'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' is a mixed bag

Reviewing my most anticipated movie of 2025

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is finally here. To say I was looking forward to this film would be an understatement. If not for Star Wars, Mission: Impossible may very well be my favorite franchise of all time. Needless to say, I have a lot of thoughts on this newest entry. I reviewed the movie for UCSB's The Daily Nexus.

Here is that review (director’s cut):

"I need you to trust me… one last time."

This plea, uttered by star Tom Cruise at the conclusion of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’s rocky first act, serves as a turning point for the film. It’s the moment where writer and director Christopher McQuarrie’s uncharacteristically messy storytelling finds its footing and transforms into the rip-roaring action spectacle expected from a Mission: Impossible entry. The Final Reckoning becomes a worthy finale to one of Hollywood’s best franchises — it just takes a while to get there.

Positioned as the culmination of an almost 30-year-old run (excluding the original 1966 television show) kickstarted by 1996’s Mission: Impossible, The Final Reckoning is the eighth installment. It comes hot on the heels of 2023’s fantastic but similarly flawed Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning. Before that, 2018’s Mission: Impossible — Fallout debuted as the series’ magnum opus and an all-timer action film. While The Final Reckoning never quite reaches the heights of these predecessors (I’d place it on the mid-to-low tier of Mission: Impossible rankings), it delivers in spades on what sets this franchise apart: the stunts.

There are two major setpieces in The Final Reckoning. Both are jaw-droppingly intense and instant classic action scenes. One involves an undersea heist which surpasses the memorable underwater portion of Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. The other, an aerial biplane sequence recalling the helicopter fight in Fallout. Once again, McQuarrie, Cruise, and company outdid themselves. These primarily visual, dialogue-less stretches of the movie distill the essence of cinema down to its purest form. There simply aren’t enough words to accurately convey the magnitude of achievement nor level of craft on display here. Credit must go to the stunt teams, who worked tirelessly to stage as much of this action practically as possible. It pays dividends and alone makes The Final Reckoning worth the price of admission.

The one-two punch of these setpieces, both taking place after the demarcation point of Hunt’s plea, do much heavy lifting to steer The Final Reckoning back on track from its many storytelling failings. Those failings include, but aren’t limited to, an overreliance on flashbacks to remind the audience about important details, copious amounts of exposition for the same purpose, baffling retcons of previous franchise installments in an attempt to weave an overarching story, and underserved character arcs. For example, Shea Whigham’s character is given a pointless family connection to a character from the original Mission: Impossible. It’s a horrendously transparent reach for overarching continuity that never has any real impact on the narrative at hand. Additionally, Greg Tarzan Davis’ character switches sides without proper explanation, the characters played by Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff are criminally underdeveloped, Esai Morales’ Gabriel undergoes a radical personality change that solidifies him as an underwhelming villain, and several other important story and character threads are neglected. The Final Reckoning also suffers from a distinct lack of Vanessa Kirby, who was electric in the previous film. The same can be said for Rebecca Ferguson, whose death in Dead Reckoning was a major misstep.

Unfortunately, the plot of The Final Reckoning is also chock full of inconsistencies. The challenges of writing an omniscient artificial intelligence as the villain of a movie crystallizes when everything becomes hand-wavy. What The Entity knows and doesn’t know is blurry, and why anything must happen the way it does is ill-defined. The entire framework of the film collapses under any level of scrutiny.

Tonally, this is by far the most self-serious and dour Mission: Impossible movie. The world-ending stakes become tiresome when there’s not enough levity to balance things out. Dead Reckoning’s screwball, Buster Keaton-esque energy is sorely missing from this film.

On a technical level, however, most of The Final Reckoning improves upon its predecessor. The CGI is stronger and director of photography Fraser Taggar's cinematography is gorgeous. The shadowy lighting contributes to the grave stakes and eliminates Dead Reckoning’s controversial digital sheen. McQuarrie also toned down his excessive usage of dutch angles and distracting breaking of the 180-degree rule. The Final Reckoning’s only technical misstep was not bringing back Lorne Balfe to do the score. Composers Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey turned in solid work but never quite lived up to the high standards set by Balfe.

Last but not least are the performances. Despite many of their characters being underserved, The Final Reckoning’s ensemble cast managed to shine. Cruise is predictably great as Ethan Hunt, as are franchise veterans Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, and Angela Bassett. Making their Mission: Impossible debuts are Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, and Katy O'Brian, the latter two especially chewing scenery with standout line delivery.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning may not be the intended triumphant finale, but it has more than enough good to make it worthwhile. For the action, if nothing else, Cruise proves once again he deserves every ounce of trust for which he demands.

The theatrical cut of this review can be found in The Daily Nexus. Once published, that version can be read here.

In addition to this review, I released a Reel Talk podcast episode where I went even more in depth. I talked about the things that didn’t make the cut of the review and discussed this film in the context of the larger franchise.

You can listen to that episode here on Spotify and here on Apple Podcasts.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is currently in theaters