‘Mission Impossible – Final Reckoning’ Review: Igniting the Franchise Fuse for an Explosive Finale

After nearly 30 years of pulse-pounding stunts, elaborate spy games, and Tom Cruise pushing the limits of human endurance, Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning brings one of the greatest and longest-running action franchises in cinema history to an explosive conclusion (at least for now). While occasionally stumbling under the weight of its own mythology, this is a finale that delivers where it counts, turning up the heat once again with death-defying action.

Picking up a few months after Dead Reckoning, the eighth (and allegedly final) instalment sees Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his Impossible Mission Force (IMF) teaming up to stop an all-powerful rogue AI known as the Entity from destabilising the world’s defence and information systems. It’s a threat unlike anything they’ve faced before: a seemingly uncontainable enemy that doesn’t need rest or feel empathy. Hunt is once again tasked with saving the world and jumps full tilt into danger.

High Stakes, High-Octane

As you may have guessed from the trailer, Final Reckoning is a reminder of why we go to the movies. Mission: Impossible has remained consistently thrilling across decades, largely because of the outrageous action. A very fit Cruise, now in his 60s and somehow still pushing down the accelerator, once again commits to impossible stunts.

From flying inverted on a WWI-style biplane to sprinting through cities across the globe, there’s an electricity in every frame Cruise fills. You don’t just watch these stunts; on the big screen, you feel them. Shot with IMAX-certified digital cameras, there’s over 45 minutes of IMAX-exclusive 1.90:1 expanded aspect ratio. Watching it in that format offers a wider, more immersive viewing experience.

Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie knows exactly how to stage a spectacle. Each set piece—by land, air, and sea—feels tactile, dangerous, and refreshingly real in an era dominated by green screen and CGI. It’s blockbuster filmmaking at its most practical and definitely its most ambitious.

Cruise is wing-walking at 8,000 feet in 140 mph winds and hurtling toward the earth in a freefall spin with a Snorricam rig pointed at his face. The man is not just acting. He’s surviving. Through it all, Cruise still manages to hit his mark and orchestrate his own lighting cues. It’s an authenticity that bleeds into the film, giving it a jolt of reality that CGI-heavy action just can’t match.

This Movie Will Self-Destruct

Beyond the action, Final Reckoning works hard (maybe too hard) to give Ethan’s overall journey a sense of purpose and closure. Dead Reckoning built a momentum that Final Reckoning doesn’t take advantage of. The first third of the film focuses on reminding audiences what happened, bringing things back down to a steady jog at a moment where the filmmakers had earned the goodwill to hit the ground running.

Steeped in franchise history, the story circles back to plot points, themes, and characters first introduced in the 1996 original and entries like J.J. Abrams’ 2006 M:I-3. The callbacks land more often than not, lending weight to the finale and reminding us just how long we’ve been on this ride. There’s no denying the plot occasionally gets tangled in its own web of superfluous exposition at the cost of story and further character development.

Despite some out-of-left-field lines, Hayley Atwell’s Grace is still a standout, bringing wit and emotional depth to a team grounded by the humour and warmth of franchise stalwarts Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames. Pom Klementieff brought a surge of energy to Dead Reckoning that pays off here as her character, Paris, makes good.

The chemistry clicks, regardless of the ever-changing roster of the IMF team. There are glimpses of emotional depth as Ethan grapples with the ghosts of missions past and the collateral damage of his choices. While Final Reckoning doesn’t quite hit the emotional highs of Fallout, it swings big and lands most of its punches.

Mission: Accomplished

Is Final Reckoning the best Mission: Impossible film? Maybe not. But it’s a damn good one—and as a send-off, it’s rousing, reverent, and thoroughly entertaining. Even when the story gets tangled, Cruise never loses his grip. He and McQuarrie certainly give audiences their money’s worth, delivering a love letter to the franchise and packing it with blistering action and just enough soul-searching to make it all matter. If this really is Ethan Hunt’s final mission, it’s one worth experiencing on the biggest screen you can find.

★★★★☆

---

Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning is the eighth film in the long-running action franchise. Originally titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, the film serves as the direct sequel to the 2023 instalment. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen, Final Reckoning stars Tom Cruise as IMF agent Ethan Chase, alongside Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Czerny, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff and Angela Bassett. Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning releases in Australian cinemas on 17 May 2025.