Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Written by: Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jenresen
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie and co-written with Erik Jendresen, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning sees Tom Cruise don the Ethan Hunt mantle for what’s billed as a climactic close to one of Hollywood’s most enduring franchises. Returning are series mainstays Ving Rhames (Luther), Simon Pegg (Benji), Hayley Atwell (Grace), and Henry Czerny (Kittridge), joined by Holt McCallany as William Donloe — the once-hapless CIA analyst from the original Mission: Impossible film, whose vault Ethan infiltrated back in 1996. Donloe’s reappearance adds a rare, satisfying through-line connecting the series’ beginning with its supposed finale.
Here comes the spoilers…
The story picks up shortly after the events of Dead Reckoning Part One, with the team in pursuit of the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol, where the source code of the Entity — a rogue AI threatening global control — lies dormant. The Entity, essentially the film’s “invisible god,” has access to and influence over nearly all global digital infrastructure. Luther makes the ultimate sacrifice to neutralize a nuclear device, while Grace finds herself pulled deeper into the moral fog of espionage. Donloe, now older and embittered, is pulled out of obscurity as the only person capable of navigating the now-reactivated digital architecture in which the Entity is embedded.
And yet, for all its heavy themes, the plot stumbles on something fundamental: a complete underestimation of how an advanced AI like the Entity would actually behave. The script treats the Entity as a rogue machine with only one life to live — hidden in a Russian submarine — as if it hadn’t already prepared multiple fail-safes and digital redundancies across global networks. Any AI of that caliber would’ve had backup plans, post-apocalyptic contingencies, and escape protocols spread across countless systems and data centers. Instead, the narrative pins its entire climax on the assumption that destroying one physical node will end the threat. It’s reductive and frustratingly naïve.
Worse, the geopolitical response to the Entity is bafflingly thin. Only Russia is shown attempting to retrieve and weaponize it — as if the rest of the world’s intelligence communities suddenly lost interest in seizing control of the most powerful digital entity ever created. Where are the Chinese, Israeli, British, Indian, or Iranian operations? The CIA seems oddly absent. This film could’ve delivered an electrifying battle royale scenario — a globe-spanning, multi-agency war with Ethan caught in the middle, barely able to stay ahead of the world’s most elite hunters. Instead, we’re left with a strangely narrow conflict. The global stakes are massive, but the global response feels like a low-budget rehearsal.
Then, of course, there’s the running. So much running. Cruise sprints across nearly every continent like he’s being chased by his own legacy. The most glaring offender? A frantic London foot chase where Ethan could’ve reached Luther far more efficiently via the Underground or a rideshare. The running was once a thrilling motif — now it’s a punchline. And while Cruise still performs jaw-dropping stunts (you can practically hear the insurance adjusters sobbing), their impact has diminished. We’ve seen him scale the Burj Khalifa, hang off a cargo plane mid-takeoff, and HALO jump from 25,000 feet. Now it just feels like an obligatory spectacle, not organic escalation.
Still, The Final Reckoning has moments of greatness: Donloe’s arc is smart and satisfying, Luther’s sacrifice hits emotionally, and the moral tension around AI control is a topic worth exploring. But the film doesn’t trust its audience to consider the deeper ramifications of its plot, nor does it explore the truly global chessboard this story should have played on.
A fitting finale? In parts. But this should have been more than just another mission. It should have been Ethan Hunt versus the world — not just versus bad Wi-Fi and another stairwell to sprint up.
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