Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

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IMF Reviews

Well, here we are, almost thirty years after the debut of the first 'Mission: Impossible,' and everything has led to this point. And to be perfectly frank, if you go into this blind or haven't refreshed yourself on your 'Mission: Impossible' viewings, you may very well get lost entirely here. While it's a fun film for fans, it references so much that it can get confusing. With that, I'll offer a major spoiler alert for any movie in the series from the past, specifically 'Dead Reckoning,' although other films are also referenced.

The mission in the previous film was to retrieve two parts of a cruciform key that would allow control over a reckless AI known as "The Entity," which aimed to infiltrate world powers and gain control over nuclear systems worldwide. The mission is successful, but the Entity continues to wreak havoc and even gain a cult following. Ordered to bring the key to the proper authorities by US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) refuses, believing power over the Entity is too much for anyone to possess.

Ethan plans to use the key to destroy the Entity, which will ultimately mean shutting down everything it has infiltrated worldwide, essentially eliminating the internet as a whole and reverting to a pre-internet era. This scenario would cause a global catastrophe. If he doesn't, however, the Entity plans to use its access to nuclear powers to destroy the Earth and gain control over the remnants of humanity. To make matters worse, the Entity's former "servant," Gabriel (Esai Morales), who knows the Entity quite well, seeks to gain control of it for himself with a lust for power.

It's confusingly noted here that Ethan has a personal grudge against Gabriel, as some time before he joined the IMF, Ethan lost someone near and dear to him named Marie (Mariela Garriga) at Gabriel's hands. She's also brought up in a flashback in 'Dead Reckoning,' which I failed to mention in my last review, but really, her presence seems only to be there to form this personal grudge and give Ethan something more to fight Gabriel for. Perhaps I'm missing something, but she seems forced to illustrate Ethan's feelings for those he works with further.

As per usual, Ethan is helped with the assistance of our old favourites, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luthor Stickell (Ving Rhames), but is now also joined by some characters from the last film like Grace (Hayley Atwell), a skilled thief, Gabriel's former lieutenant, Paris (Pom Klementieff) and Theo Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis), subordinate to Intelligence agent Jasper Briggs (Shea Whigham), who was a bit more of a presence in the last film but does manage to give us a pretty cool reveal as to just who he is when it comes to this film franchise.

We do get another guest star here or two that refers back to previous films, and they don't just come in human form, either. One person enters the picture with their wife, and it's something I don't want to spoil here, as it ultimately proves fairly interesting. However, without giving too much away here, we finally figure out what the 'Rabbit's Foot' is from 'M: I-3,' which was my only complaint about that chapter: keeping it a mystery. Either way, it demonstrates how a full rewatch of the series can aid in piecing things together for this finale.

Although I enjoyed this, I didn't get as much out of it as I have with previous 'Mission: Impossible' titles. A lot of that has to do with the need to see so much more beforehand to help one understand what's what. However, it's not a movie that lacks what we're looking for in a 'Mission: Impossible' title: good characters, solid action, and a whole lot of Tom Cruise running at full speed, doing incredible stunt work that keeps one wondering how much fuel he has left in the tank. It's as good a time as most of these movies are, even if it does run just a little longer at nearly 3 hours. But hey, it's a finale.

4/5

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