Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

By: Mike Ward on Thursday, May 22

PG-13 Running Time: 169 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

The man who saved movies is back - Tom Cruise returns for an eighth run as Ethan Hunt in the long-awaited Final Reckoning in the Mission: Impossible franchise.
Full of fights and action, two stunts are extraordinary - one, involving Tom Cruise climbing around a biplane like it is a jungle gym on a playground is one of the most incredible stunt sequences you will ever see.
With a number of callbacks to previous films, this Mission, should you choose to accept it, offers lots of nostalgia, fun cameos and clever throwbacks to the seven previous films.

NO

And those throwbacks and callbacks begin to weigh down a film that runs almost 170 minutes. The Final Reckoning feels at times like a party guest who is entertaining but never gets the cue that it is time to go home.
For a movie that finds Cruise pushing his body to extraordinary limits and performing truly death-defying stunts, the melodramatic exposition becomes almost too much to take in comparison.
Believes in itself a little too much at times.

OUR REVIEW

Someone on X said this first - but I’m stealing it anyway - Tom Cruise is a madman. Take that however you wish. For me, in this instance, I mostly mean it as a compliment - specifically for two showstopping stunts he executes in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, the eighth and (possibly final) film in the storied franchise.

Without giving too much away, Cruise performs an insane feat of endurance when he attempts a deep dive to infiltrate a Russian submarine. Later, in the film’s climactic fight sequence, he battles a bad guy in what first begins as a dogfight between two pilots flying biplanes. Cruise then climbs onto the plane, only to then, somehow, in full close up, commandeer the plane - climbing all over the fuselage like a spirited kid on a jungle gym. Without question, this biplane fight scene is one of the most astonishing action sequences I have ever seen.

That this moment arrives near the end of the film’s 170-minute running time almost literally flies in the face of those who believe that when Cruise portrays Ethan Hunt, it guarantees a fast-paced, go for broke action movie. The Final Reckoning is a movie that seems at times almost melancholy in its storytelling and disarmingly reflective.

This time around, Hunt must attempt to defeat ChatGPT on steroids, the A.I. creation known as “The Entity.” Having A.I. step to the forefront as the foreboding evil that Hunt must eradicate to save all of mankind feels a little too convenient when paralleling real life, where A.I. is exponentially becoming more and more a facet of how we manage day-to-day. And while Mission: Impossible’s most devout fans will say that “The Entity” has been a developing story arc in recent entries in the franchise, Cruise and his IMF team of agents having to contain a computer program is not the most exciting foe to vanquish.

To counteract this, co-writer and director Christopher McQuarrie, once again collaborating with co-writer Erik Jendresen, leans heavy on nostalgia. Plenty of cameos and familiar faces return. While I won’t spoil anything, fans of the series will likely be pleased with the ways with which people show up or return along the way.

The first 30-40 minutes feel something like a highlight reel, providing callbacks and throwbacks to many moments from the previous films. Much of The Final Reckoning feels as if McQuarrie, Jendresen and Cruise became afraid that people may have forgotten all the twists and turns this franchise has taken. They might be right. For a series that has grossed countless billions of dollars, finds Cruise increasingly risking life and limb to execute crazy death-defying stunts, and has sustained itself for more than 30 years, you would think people might remember more of the plot’s intricacies from previous films.

Instead we remember the stunts and over-the-top action sequences. Perhaps that is because Mission: Impossible films have prioritized those elements over cohesive, logical storytelling. Cruise is ever the showman, a masterful entertainer. Rest assured, this time around he has very carefully curated Ethan Hunt to be something of a charming, down-on-his-luck loner-type, wondering if this is his last great mission.

He has unfinished business with Dead Reckoning Part One’s Gabriel (Esai Morales), whose great performance in that film is marginalized and reduced considerably here. Forced into another mission, Hunt assembles a makeshift team of his loyal sidekick Benji (Simon Pegg), pickpocket specialist Grace (Hayley Atwell), and computer tech Luther (Ving Rhames). Desperately seeking revenge for Gabriel’s actions against her in the previous film, Paris (Pom Klementieff) joins the team, as does intelligence officer Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis), who decides to join Ethan’s team instead of turning him in.

All of this is fine. If anything, The Final Reckoning feels a lot like the entertaining guest at your party who never knows the right time to leave. For awhile, the movie is a joy. It becomes very easy to get swept up in the powerhouse score by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey. Or to be dazzled by how masterful the editing is by Eddie Hamilton (Dead Reckoning Part One, Top Gun: Maverick), especially when it comes to scenes of fight choreography and those aforementioned stunt sequences.

As a spectacle, The Final Reckoning delivers enough bang for the buck to please most audiences. Yet it stalls a fair amount, weighted down with such lumbering exposition - not uncommon with these films - that you simply want to see more explosions, gadgets, stunts, and action.

In so many ways that encapsulates the Mission: Impossible franchise. By the end, as Hunt comes face-to-face with his metaphorical “final reckoning,” the actor is presented in an almost wistful, tear-in-the-eye kind of tribute. Cruise even walks around in a giant, green hilly field while a character speaks in inspirational voiceover.

For a franchise that a few minutes before delivered one of the greatest action sequences in cinematic history, this all becomes a bit too much.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Final Reckoning appears unable to fully close the door on the franchise. One wonders if Cruise is battling with the one thing he will never be able to defy - his age.

The parallels exist with things that get older over time: heavier, slower, reminiscing on what used to be - this Mission: Impossible may not self-destruct in 170 minutes but it fuses are fraying and the tape is starting to wobble.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Rolf Saxon, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Tramell Tillman, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Cary Elwes, Katy O’Brian, Stephen Oyoung, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Written by: Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen
Based on the “Mission: Impossible” television series, written by Bruce Geller
Release Date: May 23, 2025
Paramount Pictures

The man who saved movies is back - Tom Cruise returns for an eighth run as Ethan Hunt in the long-awaited Final Reckoning in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Full of fights and action, two stunts are extraordinary - one, involving Tom Cruise climbing around a biplane like it is a jungle gym on a playground is one of the most incredible stunt sequences you will ever see.

With a number of callbacks to previous films, this Mission, should you choose to accept it, offers lots of nostalgia, fun cameos and clever throwbacks to the seven previous films.

And those throwbacks and callbacks begin to weigh down a film that runs almost 170 minutes. The Final Reckoning feels at times like a party guest who is entertaining but never gets the cue that it is time to go home.

For a movie that finds Cruise pushing his body to extraordinary limits and performing truly death-defying stunts, the melodramatic exposition becomes almost too much to take in comparison.

Believes in itself a little too much at times.