The last time a Tom Cruise led film was released Memorial Day Weekend, he famously saved the movies with Top Gun: Maverick. He followed that up with the seventh installment in his signature Mission: Impossible franchise, which didn’t quite take the mantle of saving the theaters in 2023. That title was bestowed to the monstrosity (complimentary) that was Barbenheimer. But Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning was nonetheless a wonderful cinematic experience.
This year, Cruise is back in what is seemingly the final film in the beloved action series. The film reads as a love letter to both the series as a whole, and to the cinematic force that is Tom Cruise, with an opening compilation of clips from past movies in a corny yet fairly touching ode to Tom Cruise from Tom Cruise. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is the culmination of Cruise’s dedication to the series over the last 30 years, and his overall dedication to expanding the limits of movie entertainment.
It’s important to note the obvious – that Cruise has been the driving auteur voice for the latter films in this series. The opening credits don’t start noting that this is “a Christopher McQuarrie film,” but rather identifying it as “a Tom Cruise production.” We all know who’s in charge here.
There was however, in a moment of extreme irony, a Google Gemini AI ad that played in the middle of the coming attraction trailers ahead of the film. The threat artificial intelligence poses to humanity is central to The Final Reckoning, where Cruise as Ethan Hunt must defeat an evil AI algorithm known as The Entity before it destroys us in an all-out nuclear holocaust. The stakes have never been higher!
A fact we are reminded of throughout the film. Not through the urgency of the actions that Hunt and his merry crew of misfits, including the always delightful Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames as Benji Dunn and Luther Stickell respectively, must take. But rather through uncharacteristically dull expositions dumps. The series has made a habit of finding balance between unrelenting action and paranoid espionage. That balance is unfortunately mostly lost here.
A core tenet of Mission: Impossible movies is Ethan and his team being disavowed by the US government. Either a healthy cynicism or flat-out mistrust from those in power towards Ethan is integral to these films.
In The Final Reckoning, Ethan’s mission is endorsed by POTUS. Getting sign-off from the highest office in the land detracts from the tension necessary to make these movies great. That being said, Angela Bassett is great as President Erika Sloane (recently promoted from her role as CIA Director).
The real enemy in Mission: Impossible movies have been untruths. The threats posed by baddies from Davian to Gabriel are never as bad as the notion that people might not trust Ethan to make the right calls to save the day. Hunt’s greatest superpower is his ability to convince those around him that his crazy ways are worthy of buying into.
The film – and by extension, Cruise himself – has a desire to extend that blind trust in Hunt to a greater optimistic trust in humanity as a whole. It’s only through the power of friendship, AKA deep human to human connection, that Hunt and team can take down The Entity. Our faith in one another will lead us to ultimate salvation and prosperity.
This notion of human connectivity does not feel unrelated to Cruise’s biggest draw as a movie star. Cruise has famously made a name for himself by pushing the limits of his onscreen stunt work to draw the curiosity of movie crowds for years. His desire to create spectacle via the real and tangible is on full display here.
The big set piece in The Final Reckoning does not disappoint. Cruise hanging on the side of biplane is sure to leave audience members breathless. The stunt sequence is as remarkable as anything Cruise has done in his career. Coming at the climax of the film, it feels as if the entire series and all of Cruise’s onscreen exploits have come to this.
The culmination aspect of this film cannot be overstated. The Final Reckoning is full of fan service, including callbacks to previous movies in the franchise and retconning previous plot points.
Shea Whigham’s Briggs gets a weird connection the rest of the series for some reason. Rolf Saxon is back as William Donloe from the original movie’s famous Langley scene. And the rabbit’s foot from Mission: Impossible III is revealed to be part of The Entity’s code or something along those lines. The only movie that doesn’t get referenced is Mission: Impossible II, which is frankly a shame.
A few hallmarks of the series are also missing. Chief among them is a glaring omission of Cruise as Hunt ever riding a motorcycle in The Final Reckoning. The aforementioned lack of disavowing was also puzzling. As was the deemphasis on Hunt’s awkward sexual tension with other characters.
His relationship to Hayley Atwell’s Grace sprinkles in some, but the best repressed horniness came in scenes inside the USS Ohio submarine. Tramell Tillman is fantastic as the ship’s captain, Jack Bledsoe. He’s a scene stealer and delivers certain lines with a level of gusto that will leave you grinning from ear to ear.
But it’s always undoubtedly Tom Cruise’s vehicle. Even a closing monologue from Ving Rhames serves as a final love and thank you letter to Cruise/Hunt. Before we reach the end credits, he walks off, disappearing into a crowd. Even if we don’t get any more films following his antics, Ethan Hunt will be out there protecting us all.
