Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: Cruise vs. Gravity, Nostalgia, and a Rogue AI
Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt sprints toward an emotional “last” hurrah—170 minutes of premium mayhem, a few narrative speed bumps, and a biplane stunt so audacious it makes your popcorn sweat.
If there’s a reliable law of modern cinema, it’s that Tom Cruise will eventually dangle from, jump off of, or cling to something with propellers. In Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth (and perhaps “final”) entry in the long‑running spy saga, Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie don’t just test gravity—they bench‑press it. The film arrived in U.S. theaters on May 23, 2025, after being retitled from Dead Reckoning Part Two to The Final Reckoning, a sign of franchise course‑correction and end‑game swagger. Whether this truly ends Ethan Hunt’s run is coyly left unsaid, but the movie certainly plays like a capstone.
As ever, the “mission” involves stopping the apocalypse between breathless set pieces and outsized moral choices. Here, the returning villain is less a person than a presence: the Entity, a near‑omniscient AI introduced in the last film, now hijacking global systems and manipulating human pawns. Ethan and the IMF must retrieve secrets entombed in a sunken Russian submarine, outmaneuver Gabriel (Esai Morales), and foil a sky‑high plot that culminates with Ethan clinging to a vintage biplane. The story’s intentionally knotty, but the set‑piece logic is pristine: setup, escalation, impossibility, triumph—repeat.
Before we get to the stunts, a quick scoreboard. The Final Reckoning clocks in at roughly 2 hours 49 minutes and has already racked up about $598 million worldwide (with $197.4 million domestic), affirming a sizeable, if not record‑shattering, box‑office footprint for a franchise eight films deep. It’s also streaming now after an August 19 digital debut, which means the home‑theater crowd can confirm whether Cruise really does hang off that plane (he does).
Critically, the film has landed solidly: 80% on the Tomatometer with an 88% audience score, and a consensus that frames it as a “gargantuan”, sentimental send‑off that still vaults over most action competitors on pure craft. That sentiment tracks. The knock—also fair—is that the movie sometimes feels like a lavish farewell tour, less sleek spy puzzle than victory lap with fireworks and a museum audio guide.
Now, about those fireworks. The submarine sequence is a franchise highlight, trading the series’ usual vertical terror for abyssal dread; you feel the pressure, the cold, the hush before the hull groans. And then there’s the biplane, a set piece filmed for large formats that delivers both a visceral “how did they do that?” and a meta‑thrill: Cruise, against the sky, declaring in subtext that practical spectacle still matters. If the first act feels dense with exposition and callbacks, the back half detonates like a string of perfectly timed charges.
One of the most intriguing pivots comes from the power behind the Resolute Desk. Angela Bassett returns as Erika Sloane—now President of the United States—and she’s terrific, a steel‑nerved foil who reframes Ethan’s rogue heroics as a political liability and a national necessity. Bassett plays Sloane with a gravitas that makes the film’s thematic gambits land harder: What does a “good” state do when an algorithm can outthink its institutions? Who gets sacrificed? She’s not a cameo; she’s a fulcrum.
Hayley Atwell’s Grace remains the franchise’s most refreshing late‑game addition—witty, resourceful, and capable of puncturing Ethan’s martyr complex with a side‑eye. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames keep the heartbeat steady as Benji and Luther, long‑time conscience and code. Esai Morales’s Gabriel is more cipher than character—deadly, glacial, effective—though the script saddles him with pronouncements that feel, at times, less like dialogue and more like capital‑T Themework. Cameos and new faces (Hannah Waddingham, Nick Offerman, Holt McCallany) deepen the institutional chessboard without overwhelming it.
On paper, The Final Reckoning looks like a cautionary tale about AI run amok; on screen, it’s about agency—the worth of human choice in a world outsourcing decision‑making to algorithms and “models.” Several reviewers noted the film’s essayistic streak, and they’re not wrong; the movie indulges in exposition, charts, and metaphors (the Entity as “parasitic intelligence”) that can sand the momentum. Yet when the film leans into kinetic storytelling—silent tactics in a flooded compartment, a pilot’s‑eye roll from cloud to cliff—it’s as bracing as ever.
McQuarrie’s direction favors clear geography and old‑school practical thrills, and the sound team gives the set pieces the thunder they deserve. A notable swap behind the scenes: Lorne Balfe cedes the baton to Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey, whose score honors the bongo‑driven muscularity Balfe cemented while finding fresher melodic lines in the quieter, elegiac passages. It’s less blare, more ache—fitting for a film flirting with farewell.
If the movie stumbles, it’s mostly in the opening stretch, which front‑loads flashbacks, dossiers, and a greatest‑hits montage energy that feels like a commemorative plaque come to life. Once the mission logistics click into place and the film stops reminding us that it’s important, it remembers to be fun—that nimble balance of peril and play that powered Rogue Nation and Fallout. Even critics who bemoaned the bloat conceded the stunts still slap.
The character writing gives Cruise more weary humanity than he’s had since the series’ Bird‑era exuberance. Ethan is still a man of motion, but the film lingers on the cost—on the way faces from his past (and ghostly echoes of those he couldn’t save) calibrate each choice. This isn’t the funny Ethan; it’s the resolute Ethan, the one who’s learned that saving the world is the easy part and living with it is harder. That tonal shift won’t be everyone’s ride, but it lends weight to the operatic stakes.
From a franchise‑health angle, The Final Reckoning has fared well, but not in a “Top Gun: Maverick saves cinema” way. Its $64 million opening and near‑$600 million global haul suggest robust interest, tempered perhaps by blockbuster crowding and the prior film’s mixed word‑of‑mouth. Still, how many franchises hit movie eight looking this sharp? Exactly.
It’s worth pausing on the decision to retitle. Jettisoning “Part Two” frees the film to be experienced as an event, not homework, and retroactively rebrands Dead Reckoning Part One as simply Dead Reckoning. Marketing clarity is not exactly character development, but it’s not nothing; it smooths the runway for casual viewers while the movie itself cranks up the franchise lore.
And about that plane. The biplane sequence—from the first glint of sun on the yellow fuselage to the upside‑down wing‑walk—feels almost tactile, a reminder that Cruise’s impossible missions aren’t CGI daydreams but engineering problems solved with time, terror, and repetition. You sense the wind shear, the slipped grip, the weight—cinema that makes your palms sweat and your brain go “please don’t fall.” The cherry on top? It’s not even the finale—just one link in a chain of escalating madness.
So, is this a great Mission: Impossible or merely a very good one? The truthful (if slightly cowardly) answer is both. It’s great when it treats the camera like a dare and the world like a playground built for spies; it’s good when it slows to sermonize. It’s great when Bassett’s President Sloane forces impossible choices; it’s good when Gabriel waxes poetic about destiny. It’s great when Cruise outruns physics; it’s good when he outruns exposition. The net result is a high‑gloss, high‑stakes, high‑heart blockbuster that earns its mantel as a plausible curtain call—even if the curtain never quite closes.
The Verdict (Accept or Decline?)
The Final Reckoning is must‑see big‑screen spectacle with a soulful core. The first act’s essayistic ambitions occasionally sand the pacing, but once the mission hits cruising altitude, it soars—on wings of practical lunacy, muscular sound, and a cast dialed into the franchise’s blend of sincerity and swagger. If this is indeed Ethan Hunt’s last mission, it’s a fond, ferocious farewell; if not, consider it a reminder that some movie stars are still willing to risk it all just to keep you leaning forward.
