Back in 1996, Tom Cruise and director Brian De Palma managed to pull off the, well, impossible task of adapting the Mission: Impossible TV series in a way that was thrilling, clever, and at times bombastic. The movie went on to take in $450+ million worldwide, kicking off a 30-year franchise full of its highs and lows. Throughout this journey, the franchise has seen actors come and go and filmmakers come and go, but it has been Cruise’s penchant for putting his life on the line and the compelling direction of Christopher McQuarrie that have made the franchise truly soar for the past decade. Based on its title and previous remarks from both Cruise and McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was expected to be a sendoff to the series, and while the sequel delivers on a number of elements audiences have grown to love over the years, they’re stretched out over a nearly three-hour run time that seems to have forgotten what made these movies such crowdpleasers in the first place.
Set months after the events of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, the sentient AI known as “The Entity” that was hellbent on taking over the world has yet to be destroyed, while also inspiring fanatics to worship the algorithm and welcome the apocalypse. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is in the precarious position of possessing a key that could lead to the control, or destruction, of The Entity, unless Gabriel (Esai Morales) or the American government can intervene. As expected, Ethan enlists the help of his most trusted allies, Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Grace (Hayley Atwell), to pull off a mission to stop The Entity, Gabriel, and any global government from getting their hands on the unstoppable algorithm.
Over the course of 30 years and eight installments, Mission: Impossible has seen peaks and valleys in its popularity. 2006’s Mission: Impossible III earned the best reviews of the original trilogy, yet had the smallest footprint at the box office, seemingly hinting at the franchise having run its course. Then, Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol put a fresh spin on the concept, as it highlighted the most bombastic set pieces imaginable, only for the team to struggle with mechanical setbacks, while also injecting playful banter to juxtapose the death-defying and world-ending narratives. Scoring franchise-high critical reactions and box office numbers, Ghost Protocol set a new standard for the series that all subsequent sequels have been chasing.
Technically, Final Reckoning does deliver the bare basics of what makes for a successful Mission: Impossible movie; we get an eclectic team trying to pull off a ludicrous plan, we get ambitious set pieces, and we get to witness Cruise personally delivering breathtaking stunts. Outside of delivering on the absolute minimum of expectations, though, the film leans into some of the least engaging elements of previous films, feeling almost as if it was an algorithm that put the film together and was oblivious to what made the series so strong.
One of the biggest failures of Dead Reckoning (other than killing off Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa to find a surrogate IMF member in Atwell’s Grace) was The Entity. In some ways, the movie felt ahead of the curve in highlighting the dangers of AI, though the script itself and the characters constantly saying “The Entity” in the most dramatic way possible undercut the true nature of the threat. Final Reckoning goes even further down this route, positioning The Entity as a threat akin to The Terminator‘s Skynet or the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ultron. There’s plenty of suspension of disbelief when it comes to this franchise, largely in the realm of things like gravity and physics, but all of the narratives themselves felt somewhat grounded in a reality. Much like how Dead Reckoning made it seem as though The Entity could take human form in Gabriel or throw a lavish party to unite its threats, Final Reckoning failed to learn from its mistakes, making The Entity an all-powerful sci-fi being that has even devised contraptions akin to something out of The Matrix that allows individuals to communicate with it.
Not only does leaning into the omnipotence of The Entity mean Ethan and his team are largely chasing an intangible threat, but we get absolutely absurd pieces of dialogue. On the one hand, this does replicate what the original Mission: Impossible knew about the Internet, when you could send out emails to random combinations of words like “Max@Job 3:14” and actually get in touch with someone, yet in 2025, it feels entirely outdated. The many incredible stunts feel far more believable than the characters regularly talking about “cyberspace” and delivering lines like “we’re in The Entity’s reality” or referring to The Entity as “the Lord of Lies.” Not many people are going to Mission: Impossible movies to see an accurate reflection of reality, but using jargon we don’t have a real grasp of is preferable to how this script discusses its sentient algorithm.
A key character reveal of Ethan’s in Dead Reckoning is when he admits that nothing is more important to him than his team. While Luther has been in the series since the debut installment and Benji has been along for the ride since Mission: Impossible III, Final Reckoning treats Ethan’s crew as entirely indispensable figures. The issue, though, is that Grace has only briefly worked with Ethan and, despite the talents of Atwell, their relationship feels entirely arbitrary. Cruise’s dynamics with Rhames and Pegg are as charming as ever, while this movie adds Greg Tarzan Davis’s Degas and Pom Klementieff’s Paris to the IMF’s mix. If you don’t remember who Degas is, he was the partner to Shea Whigham’s Briggs in Dead Reckoning, who had a few minutes of screen time and said a handful of words, making his inclusion on Ethan’s team and Ethan’s reverence for the figure feel entirely unearned. Paris, though, is easily one of the highlights of Final Reckoning, largely due to her reluctance to be on a team, allowing her to establish herself as her own character. (Severance breakout Tramell Tillman marks another highlight among the ensemble, despite having a limited role.)
When so much of the narrative focuses on Ethan’s passion for his team, looking back at the franchise as a whole and the number of characters who have come and gone for one reason or another, it’s hard to really buy into this reality. Actors like Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburne, Thandiwe Newton, Jeremy Renner, and Paula Patton have all played characters who served as allies to Ethan, only for them to be cast aside. For longtime fans of the series, we do get some unexpected callbacks and references to the debut installment, though it’s frustrating for a franchise to emphasize the importance of a team, only to pick and choose which of those team members get to take part in a mission.
Even if the overall story and the team dynamics only somewhat work in Final Reckoning, fans also take delight in the series’ action. The final action sequence of the film is nothing short of spectacular, which will leave your jaw on the floor over what Cruise was willing to risk for the sequence. Still, this sequence doesn’t feel like an organic extension of the narrative so much as it was an opportunity to show that the actor uses these movies for his own personal thrill-seeking proclivities. While previous installments have benefited from long underwater takes or jumps out of an airplane to heighten the cinematic accomplishments of those installments, Final Reckoning’s biggest stunt doesn’t accomplish much more than “wow that really is Tom Cruise.” Much like the motorcycle base jump of Dead Reckoning, Cruise personally filming the stunt is a case of him doing it because he could, as opposed to doing it because he should.
Some critics and studio execs have identified Cruise as a “savior of cinema” due to his commitment to practical effects and the cinematic experience, and he seems to have bought into this identity entirely. Long gone are the days of Ethan Hunt showing any humility or failures, which are character traits that helped revive the franchise, as the movie and its stunts feel more like a showcase of how far he’s willing to go to film practical stunts as opposed to embracing CGI. The movie does, however, deliver a nail-biting, underwater sequence that will leave you on edge, but the nature of the underwater antics means its less of an explosive experience and more of a tense pursuit. The underlying theme of this series has often been “come watch Tom Cruise run and put his life on the line,” and Final Reckoning is the epitome of this conceit.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a bittersweet experience; there are brief glimpses of all the things we’ve come to know and love about the franchise, yet it ventures too far into the more uninteresting realms to make it feel entirely satisfying. The movie fails as a potential sendoff to Ethan or the series as a whole, and also falls short of being an entirely satisfying sequel. With Dead Reckoning coming up $200+ million less than Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Final Reckoning isn’t quite the comeback fans had expected from that more lackluster entry. Still, there are glimmers of delight, intriguing espionage, franchise callbacks, and charismatic characters to prevent it from being a massive failure, though it seems the time has come for the series to reinvent itself once again. For a franchise so well-known for its ambition and risk-taking, Final Reckoning is surprisingly safe.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hits theaters on May 23rd.
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