'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' Review: Tom Cruise Goes for Broke in Fitting Finale

Cruise and company bring everything back together for a fitting conclusion (?) to the long-running franchise

It’s been nearly 30 years audiences were introduced (and the previous generation were re-introduced) to Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Missions Force. (Between this and the release of Final Destination: Bloodlines this week, millennials have never felt older.) What started out as a fun late-’60s TV show has transmorgified into the juggernaut action franchise it is today, so much so that you’d be hard pressed to find many who recall it’s small screen origins. But in those 30 years Cruise, and his ever evolving ensemble, have engaged in high-octane, blockbuster filmmaking that continues to feel unique in a world of CGI juggernauts, fueled by the 62-year-old superstar continuing to place himself in peril at every opportunity.

But all good things come to an end. This is, as the title says, the final reckoning despite Cruise’s hemming and hawing on red carpets. And it goes out with a bang. Like an IMF mission, everything about Final Reckoning is bombastic and thrilling. And unlike it’s story which places an emphasis on how “nothing is written” and man makes his own destiny, co-screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen weave a taut tale that ties in so many previous Mission: Impossible plot threads so organically it feels like there was a master plan leading to this film from the very beginning.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) remains on the run and in pursuit of the AI plague known as The Entity. The Entity plans to take over the nuclear arsenal of every major country, instituting nuclear war and the annihilation of humanity. Hunt and his crew are tasked with not only capturing Entity true believer Gabriel (Esai Morales) but finding a means to stop The Entity before it destroys the world.

Final Reckoning’s opening lines act as both an exposition dump for those who don’t recall the last feature, as well as the beginning of what ends up being a very well-rounded farewell to a man described as the “best of men in the worst of times.” For long-time viewers of the series, Ethan Hunt is a man who could have easily coasted on being the typical white male, big-grinning, rouge smarty pants that populated the ‘80s and ‘90s. The charismatic rebel who, as President Erika Sloane says, “never followed orders” but “never let us down.”

As the series went on, the team-up of Cruise and McQuarrie fleshed him out and presented him as a man trying to grapple with the price of being a modern-day superhero. One who couldn’t hold onto relationships, who struggled to get close to people he’d eventually lose, who’d look at himself at the age of 60 and wonder if everything in his life was a mistake. It’s a theme that continues to run through Final Reckoning, as not only is the world itself threatened with destruction but the Entity’s self-awareness has created a cult-like group of followers willing to do its bidding, where fear, misinformation and distrust are rampant. For Hunt, the struggles of 2025 look far bigger and more frightening than 1996.

Connecting back to Mission: Impossible 3, specifically, the IMF must look for a Russian sub submerged on the ocean floor that houses The Entity’s source code. Over the near-three hour runtime, Hunt and the team split into two. Hunt goes in search of the sub while the team, led by Benji (Simon Pegg) and Grace (Hayley Atwell) travel to the Arctic in the hopes of finding the sub’s coordinates. The script understands the ridiculousness of its own existence, telling the audience flat out much of the plot runs on near-impossible stakes and just sheer luck. It’s a film that says, “Don’t think about it too hard” while never outright thinking the viewer is dumb.

What’s fascinating is how Cruise seems to take a step back and trust the team he’s assembled, as Hunt and as a producer, to carry things. Though he’s never fully off-screen, Cruise spends the majority of his screen time in high pressure stunt sequences that look like something out of Fear Factor. That isn’t to say we don’t get any acting from him, but it’s a different type. He shows the pressure, the fear, and the courage Hunt needs to keep his cool and complete the mission. And yet there are moments where Cruise stands in an open space and takes it all in with such gravity. This is a story about a man trying to appreciate what being alive means, and the friends he’s made along the way, and you believe Cruise understands that.

The two halves cleanly offer up equal levels of thrill and pathos. Cruise takes on the more action-oriented role. Though the stunt on the biplane is on all the posters, what’s even more amazing to watch is a near-dialogue free sequence of Hunt going through the Russian sub as it rolls towards an undersea gorge. Eddie Hamilton’s editing is Oscar-level, intercutting Hunt and the various nuclear bombs clanking and rolling all around as the sub rotates. McQuarrie has said the whole thing was a set on a rotating gimbal and it is a breathtaking feat of stunt work, cinematography, and acting that truly feels like the actor is not only thousands of miles below the surface, but that his own life is in peril.

The other half is the IMF traveling to the Arctic in hopes of, once Ethan gets the Entity where he wants it, keeping it contained. Ordinarily, teams like this are cannon fodder for easy tears, and though there is a moment where you will cry—unless you’re heartless—nothing ever feels manipulative. This is a group that, despite newcomers like Atwell and Pom Klementieff’s Paris, acts as if they’ve been together for decades. And yet none of them lose an ounce of ingrained characterization. Paris openly admits her only talent is “I kill people” and yet Klementieff showcases how that desire to kill has changed since the last movie. (Also, she has incredibly comedic timing here.)

Atwell, is also charming and fun, even if she still feels like another warm female body for Hunt to fall for. That being said, her and Cruise continue to have some great comedic chemistry. A sequence where Hunt violently dispatches a henchman isn’t seen but heard, with Atwell providing a series of horrified facial expression that conveys the apparent gruesomeness as well as a bevy of humor.

But it’s scene stealers Rolf Saxon and Lucy Tulugarjuk as Bill and Tapeesa Dunlow, respectively, that anchor this B-plot. A small, but memorable character from the 1996 Mission: Impossible, Saxon’s character is now a disgraced CIA agent literally relegated to the Arctic for 30 years. But what McQuarrie gives us is a beautifully simple love story that’s romantic and funny—Tulugarjuk’s facial expression—that acts as a fantastic parallel to Hunt’s own questions about his life.

By the time the final countdown arrives it’s anyone’s guess what can happen. The finale is another fantastic, award-worthy sequence to show off Hamilton’s editing skills as we cut between Hunt trying to stop a baddie, Grace waiting for instructions on the Entity, characters dying, and a bomb being dismantled. These intercut scenes never come off like a chintzy TV series “high stakes” moment, but a series of unified hopes and fears for the future of the world. It’s a highly tense five minutes, is what I’m saying.

Is this Hunt and crew’s last hurrah? Again, Cruise is being cagey about everything but if so it’s well-deserved and a fitting end. Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning is a true culmination of not just a franchise, but a body of work from some fantastic actors and cinematic craftsmen. A series that started out as a basic TV remake has transformed into a franchise that never once self-destructed. Hunt and crew have earned themselves a long rest and it’s gonna be a great time at the movies.

Grade: B+

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is in theaters May 23.