Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning Review

Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning – 2025

Director Christopher MaQuarrie
Screenplay Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen
Starring Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Henry Czerny, Angela Bassett

That Mission Impossible has become a tent-pole action series is due as much to Tom Cruise’s relentless efforts to be involved with the hair raising stunts as much as anything going on in the story. This time, there is a culmination of many story lines. These go back through most of the previous entries to create a scenario that attributes the pending end of the world to Cruise’s than Hunt.

The story drags for much of the first hour. As many as four different sources waste time telling Ethan it’s his fault. Meanwhile, Ethan explains what needs to be done. His goal is to counter this AI that is bent on reshaping the world through annihilation of one sort or another.

MaQuarrie employs a different method here than used in his previous entries. There are a series of quick cut face shots. These go from character to character, employing the same speech in different places. It’s effect is wholly uninteresting.

Once the actual action sets in, the fact that it has been over-explained is almost overcome. There are two set pieces in particular in the second half of the film. One is in a sunken submarine, the other is on a pair of old biplanes. Each of these is riveting. The kind of action one never sees in modern film-making. By this point, it’s well known that Cruise prefers to be the man in the middle of the action. He would rather do it himself than let the stunt guy take over. How and where the stunt actors take over for Cruise is almost impossible to tell.

That this is the least of the M.I. films doesn’t mean it is a bad film. It’s great once they stop explaining and just start moving. There are some nice surprises for those who have followed since the first film. We know the world won’t end, but for the first time, its actually not a certainty that the team survives.

(***1/2 out of *****)