Review: Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning

Score: 8 out of 10

Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning is the kind of big screen meal this series promises. It is large in scope, loud in all the right ways, and full of practical stunt work that makes you lean forward. Christopher McQuarrie stages the action with patience and clarity, and Tom Cruise still treats gravity like a suggestion. When the movie goes for it, you feel it.

The set pieces deliver. The showstopper is a midair biplane brawl that looks and feels impossibly real, because it is. Cruise clings to a cockpit, climbs into the slipstream, and sells the danger with every strained breath. The other crown jewel is a cold, nerve shredding submarine sequence tied to the ongoing battle with the rogue AI known as the Entity. One is sky high chaos, the other is deep water survival. Both are worth the ticket.

Scale is a feature, not a backdrop. The film hops from London to Malta to the Norwegian Arctic and down to South Africa, then onto the deck of the USS George H W Bush. You can see the planning and money on screen, but more important, you always know where you are within the geography of a chase or a fight. That sense of place keeps the action readable and exciting instead of noisy.

The story aims to close a circle. Ethan Hunt and the IMF chase the Entity while old enemies and old choices come back into play. Esai Morales remains a cool burn as Gabriel, and Hayley Atwell’s Grace takes a clear step forward from clever thief to true partner. The core team matters. Ving Rhames brings warmth and quiet weight, Simon Pegg is the steady pulse, and Henry Czerny’s Kittridge adds that familiar institutional pressure. Angela Bassett turns up and instantly raises the temperature in every scene she is in.

The first act carries a lot of setup. There is a brisk recap to get everyone on the same page after Dead Reckoning, and you feel the runtime here. Once the plot stops introducing threads and starts pulling them tight, the movie finds a cleaner rhythm. At two hours and forty nine minutes, it is long, but the last hour moves with purpose.

On the craft side, the sound mix and the score do real work. Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey weave Lalo Schifrin’s theme into muscular cues that punch during the plane and submarine runs. The cutting favors wide shots and longer takes, which lets the performers and stunt teams prove what you are seeing.

Bottom line. Final Reckoning is big event action with real sweat on it. The exposition can be heavy and the plot leans familiar, but the set pieces are exceptional and the cast sells the stakes. As a capstone for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, it feels earned. Eight out of ten.