‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ review: Leave the memories alone

Tom Cruise and co. return for a memetic marathon down memory lane with Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.

In 2025, some may argue the battle against a cultural adoption of AI has been thoroughly lost, but that doesn’t mean we need to like it. Tom Cruise is older and still putting up a fight in what is, unofficially, his last entry in the beloved Mission: Impossible franchise. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) gives us a cathartic battle as he continues his fight against the potently contemporary threat of a rogue Artificial Intelligence in Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.

This eighth entry struggles with a limp in its opening act before trying desperately to push through a haze of context in an attempt to allow just about anybody to view this film. Despite that initial struggle, it’s easy to enjoy the brisk pace and series staple stunts that keep you holding your breath (and chair) once the title card appears. The trouble is, that pacing only corrects itself after thirty minutes into the marathon of a nearly three-hour runtime.

Countless genre blockbusters over the better part of the last century have tackled the propulsion of mankind’s face off with AI as its intellectual and tactical successor. While many films such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1983’s War Games and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina all deal with the geo-political and philosophical implications of such a system, Mission: Impossible finds itself closer to the end of the spectrum akin to the Terminator franchise or M3GAN, where the rogue AI is an objective enemy which threatens armageddon on the world. Ethan Hunt is excellent at preventing those, but predictive AI is tricky to circumvent by sticking to conventional plans.

Do the impossible, see the invisible.

This changes very little about the stakes of Dead Reckoning and now The Final Reckoning, as Hunt and the scrappy remnants of his IMF team (including Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, and Pom Klementieff) still execute elaborate plans across the globe with the same death-defying brute force as ever; the difference now is a distinct lack of necessary characterization for the writing of villains, and a smattering of attempts to reach out an olive branch when they find themselves on the wrong side of a gun. However, even the film and its characters don’t buy into the diplomatic platitudes because it’s not why we’re here.

There’s no time for The Final Reckoning to delve into heady sci-fi territory because we’ve got impossible missions to do. It’s only circumstantially through COVID delays, reshoots and heavy-handed post-production that the movie depicts a very modern reality of misinformation, disinformation, social engineering, and intelligence manipulation to chart our characters along a particularly determined, prophetic course. The purpose of the AI, known as the Entity, is to give Ethan the slimmest possible chances of survival as he attempts to chase one macguffin deep under the ocean, and connect it with one in the villain’s possession high in the sky.

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Some audience members may want to draw comparisons to other massive blockbuster franchise’s conclusive chapters like Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame and 007’s No Time To Die. In the wake of those films, Mission: Impossible spends a chunk of its runtime dashing through its honorary checklist as it makes a victory lap through the series; one last self destructing tape, one last chance for Cruise to show off his running skills, one last questionably professional kiss, one last bomb disarmament, and at least two more chances for Mister Movie to make his life insurance skyrocket.

In addition to these returning elements are extensive flashbacks, making this half a greatest hits clip show and the half a celebratory climax. While The Final Reckoning does steer clear of the tropes of an elder lead passing the torch once they’ve disembarked from their last big ride, the film does indulge in making an effort to tie-in events of past films to retroactively create a sense of purpose over entries in the last thirty years.

The shame of this is that those early films, each done by different directors, all had a unique sense of identity and style, and while Rogue Nation through The Final Reckoning highlight the incredibly dynamic partnership between star Cruise and filmmaker Chris McQuarrie (Jack Reacher, Edge of Tomorrow), The Final Reckoning amounts to a franchise homogenization that feels like a cheap way to retroactively incentivize an eight-film binge on Paramount+.

Memories made of memes.

That first thirty minutes is a frantically paced, overedited rush of spinning plates to keep the audience simultaneously entertained with information overload. So much so that the film’s prologue before that iconic opening title theme feels like a half-hour clip show meeting some kind of crossroads of a Shonen anime recap episode and a Michael Bay film. Some may not notice, but it’ll also feel like a patronizing recap to make sure no past detail to watch tonight’s episode is forgotten, or any newcomer can buy a ticket and not feel cheated.

Another filmmaker, say Christopher Nolan for instance, writes quickly paced exposition into the foundations of his screenplays and invites the audience to either keep up or watch the movie again. The Final Reckoning, meanwhile, seems to have no trust in its audience to follow along and unfortunately does so to the detriment of its pacing.

It takes the wrong lessons from Top Gun: Maverick; that was a movie that spends its first half detailing the mission to the audience so they can sit back and enjoy the flight when it comes time to launch in the final act. The Final Reckoning, on the other hand, makes sure that the audience never forgets the tiny macguffin Ethan is after, creating dissonance between an action scene and death defying stunts.

Format is king.

When the film is at its best, it’s simply a Mission: Impossible movie with some light ground retreading. Still, those stunt sequences continue to be the movie’s shining nucleus and are more than worthy of a large format screen like IMAX. Cruise has made a career of escapism for the masses to chow down on a bucket of popcorn while they indulge in a couple of hours of high adrenaline, edge of your seat action inspired by the anxieties of the times and films of old.

In spite of the theatrical experience crumbling in real time, the internet eroding the goodwill of an audience, and meta-textual noise surrounding filmmaking, Hollywood’s last action star wants nothing more than to invite audiences to pray at the altar of the cinema with a bucket of popcorn in hand and release themselves to the awe of believing a man can fly a biplane with his foot, while hanging upside down.

The bottom line.

Once that conclusion hits after a tense final act, the pressure valve is released. After all that, the mission doesn’t feel quite so final, even with the circumstances being so breathtakingly dire throughout. Final Reckoning does not indulge in franchise sequel baiting, or tropes of passing the torch, and only minimal (if not confusing) bouts of tragic loss. The only thing that Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning truly indulges in, is being another Mission: Impossible movie. If that’s what you’re here for, enjoy the movie, and make sure you get your popcorn.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is now playing in theaters everywhere. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures. Read more articles by Evan Griffin here.