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Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

Premise: A rogue AI with the intent to destroy humanity has taken over most of the world's nuclear facilities with plans to launch them all once it takes over the remainder.  A secret agent and his cobbled together team have to convince the President to try and let him stop it.

Rating: A few incredible action sequences in a bad-movie trench coat.

I decided to review this movie specifically because I am conflicted.  As a time at the movies, it's fun.  You get crazy action sequences on a big screen.  You get nostalgia and characters you remember.  You get Tom Cruise running.  But as a film critique, it's an incomprehensible, over-explained, over-long, over-serious, dumbed-down mess.

This movie pretty much doesn't exist in a vacuum.  Not only is it a continuation of the formerly named Dead Reckoning: Part One (now just renamed to Dead Reckoning), it's doing that thing where it attempts to wrap up an entire franchise by retconning the previous films to be all part of one bigger mission with plenty of callbacks.  What's weird is that despite the last film serving as setup for this movie, there is a lot (A LOT) of exposition and explaining to get this film going.  Normally, I like a cogent plot, but it's not really why you come to a Mission: Impossible film.  There is always a maguffin that a bad guy wants to do bad things with (sometimes they don't even tell us what is it, like the Rabbit's Foot from Mission: Impossible III).  Ethan Hunt has to retrieve the maguffin.  In doing so, he's going to do crazy action sequences.  That's kind of it.

This movie has several maguffins all linked together and the villain is more of a concept -- a bad AI with a henchman.  There's a lot that crosses over into sci-fi and a ton of justifying and explaining but none of it is particularly convincing.  It's also really friggin' long.  This movie is almost 3 hours long and it doesn't even really get moving until about halfway through.  It has subplots for characters and their families (like the President) that don't really amount to much with our story.  It's just too much, done poorly.

Then there's the tie-backs and nostalgia.  I don't love this, in general.  But I guess it's kinda fine and if there was ever a movie where it was acceptable, I suppose this is it.  But the movie makes sure that you get all of the references.  It edits together the previous references as flashbacks.  I just think it doesn't give the audience enough credit to put things together for themselves.  It's just not my speed, in terms of how I like my stories to be told.

Also, just a preference thing, I think that Mission: Impossible does best when it follows a formula of a confusing beginning that drops you into a situation you don't understand, an unexpected twist or action sequence to break from that situation that sets the plot in motion and a cut to the theme music and the opening titles.  (Done to perfection in Ghost Protocol -- "light the fuse")  This doesn't really pull that off and it might seem minor but I didn't love the way that the title sequence music was used.

The tone is also a bit off-putting.  It's just too serious and reverent of its own material.  It lacks the levity and humor of some of the better entries and it treats Ethan Hunt as some kind of messiah figure, almost.  It's an "only he can do it" narrative, but meanwhile his team also has several impossible (and often stupid) tasks. 

But......

But......

The stunts are crazy.  Like, all-timer crazy, Tom Cruise is an insane-person in real life and doesn't care that he's risking it all for your entertainment kind-of crazy.  All of them are some level of good.  There is an underwater/breathing sequence that has been done and it's at a slow point in the film -- some of that could probably be excised, along with half this plot.  But there's stuff with bi-planes at the end.  ...holy hell.

So, all in all -- mixed bag.  A bad movie on its face, but you still kinda like the characters and callbacks and stunts enough to have a fun time.

I have to admit I haven't been a Tom Cruise fan in a while but the guy has balls of steel and he seems to treat fans pretty well. I did really enjoy Maverick but I haven't seen any Mission Impossible since the first one. He genuinely seems like the last Hollywood movie star out there.

I was watching a story on him the other day and it was him hanging off the side of a big airplane. He stated he didn't know he wouldn't be able to breath until he was up so he learned to tilt his head just enough to breathe a little. They were planning to stop after a take or two but Tom had them keep going up for 8 takes. Just crazy.

Cool action but I just... felt nothing watching it.

Mission impossible was a good TV show. It's never been great movie experience. I watched the first 1 and was mildly entertained, I've seen bits and pieces of others, but none have ever grabbed me. I understand why they continue to make them, but I have no idea why people continue to go see them.

And it's not Tom Cruise, I actually really like some of his work. I loved both of the Top Gun movies and I also loved Oblivion, it's one of my favorite Sci-Fi films and Cruise is fantastic in that. I get that it's a great payday for him, but they should have stopped at 1 film in this franchise.

Was there a part where he jumps over a shark on water skis?

I fundamentally disagree.  I watch a flippin' lot of movies and there's literally nothing matching the action intensity of the Mission Impossible films.  They are of varying quality plot-wise, but MI: Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Fallout are legitimately some of the best action films ever made.  The plots are good, they're fun, the action is intense and insane and real.

Tom Cruise gets a lot of shit, but if you're going to make a list of incredible action actors, it's only 3 people: Cruise, Jackie Chan, and Buster Keaton.

If you've only seen bits and pieces of films, I'd understand how you'd think that.  But seriously...give Ghost Protocol a shot.  It's truly terrific.

Is Buster Keaton really an "action star"? He did physical stuff but I don't think it falls under my definition of action.

Perhaps I should call it something else -- but actor/stunt performer.  Keaton was revolutionary.

His films were usually comedies -- and the action wasn't fighting.  But it was hijinks and dangerous action situations.  But I still think it's action -- is parkour action?

Either way -- those three guys were legends.

I'll take Daniel Craig in any of his Bond films over Mission Impossible 1 any day and that's just off the top of my head. Then there are the bourne films which I'd have to put above MI1 as well. I'll give those movies you suggested a watch to see if they change my mind, but I'm skeptical to say the least.

Did you watch any of the Bond films with Daniel Craig? The below is the best parkour action that I've ever seen in a movie. Granted, it's not Craig doing the stunts, but it's still some of the best action scenes in a movie I've ever seen. Again, I'll have to watch some of the MI movies you suggested and props to Cruise for doing a lot of his own stunts, but I'm not watching to see Cruise do his own stunts, I'm watching the movie. I really couldn't care less if it's Cruise or a stunt double. Same goes for the Bourne Identity movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZxNbAwY_rk

I have seen all of the Craig Bond films and all of the Bourne movies as well.

Casino Royale is my favorite bond film and the parkour stuff is incredible, so you'll get no argument for me.  Also, the plot of Casino Royale is great.  It's truly an all-time great film, so I'm fully with you.  The later Mission Impossible films are more light-hearted action with jokes, like Marvel style.  It's not as gritty and serious and brooding like James Bond.

Aside from Casino Royale and Skyfall, I'd definitely say that the middle MI films are better than the recent Bonds.  And I'd put the MI films over all of the Bourne films, without question.  I think that the shaky cam-style of Bourne movies just isn't my cup of tea.  They hide their bad stuntwork by shaking the camera so you can't see what's happening.

It matters that it's Cruise and not a stunt double...not because of who is doing it, but because of where you can put the camera and the fact that you don't have to cut to hide that it's not the actor.  The camera can get right in on Cruise and stay there and you can see the stuntwork without hiding it.

Not that it's the end-all-be-all of importance but critics Rotten Tomato scores:
MI: Ghost Protocol - 94%
MI: Rogue Nation - 94%
MI: Fallout - 98%
MI: Dead Reckoning - 96%

These dwarf the respective Bond and Bourne entries from the same era.

I prefer Metacritic.

MI: Ghost Protocol - 73
MI: Rogue Nation - 75
MI: Fallout - 87
MI: Dead Reckoning - 81

Maybe the later ones were better because the first 2 both got a 59 and pretty much turned me off to the franchise. I think I've seen parts of Ghost Protocol, but I had given up on the MI stuff by then, I'll give it another try as I do have Paramount+ I think I can watch every MI movie. Maybe I'll skip the first 2 and go from there.

Casino Royale - 80
Skyfall - 81
Bourne Identity - 68 I'm shocked about this, this is really low in my opinion as I really enjoyed and unlike you, I loved the hand to hand combat in that movie and thought it was really watchable.
Bourne Ultimatum - 85 This was the next best Bourne movie in my opinion, so again I don't know how the first one ranked so low. (see note below)

An interesting note to me is that most movies drop over time in the rankings. Some movies that I considered great movies years ago are now ranked considerably lower than movies in the past 5 years or so. I got a feeling some of the MI movies above are gonna see their scores drop considerably in the next 10 years.

But then once you add in the other great action movies in the past twenty years, MI is just somewhere in the mix. Maybe you're more impressed with the fact that Cruise does his own stunts than I am, that really doesn't add anything to the movie for me. Again it's not really about Cruise because I really liked him in Edge of Tomorrow as well which I thought was much better than the first 2 MI movies. Maybe there's just something about MI that really doesn't resonate with me. Whatever it is, it's just never been on my must watch list.

Sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes don't really work for films that were released before those sites were prevalent.  But yeah, it's pretty much in line with what I was saying.

MI is an interesting franchise, especially at first because it greatly changed tone.  MI1 I think is a pretty good spy blockbuster but it's really old at this point.  It should be held up against Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies.

MI2 definitely did not age well.   It's Asian inspired kung-fu action and most will say that it's the worst of the bunch.

MI3 is a good film, and is JJ Abrams first go as a director.  Good movie, but still pretty standard.

MI4 is where it hits its stride.  The films become action heavy with insane stunt-work, the tone is fun and team-oriented.  Ethan Hunt is part of a group of guys, so in this way, the series is a lot less like Bond and becomes more like heist movies like Oceans 11.  MI4 is my personal favorite because it gets the cast and the tone right.  It's funny and fun and action/spy stuff.

MI5 -- also great.

MI6 -- This is many people's favorite in the series.


I'm excited for you, honestly.  If you think that these movies are anything like the first Mission Impossible from 1996, it would be like someone refusing to watch Casino Royale because they didn't like Moonraker.  If you like Bond and Bourne, the MI films from 3 on are top notch.

I have watched exactly 1 MI movie...ever.  Not entirely sure I even made it all the way through.

Not a big Tom Cruise fan in general.   :-\