Movie Review: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: May 23rd, 2025 / 02:35 AM

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING movie poster | ©2025 Paramount Pictures

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Greg Tarzan Davis, Angela Bassett, Henry Czerny, Janet McTeer, Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Shea Whigham, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie & Erik Jendresen, based on the TV series created by Bruce Geller
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: May 23, 2025

Given that 2023’s most recent entry of this franchise was entitled MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, we might reasonably expect the new film to be MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART TWO. Instead, it’s MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING.

Without looking up interviews to explain this discrepancy, we may surmise that this is because the studio and filmmakers, including star/producer Tom Cruise, are hoping that the word “Final” ups the sense of jeopardy, and to indicate that the eight-movie-long ride (probably) stops here.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING is most definitely a sequel, a “Part Two,” since its plot is a direct continuation of DEAD RECKONING PART ONE.

Our hero Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has a team, consisting of longtime allies computer whiz Luther (Ving Rhames) and practical objects crafter Benji (Simon Pegg), plus more recent additions introduced last time around. These are expert pickpocket/possible Ethan love interest Grace (Hayley Atwell), ace assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff), and erstwhile government operative Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis).

As of DEAD RECKONING, our group are tracking The Entity, an artificial intelligence that is taking control of all technology on and above Earth (think satellites). It is able to make anyone see, hear, read, and consequently believe whatever The Entity wants.

The Entity now is intent on destroying all life on Earth via a series of nuclear strikes, but doesn’t want to destroy itself, which gives Ethan and Company a window to trap the homicidal A.I.

The Entity is built up in the screenplay by director Christopher McQuarrie, returning for his fourth MISSION helmsmanship, & Erik Jendresen, as the worst threat our planet has faced since asteroids wiped out the dinosaurs.

While there are helpful montages of highlights of previous MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies, anyone without a perfect memory will probably have to go back and rewatch the other installments to see if similar claims were made about previous menaces.

In any case, McQuarrie raises the tension level enough that we are concerned. Angela Bassett, reprising her role as Erika Sloane, now President of the United States (she was in charge of the C.I.A. last time we saw her), nails some serious dramatic material as she wrestles with questions of the greater good.

Likewise, Rhames and Pegg have some very good scenes that let them be more than just quirky utility characters.

All of this underscores one of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING’s problems, which grows as it goes. This is the worshipful tone of the film itself and its people toward Ethan Hunt. He is the Chosen One, the Savior, the “only one.”

Let’s start with that last and go backward. If Ethan didn’t have a team just as death-defying and skilled in their own ways as he is, his efforts would be for naught. Ethan acknowledges this, but everybody else keeps insisting it’s all him.

Even if we were to take this at face value, it just doesn’t bear repeating so much. It doesn’t inform us, it doesn’t give us a warm glow, it just seems like redundant image burnishing. Filmmakers, you’re showing us. You don’t have to keep telling us.

Somewhat along those lines, “For those we hold close, and those we’ll never meet” is a commendable sentiment and we agree – but there is a moment before the end of the film where we’ve heard it so many times that it verges on self-parody.

Some of the sequences are pleasingly complex, and Cruise shows off his famous stunt abilities with as much prowess as ever. The bi-plane midair transfer and fight advertised in the poster and trailers is impressive, as are a number of other fights and chases.

But then there is at least one big set piece that lacks suspense. It’s an hour into the two-hour, forty-nine-minute running time, so we know there’s no way Ethan can come to lasting harm. He’s got no adversaries, and no major puzzles to figure out. We can tell that a fortune has been spent on the set and the tech, but we wind up waiting it out rather than being engaged.

The movie bounces back and forth between getting us to really wonder what’s going to happen, and settling in for what we rightly expect.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING is a decent film on its own and as a representative of its lineage. Anyone who goes in as a fan of these movies should be satisfied by what is provided. But if this truly is the final one, it could be argued that it might have gone out on a higher note.

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