essential, but here, that element also starts to drag, getting to the point where a brawl is worked in while Ethan is undergoing physical training. At times, the film feels overstuffed with characters and overplotted.
Nevertheless, the stakes are high, the characters have never more felt relieved of plot-armor, and the intrigue goes beyond Ethan’s team into the White House (Angela Bassett playing the President of the United States gracefully under immense pressure from hotheaded staffers) with how to handle an increasingly vulnerable situation seeing The Entity gradually taking control of every country’s nuclear weapons. To clarify, there also isn’t necessarily anything unforgivable regarding how the film is tying itself to past installments and characters, but there isn’t much done with it.
Most importantly, Tom Cruise endangers his health in a variety of ways, ranging from potentially giving himself hypothermia, drowning, or falling to his death during an unquestionably insane series of plane stunts, all of them immensely immersive; no special effect in the world could ever compare to watching Tom Cruise’s face visibly shaking, pulled apart by wind pressure while climbing and contorting himself around and plane in midair.
Whereas Dead Reckoning felt more personal, as if Tom Cruise was Hollywood’s last bastion of hope using AI as a villain to make a point while throwing himself into peril, reminding viewers of the intensity generative AI would never be able to elicit in movies, much of that here has fallen to the wayside to focus on the arduous task of pinpointing the location of the sunken Russian ship containing The Entity’s source code. It takes so long for Ethan and his team (which once again consists of close partners played by Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, with recent additions to the unit such as Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff) to complete that first leg of the mission, one wonders if the entire Reckoning saga was originally intended to be one film and if this second half got unreasonably bloated in the process.
It’s also difficult to ponder and harp on that point considering that when Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning does have a burst of excitement, whether it be a confrontation with Esai Morales’ Gabriel looking to use Ethan Hunt as a means to take control of The Entity or a lengthy underwater segment that might make one’s chest tighten just from watching it, it’s cleanly shot and propulsive. That’s without even getting into the showstopping plane and subsequent dogfight sequence that single-handedly elevates the film from good to a must-see theatrical experience. This is a bumpy finale with a long fuse igniting epic, unforgettable action that the franchise has reliably provided since its first entry. You can always trust Tom Cruise.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
