Title: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. I guess reckon we skipped “Part Two” of Dead Reckoning.
Describe This Movie In One Avengers: Endgame Quote:
STEVE ROGERS: I can do this all day.
STEVE ROGERS: Yeah, I know.
Brief Plot Synopsis: It’s too much. Let me sum up.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 World War I Flying Aces out of 5.
Tagline: N/A
Better Tagline: “Just let Luther retire, for the love of god.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Remember the Entity? Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) remembers, and so does Gabriel (Esai Morales), former liaison to the AI who now has designs on controlling it. Ethan is recruited by the President (Angela Bassett) to stop the Entity before it unleashes nuclear Armageddon. Ethan, who is apparently the only human being on the planet up to task, recruits friends old and new to stop Gabriel and the Entity once and for all.
“Critical” Analysis: I saw the original Mission: Impossible on my honeymoon. To put that in a mortality perspective, I’ve been married almost 30 years. Cruise, 62, has been sacrificing (almost) life and limb through the course of eight movies now.
Cruise’s commitment to the bit has been his whole goddamn raison d’être now for the better part of two decades, which is more or less the origin of when he stopped making quote-unquote “thoughtful” movies (Magnolia, Vanilla Sky). His trademark since the early ’00s has, increasingly, been death-defying stunts and proving to us that old guys can run, too.
What does that mean for the Mission: Impossible movies? Mostly that plot is increasingly meaningless. I’ve seen every one of these and, best I can recall, each involves a criminal mastermind seeking a list of names/nuclear codes or cores/AI doomsday machine. Said mastermind (or master organization) can only be stopped by the Impossible Mission Force, i.e. Ethan Hunt and Pals.
In Final Reckoning, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie loops in a couple of these (III’s Rabbit’s Foot is also DR’s Anti-God, which … you know what? Never mind). The Entity, as is made abundantly clear to us in the franchise highlight reel that precedes the opening titles, is capital-B Bad. If only we had somehow been made aware of the dangers of artificial intelligence beforehand. What? No, no one’s talking to you, James Cameron. Go work on your next Ferngully knockoff.
The IMF’s supporting cast (of varying lengths of tenure) return as well. Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) have stuck it out the longest; Luther goes all the way back to the original, Benji to M:I III. But Final Reckoning also brings back Grace (Hayley Atwell), Paris (Pom Klementioff and her navel), and Shea Wigham’s Jasper Briggs, who may be — gasp — harboring a secret.
Mission: Impossible is a spy franchise in the same sense as the James Bond movies, which is to say: not much. Christopher McQuarrie has been on the Cruise Choo-Choo since 2008’s Valkyrie (writer) and 2012’s Jack Reacher (writer/director) and has helmed the last four M:I movies. In short, he understands the assignment: construct enough of a skeletal plot framework upon which Cruise’s action set pieces may appropriately be draped. The rest is technobabble, quips, and — oddly — prophetic observations.
That’s something that needs to be addressed, because just about every member of Ethan’s team says, “It is written” at some point, as if a malevolent AI is somehow using the Dead Sea Scrolls as source code. Luther even comments about Ethan being “the chosen one” to protect humanity, which is some M. Night Shyamalan level of self-aggrandizement.
Is the action worth it? I mean, no one can accuse Cruise of phoning it in. Even before we get to the biplane sequence (can you spoil something that’s been in every promo spot for the last six months?), Ethan wastes no time getting his shirt off (twice), but no amount of favorable lighting can hide the wrinkles, and it’s hard to conceal those roots when your hair is getting blasted at 90 mph.
And it takes a looong time to get to the fireworks factory. We sit through a good hour of exposition and flashbacks before embarking on the mission to retrieve MacGuffin #2 in the submarine we saw sink *last* movie. It’s a great sequence, downright Kubrickian in execution, and leads almost directly to the aforementioned airplane duel, but there’s no reason for this movie to be 170 minutes long.
Is this the end for Ethan Hunt? You fool! “Final” is right there in the title! However, Cruise said back during the press tour for Dead Reckoning he hoped to be making these movies until he was Harrison Ford’s age (81 at the time). Cruise is still in great shape (I’m not even going to say “for his age”), and as one of our last Movie Stars, he can do whatever he wants. And let’s just say the ending of Final Reckoning doesn’t exactly take the possibility of more off the table.
Let’s Rank The Mission: Impossible Movies:
Assuming this is — in fact — the last one, it stands like this.
1. Fallout (6)
2. Ghost Protocol (4)
3. 1
4. Rogue Nation (5)
5. Final Reckoning (8)
6. Dead Reckoning (7)
7. 3
8. 2
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
