Prepare for a nearly three-hour nostalgic trip through all things M:I with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth entry of the blockbuster franchise starring Tom Cruise. The Final Reckoning pounds home that “final” in its title, even though Tom Cruise has said he wants to keep acting until he’s in his hundreds. Look for a summer blockbuster headlined by Cruise in 2062.
Set just two months after the end of 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, the current state of affairs is that digital info around the globe has been corrupted, causing bloodshed and upheaval across the planet. Only Ethan Hunt has the special skill set to shut down the artificial intelligence known as The Entity by obtaining its source code that’s on a hard drive in a sunken submarine. Of course, Ethan’s not the only one who’s aware of its location. Gabriel (Esai Morales) also knows the source code is the key to worldwide control. Whoever possesses it is essentially The Entity’s overlord.
There’s a ton of exposition in the first act of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. We learn that The Entity controls the truth and can become anyone at any time. US President Sloane (Angela Bassett) is at a loss for how to stop The Entity and reaches out directly to Ethan, thanking him for his lifetime of service, which leads to a montage of highlights of Ethan’s past heroics. However, he now needs to surrender and turn over the key that he still possesses, or else there will be blood on his hands. But Ethan doesn’t trust any government, not even America’s. That forces President Sloane’s hand, and the government also goes after the source code, basically competing with Ethan.
Ethan reunites with his gang – Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), Grace (Hayley Atwell), and new recruits Paris (Pom Klementieff) and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) – but works especially closely with Grace in this outing. Gabriel’s people kidnap them early on, and a brutal fight takes place off-screen, with just grunts and blows heard and Grace’s reaction shots. That fun, though bloody, scene is a one-off, as much of what takes place over the eighth film’s incredibly trying two hours and 40 minutes is both repetitive and ludicrous.
Ethan wants to surprise the AI, which is a really smart move that he insists will work. But how he and his team go about it isn’t smart, just confusing. And that’s the issue with this final chapter. Mission: Impossible films always put Ethan Hunt through the wringer on his way to accomplishing his task and saving the world. This eighth film does the same, but there isn’t any flow. There’s no rhyme or reason, even as Ethan adamantly declares there is. Compounding matters is the constant insertion of callbacks to previous M:I films, including one in particular that tries to put the onus of the world’s current minutes-from-annihilation status firmly on his shoulders. Squint your eyes and look at it sideways. Nope, that does not help. The logic isn’t there.
The film’s sluggish start is the result of needing to fill in key points. However, given the incredibly tenuous connection to a believable throughline, the first act could have been trimmed down considerably to improve the pacing. All that’s necessary is to understand The Entity can cause an extinction-level event. The doomsday clock is just a tick away from saying goodbye, mankind, and hello, uninhabitable Earth.
The story, particularly the setup for the explosive final act, is completely devoid of any logical coherence. The third act plays out as if director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise decided they wanted to send the franchise off with two spectacular set pieces: one involving the sunken sub and the other a biplane piloted by Gabriel. Making connections between the two massive action scenes feels like mere filler. Sure, there are numerous throwbacks to Ethan’s bygone days, and a character from the past pops in to move the plot along and sort of provide a few missing pieces of the puzzle. But getting past the huge plot holes and dubious connections is a strain.
The two major set pieces are dynamic. The feeling of terror and potential loss of life is unquestionably real, and Cruise is still the man when it comes to pulling off complex stunts few other actors would ever attempt. That said, Cruise’s death-defying stunts aren’t enough of a payoff in what’s supposed to be his final outing as Ethan Hunt.
The requisite scenes of Tom Cruise running, showcasing he’s still got it, are there, and the humor and team vibe still pay off, even when Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning‘s pacing and plot let the actors and audience down. After three decades and eight films, the Mission: Impossible series wraps up with a film that’s… okay. Just okay. Not exactly the mic drop we were expecting.
GRADE: C+
Rating: PG-13 for bloody images, action, brief language, and sequences of strong violence
Running Time: 2 hours 49 minutes
Release Date: May 23, 2025
Studio: Paramount Pictures
This post was last modified on December 18, 2025 6:38 pm