[FILM REVIEW] MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING Review (2025)
Summary: Our lives are the sum of our choices. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
Year: 2025
Cinema Release Dates: 17th May 2025 (Australia), 17th May 2025 (Thailand), 21st May 2025 (UK), 23rd May 2025 (USA)
VOD Release Dates: TBA
Country: USA, UK
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Screenwriter: Erik Jendresen, Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Sydney Cole Alexander (USS George H.W. Bush – Lt. Cmdr. Bennet), Hayley Atwell (Grace), Angela Bassett (Erika Sloane), Erin Battle (Sergeant Armstrong), Paul Bullion (Shirley), Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Henry Czerny (Kittridge), Greg Tarzan Davis (Degas), Cary Elwes (Denlinger), Mark Gatiss (Angstrom), Elliot Janks (USS George H.W. Bush – Chief Collins), Tommy Earl Jenkins (Mount Weather – Colonel Burdick), Pom Klementieff (Paris), Pasha D. Lychnikoff (Captain Koltsov), Ross McCall (Agent Boulding), Holt McCallany (Serling), Janet McTeer (Walters), Esai Morales (Gabriel), Katy O’Brian (Kodiak), Nick Offerman (General Sidney), Stephen Oyoung (Pills), Tomas Paredes (Hagar), Charles Parnell (Richards), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Gabriella Piazza (USS George H.W. Bush – Lt. Acosta), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Hugo Salter (Agent Brock), Rolf Saxon (William Donloe), Tramell Tillman (Captain Bledsoe), Lucy Tulugarjuk (Tapeesa), Hannah Waddingham (Admiral Neely), Shea Whigham (Briggs)
Running Time: 169 minutes
Classification: M (Australia), 13 (Thailand), 12A (UK), PG-13 (USA)
OUR MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING REVIEWS
David Griffiths and Kyle McGrath’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Review
When you think of the Mission: Impossible franchise you think of Tom Cruise and epic stunts. So when you hear that Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is perhaps the last film of the series you would except that the cast and crew would amp up the adrenaline to a eleven and go out with a big bang. Right?
Well perhaps that answer to that question should have been wrong, because while I was hoping that this final instalment wouldblow my socks off I am sad to report that while it is okay watch it doesn’t do anything that we haven’t seen previously.
Set only a month after Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 the plot here finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise – Top Gun) still on the run much to the dismay of US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett – Black Panther) who watches as the world turns on itself as the mysterious Entity creeps through cyber-space taking control of each country’s nuclear arms one by one.
Her plea to Ethan doesn’t fall on deaf ears and together he, Benji (Simon Pegg – Shaun Of The Dead), Luther (Ving Rhames – Pulp Fiction) and Grace (Hayley Atwell – Captain America: The First Avenger) decide to have one last attempt at capturing the elusive Gabriel (Esai Morales – La Bamba) and using him to ascertain how to stop the Entity.
Ethan soon realises that the best way to capture Gabriel is to have the criminally minded Paris (Pom Klementieff – Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2) on his team and while rescuing her they end up recruiting a young CIA Agent named Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis – Top Gun: Maverick) to help with the mission.
The first unusual part of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is that during the first hour of the film every scene seems to contain the same thing – Ethan meets somebody new, has to convince them that they can trust him and then they take his side. It feels like the screenwriters are just repeating themselves as the film feels like the film is one large video game where they must conquer one level in a bid to go on.
After that the film does feel like it raises its suspense levels yet at the same time is held back by an influx of unnecessary characters. A great example being Ethan’s arrival on the submarine – the audience probably really only needs to know Captain Bledsoe (Tramell Tillman – Baron’s Cove) and Kodiak (Katy O’Brian – Love Lies Bleeding) for the plot to work but they suddenly have a heap of other characters introduced at the same time.
To their credit director/screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) and his co-writer Erik Jendresen (Ithaca) do let the suspense reign supreme for the second half of the film – but the problem here is that the sequences in the submarine and the bi-plane chase have all been done in a number of other films over the years. Still it is pretty exciting to see Tom Cruise hanging off a plane like that.
To be honest it is Tom Cruise’s presence in this film that saves it. If this plot didn’t have the star power and charisma of Cruise to save it then it would have made this film a B-Grade action flick that would have been hidden away on a streaming platform.
The screenwriters also give Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Angela Bassett some decent moments but the rest of the cast seem wasted. Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff aren’t really used nearly enough which is a shame considering the skills of the characters set up in the previous films. You would think that Paris’s killer instincts would have been used more this time around.
There is no doubt that Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is an okay film to watch but it certainly doesn’t reach the dizzying heights of the past films in the franchise. While it may entertain you for awhile it certainly isn’t a fitting finale to this series.
Dave’s rating Out Of 5
Kyle’s rating Out Of 5
Average Subculture rating Out Of 5
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