‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ – Review
Hollywood megastar Tom Cruise is back as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, ready to elevate action cinema with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. For Hunt, this is a do-or-die mission, with the fate of the entire planet in his hands. The film promises a bold and intense cinematic experience that will leave you on the edge of your seat, thanks to its spectacular action and heart-pounding intensity. You’ll be holding on for dear life, and your adrenal gland will be pumping hard! And trust us, this is Cruise at full throttle.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the IMF team race against time to find the Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence that can destroy mankind.
For twenty-nine years, Hollywood A-lister Tom Cruise has been racing against the clock in do-or-die impossible missions that have thrilled audiences with their intensity, spectacle, twists, and turns. But now? It all leads to this. His greatest ever mission. A last stand against a rogue AI superbeing known only as The Entity, in a high-stakes battle with world-ending consequences.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a cinematic event nearly three decades in the making, and what a ride it is! Every choice and decision Hunt has made, every sacrifice, every run down an alley, every death-defying stunt — it all comes to a head in this spectacular swan song. And Tom Cruise? He’s gone ALL IN. Pushing his body, his will, and this franchise further than anyone thought possible. This isn’t just another action film – it’s an epic. A finale worthy of its legacy. Cruise has all his chips on the table, and this one’s playing for keeps.
Following on from the events of Dead Reckoning, Cruise and his intrepid team are racing against the clock in a Doomsday countdown that could end the world through nuclear annihilation, and this sets the stage for a nail-biting watch where every second counts. Cruise, and longtime collaborator and key creative partner, director Christopher McQuarrie, have dialled up the intensity of The Final Reckoning, which is an action cinema delivered at lightning speed. Together, they’ve created a nerve-shredding thriller that weaves dazzling set pieces into a high-stakes story that from its very first scene delivers a pace of relentless action, and you can feel the tension in your bones. This is cinematic storytelling fused with raw kinetic energy.
For both McQuarrie and Cruise, The Final Reckoning exemplifies action as a narrative tool. Viewers can expect everything from numerous montages of Cruise running to intense gun battles, along with two particularly epic stunt scenes (but more on those later). All of this contributes to the film’s sense of urgency, as we wonder if Cruise’s character, Hunt, will make it in time to save the day. Director Christopher McQuarrie is at the top of his game. His growth as a visual storyteller is evident in every frame of The Final Reckoning. He balances character, scale, and emotion with a deft hand. His action sequences are not just loud and chaotic; they’re narratively driven, pulsing with tension, and expertly choreographed.
For Cruise, The Final Reckoning represents his definitive portrayal of the character Ethan Hunt. Over time, Hunt has evolved into a defining figure of the spy genre and embodies a humanist philosophy. Unlike traditional action heroes such as James Bond, who often have a brooding demeanor, or ruthless anti-heroes like Wolverine. No. Ethan Hunt is different. A good man doing impossible things for people he’ll never meet. A hero who believes in the humanist ideal; that one person can make a difference, even in the shadows. And Cruise owns this role with the weight of the character’s full journey on his shoulders. We see it in the cracks around his eyes, in the pain of every decision, in the weariness of a man who’s sacrificed it all. Hunt isn’t just running from enemies here: he’s running toward a final reckoning with himself. And it’s profound.
As a cinema experience, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning delivers on its blockbuster canvas, with a burning sense of urgency to its pace and delivery. And it also delivers on the unexpected, and while not moving into spoiler territory, a surprise piece of casting that comes out of nowhere, but which makes complete sense to the franchise’s history, and makes for one of the coolest parts of the whole picture. This surprise plays into the twists and turns of the narrative, and throughout its three-act structure, both Cruise and McQuarrie keep audiences guessing as to where this film will take them.
In terms of sheer scope, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is unparalleled. It’s a globe-trotting, adrenaline-pumping, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride from start to finish. The narrative wisks audiences from Austria to London, the Arctic Circle to South Africa, and it’s a truly global event. This is fast-paced spy genre filmmaking at it’s BIGGEST and BOLDEST, and Cruise’s longtme support and prevalence for the U.S. Navy also has a big part to play into the film, with the crew filming on actual US Arircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, and this immense scale, when seen on a VMAX screen, will take your breath away.
While I don’t want to go too deep into plot point specifics, I will say that one of the film’s coolest sequences has to be the suspense-driven underwater dive sequence that sees Cruise’s Hunt diving deep beneath the Arctic Circle to infiltrate the Sevastopol, a next-generation Russian stealth submarine. It’s an experience of white knuckling tension as you watch Hunt into this ghost ship wreck, gothic maze of dread, as he seeks to fulfil a vital part of the mission. Within this scene, McQuarrie ramps up the pressure and strain for Hunt, and it’s a sequence that leaves the audience breathing heavily.
Time and time again, Tom Cruise has proven himself to be a maverick cowboy performer who is willing to lay it on the line for the sheer experience of the picture he’s making, and this has led him to participate in some of the world’s most death-defying stunts ever committed to celluloid history. From riding a Triumph Speed Triple through explosions in Mission: Impossible 2, the fulcrum Shanghai building jump in Mission Impossible 3, traversing the Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol, hanging on the exterior of an Airbus A400M Atlas in Rogue Nation, the epic mid-air helicopter battle and chase in Fallout, to the motorcycle cliff jump in Dead Reckoning, Cruise consistently pushes himself to the limit.
But the crown jewel – the scene that will go down in movie history – is the mid-air bi-plane battle. Yes, Cruise actually filmed a sequence fighting on the wing of a biplane, flying at 10,000 feet, no green screen, no wires. Just him, strapped in, wind in his face, fists flying. It’s insane. It’s epic. It’s pure cinema. This near-20-minute aerial battle is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, with Cruise literally hanging on the exterior wing in a barn-chasing spectacle of pure craziness. And yes, you will be holding on for dear life. Bravo Mr Cruise, Bravo.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is an utterly crazy, awe-inspiring, epic blockbuster action cinema experience that will amp up audiences and delivers on the pure spectacle of the franchise and Tom Cruise’s desire to deliver on the pageantry and entertainment that only the cinema can deliver. It’s an utter rush of an experience, and its closing scene is the definitive statement on a hero who operates in the shadows, and this picture will leave the audience spellbound! With jaw-dropping stunts, high-stakes emotion, a chilling villain, and Cruise at his absolute best, this is the must-see blockbuster of the year. It’s not just a film; it’s a celebration of what cinema can be.
Image: Paramount Pictures
