‘Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning’: Tom Cruise Accepts the Mission to Save the World

Back in 1966, when Mission Impossible premiered as an action-thriller TV show on CBS, an entire episode had to play out in an hour. Actually, each story ran approximately 50 minutes to allow for commercials, the show’s “ignited fuse” intro, and, of course, the closing credits. As such, to set up the evening’s plot—say, taking down a third-world dictator, exposing a former Nazis and his hidden loot, or rescuing a poisoned ambassador from a foreign prison—each show had to set up the planned caper, expose which special agent was to provide what special skill, and affirm just how high the stakes were if the Mission Impossible team failed. As such, the exposition for each TV show had to be done in about five minutes (or, at least before the first commercial break.)

Now, nearly 60 years later, and after seven franchise films produced by Tom Cruise (beginning in 1996,) the new Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning allows 170 minutes to behold all of the set-up, action, twists, suspense, and victorious climax audiences have come to expect. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning does not disappoint, but with all due respect to writer and director Christopher McQuarrie, this (supposedly) final installment of IMF (Impossible Missions Force) agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team saving the world from nuclear destruction taxes the credulity—the very necessary suspension of disbelief—audiences have so generously afforded this franchise. Of course, every outing of the IMF force begged absolute faith that all would go well. But the problem here is overload; much too much has to be accomplished to meet the final reckoning. 

Sure, audiences want more, especially if threatened by the idea that they may never get to see another Mission Impossible again. But The Final Reckoning is really two capers packed into one. And, because writer McQuarrie and producer Cruise have hoped to make the “best ever” film of the lot, this supposed finale seemingly exhausts our willing appetites. Now, there is not just one McGuffin (typically, a secret code or antitoxin) to hunt down, there are three. And likewise, each must be claimed under the pressure of a ticking time bomb—so that makes three “ticking bombs” in all (and only if you don’t include the imminent catastrophe of ultimate global destruction.) Lordy, it’s a lot.  

Traditionally, the success of Mission Impossible has been based on the literary construct of a bank heist—that is, the looting of a bank that’s impossible to penetrate. It’s why the franchise from its first days on TV employed specialized explosives, incredible disguises, “advanced” technology, or death-defying drugs all to fool a dastardly criminal who must be taken down at any cost. But, if you saw 2023’s prequel, Mission Impossible; Dead Reckoning Part One, you know (and nothing is hereby spoiled to know) the dastardly criminal is AI gone evil. Like the computer in 2001, A Space Odyssey, sentient technology threatens mankind. Here, the evil mastermind is something called The Entity, a massive network of digital (or is it quantum?) intelligence that is rapidly aligning every nation’s nuclear defense into one global fuse it will ignite when complete. Yikes, how can one team of special agents ever break into that bank? 

Fortunately, or unfortunately here, they don’t need to. They just have to get the three McMuffins, more or less in some order. And, sure, that requires a lot of cinematic action—or let’s be frank, movie stunts—that happily afford Tom Cruise the limelight in so much of this film. And, indeed, he goes all out!  There’s not one, but two submarines (in arctic waters) to board, not one but two biplanes (escaping an African jungle) to fly, not one, but three high-ranking military authorities to outsmart, and…well, you get the drift.  

There’s truly nothing not to love in this final reckoning, but, boy, in sharing all that love, the film may be asking for more than it might deserve.

Yet, if Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning piles on the suspense and action, it also undercuts one of the core premises of the franchise. Used to be, the IMF team had a master strategist, a tech guru, a muscle man, a master of disguise, and a distracting beauty to beguile the criminal.  Now the team includes seven people. These are IMF agents we have come to love since Cruise got the rights to the film franchise. But what are their special skills? The fun-loving Simon Pegg, as Benji Dunn, is still a computer wiz, and Ving Rhames, as Luther Stickell, is the one-time muscle man (yet now taken to a hospital bed.) In recent films Hayley Atwell as Grace has played the beauty, but now plays Tom Cruise’s apparent love interest. Which leaves us with three more agents for whom we aren’t certain of their strategic skills. Seems the value of their roles is less important than not being shut out of a franchise they helped to build. In fact, one of the best characters of this final chapter is William Donloe, played by Rolf Saxon, who only appeared as a young tech geek in Cruise’s first Mission Impossible. Yet, some further credits are due. In a somewhat nebulous role as Gabriel, Esai Morales is a very slick and well-coiffed agent of evil. And Angela Bassett as President of the United States, well…it will surprise no one; of course she rules! 

The marketing value of ending any longstanding franchise is undeniably profitable. How many farewell tours has Elton John played? Is Cher never really going on the road again? And what of The Who, now touring North America (again) 13 years after their “final” tour?  So it would seem that Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning is the last of the franchise. But if Tom Cruise has yet another stunt to pull off—another trick up his sleeve—who would be surprised to see Mission Impossible: A New Beginning? And who wouldn’t love it?   

Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

C. Prentiss Orr is a Pittsburgh-based writer who covers film, live theater, and other topics for Entertainment Central. He is the author of the books The Surveyor and the Silversmith and Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred.

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