Our Honest Review of ‘Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning’

The eighth (and seemingly last) entry to the Mission: Impossible saga is here and, in usual fashion, sees Tom Cruise risk life and limb for the sake of entertainment. The high-octane spy caper sees Ethan Hunt go head to head with an evil AI program known as The Entity, first introduced in 2023’s Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One.

While the Bond franchise has come to an end and the Fast & Furious series has completely leaned into Looney Tunes-level car acrobatics, Mission: Impossible represents a dying breed of old-school Hollywood productions of showy, big-scale action blockbusters with a charismatic A-list star at its helm. 

But does The Final Reckoning offer the epic conclusion the 29-year-old franchise deserves? Ahead, find out what I thought in my review of Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning.

PLOT

The film opens with President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) begging Hunt, who is in hiding, to return the cruciform key he stole at the end of the previous movie. The malevolent AI gone rogue, called The Entity, has taken over cyberspace, shrouding the world in a web of misinformation, lies, and deep fakes. 

Its next course of action? Taking control of the world’s most powerful nuclear arsenal and annihilating the entire human race. Why it has decided to do this is shaky at best. I don’t really know The Entity’s motivations (apart from the fact that it’s evil and must do evil things) or how it aims to take control over the world if there are no humans left to do its bidding, and the film doesn’t bother to expand on such details either. 

If we’re talking about stakes, The Final Reckoning takes the cake for having the highest one yet. After all, we are dealing with the extermination of every human on Earth. Naturally, this falls on Ethan Hunt, an IMF agent with the biggest messiah complex that takes up the challenge with a puffed-up chest and a deep sense of reverence.

This MacGuffin sets up his most dangerous and nearly impossible mission: to retrieve The Entity’s source code from a sunken submarine deep in the Arctic Ocean and insert a “poison pill” (essentially a glorified thumb drive) that will ultimately corrupt The Entity, all before it launches its global nuclear strike.

Unfortunately, the first 90 minutes do little to get things going. It drags on with far too many montages, frantic editing, and dialogue often spoken in whispered dramatics like some TV soap opera. Characters each get a turn to gravelly mutter their lines without being interrupted (often about how heroic Hunt is) and become mouthpieces for endless exposition.

Nearly every tense or emotional scene is punctuated by a sizzle reel of the IMF’s and Hunt’s greatest hits as it attempts, almost to an obsessive level, to connect events, characters, and even objects from prior films to The Final Reckoning to cement it into the M:I canon. 

I get it, the title suggests some sort of finality, so reconnecting the past seven pictures is unsurprising. It’s a nice tie-in, sure, for diehard fans, but the back-and-forth snippets do little to add to the already busy narrative and bloated nearly three-hour runtime.  

In saying that, the second half of the film is where The Final Reckoning really takes off and showcases everything we love about Mission: Impossible films. All-or-nothing practical stunts, good old-fashioned teamwork, and Hunt running across the screen with his arms stiffly pointed in classic Cruise form. From the moment Hunt dives down to the submarine, the movie delivers great moments of tension that will leave you breathless at the edge of seat (and like me, butt constantly clenched). 

CHARACTERS

The Mission: Impossible franchise has become synonymous with Cruise. Millions return to the cinema to watch not just because of the IP but because of its star—and Cruise nails it as the indestructible do-gooder Ethan Hunt every time. One could even say that the Mission: Impossible instalments are just giant ego strokes for the Hollywood actor, as Hunt is endlessly praised and revered by everyone around him in ponderous mutterings. 

In The Final Reckoning, his messianic tendencies come back in full force as he is the only obstacle left in The Entity’s way of total human annihilation. But I find it hard to be annoyed by this when I see Hunt’s (and by extension, Cruise’s) deep and respectable commitment to seeing things through and never giving up. 

Another classic trait of Hunt is his unfailing trust in his team, and a Mission: Impossible film is never complete without his IMF crew. There’s tech-savant Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), comms and field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), master pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell), former-assassin-turned-ally Paris (Pom Klementieff), and newcomer Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) using their expertise to help complete the mission.

The scrappy team does a good job in showcasing their dynamics, working well together in high-stakes situations and dropping a joke or two when things get too stuffy. Mission: Impossible can often feel like Ethan Hunt and Co., but I appreciate that each member has a clear and important role in the final climactic action sequence that offers great payoff. 

Out of all the callbacks in The Final Reckoning, the one that I most enjoy is William Donloe (Rolf Saxon). He’s the poor guy in charge of the CIA black vault that Hunt steals from in the first Mission: Impossible film in 1996. “Our lives are the sum of our choices,” the film constantly reminds us. Saxon’s role in this film meaningfully exemplifies this in a fun and cool way. 

As for the bad guys, The Final Reckoning arguably has the weakest villains, especially when you consider the stakes involved here. Gabriel (Esai Morales) is reduced to a moustache-twirling cartoon villain. He was an antagonist who killed off one of the franchise’s beloved characters in Dead Reckoning Part One, but here, he’s a non-threat that does little to tip the balance.

Similarly, The Entity is about as scary as a 40-second ad commercial on YouTube. I have a problem with films using an evil AI as their main villain because it often leads to lazy writing. The Final Reckoning is one such case. Throughout the film, The Entity is treated like some sort of digital boogeyman (“What if that’s what The Entity wants us to think?”) that lives in their walls, making them question everything they say or do, which is just a silly and truthfully lame premise. 

It’s also hard to take a faceless cybervillain seriously when all it has are flashing lights and a robotic voice to intimidate with. For this reason, I never quite believed those very, very high stakes the film keeps reminding us about. 

ACTION

With every Mission: Impossible film, the same question crosses everyone’s minds: Is Cruise getting too old for this? The answer to this is a resounding “no”. At 63, the actor has proven yet again that he is Hollywood’s greatest action star with stunt sequences that you will rewatch for years to come. 

Part of the allure of Mission: Impossible is Cruise’s commitment to performing his own stunts. How is he going to endanger his life again for our entertainment, you ask? Apparently, holding on to dear life on a biplane as it zips through the air and into non-CGI landscapes of canyons and valleys. At one point, he even jumps from one plane to the other mid-air (okay, Tom, now you’re just showing off!).

The Final Reckoning also delivers another standout action sequence that takes place underwater involving a sunken submarine that starts rolling off the trench like a pencil. It’s claustrophobic and chaotic, but masterfully pulls off the heart-racing tension with a great score. These two scenes alone make it worth seeing the film in IMAX. 

But as far as action goes, The Final Reckoning is a lot less intelligent and complex with its execution of the missions. The witty spycraft element is noticeably missing in exchange for large-scale set designs. I love seeing the team come up with convoluted strategies, and the face masks are always a fun gag, but the action sequences reflect the film’s overall sombre tone, and there is no time for experimentation or playful self-awareness.

FINAL VERDICT

Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning suffers from several flaws, such as a padded runtime riddled with melodramatic whisper-talks and unnecessary flashbacks, and a grim tone that takes itself far too seriously. The stunt work, while impressive, also leans more into absurdist territory compared to previous instalments, lacking the sense of believability that keeps the franchise grounded in reality.

But what it lacks in narrative cohesion, it makes up for in pure adrenaline-pumping spectacle. Sometimes, you don’t need everything to make sense. Sometimes, all you need is Tom Cruise getting battered by the winds as he hangs off a biplane to feel satisfied. And that’s enough. 

Rating: 7/10

For more film reviews, head here.