‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’ review: Tom Cruise’s latest mission is equally baffling and awesome

I lost count of the number of times someone told Tom Cruise that he was “the one” while watching Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the eighth and (probably) last entry in the nearly 30-year run of movies based on the old 1960s television series. And considering how long he’s played Ethan Hunt, and how the words “A Tom Cruise Production” light up the screen followed immediately by his name leading the cast, it’s hard not to chuckle when so many say only he is the savior, and only he can rescue humanity from the problems it has created. 

Then you remember that Cruise has been hanging from airplanes, flying his own helicopters, and soaring into the sky on motorcycles in a parade of increasingly shocking “he’s really doing that” stunts, and how the release of Top Gun: Maverick really did bring theatrical movie going back from near death after COVID. If anyone deserves stoking the coals of their ego, he might be the guy.

Which is why I sat in the IMAX theater and cheered every time the 62-year-old Cruise found a new excuse to appear in nothing but his tight navy blue boxer briefs. You work as hard as Tom does, you’ll wanna rip off that wetsuit and give us the close-up, too. 

The same rules applied to the movie’s cosmically convoluted script. The complex storyline is so inscrutable, it’s almost charming. There are episodes of the old ’80s cartoon show Voltron that make more sense, and those were poorly translated from Japanese, with scenes removed to make it acceptable for children. The early scenes are bogged down, unfortunately, by a lot of recapping chatter. Don’t worry if you get stuck in line buying Twizzlers.

And none of it matters. All you need to know is that Cruise and his crew need to overcome insurmountable odds (more than once) to grab a thing, or clip a thing, or shove a thing into another thing at exactly the right moment. It’s visual storytelling, and it’s the same song the series has been singing since 1996, when Ethan Hunt dangled over a computer console showing off his core. You don’t have to understand it to get it. 

But just for the record, the basic situation in The Final Reckoning is this: a malevolent AI program called the Entity is taking over cyberspace. And it’s not just ruining search engine responses, it’s planning to launch the world’s nuclear missiles. Don’t ask me why. If this was explained, I missed it. I was too busy laughing when the threat’s origin was described as “a primordial digital ooze.” (And its later manifestation as “The Lord of Lies.”)

Ethan, naturally, would prefer not to have the planet vaporized, but he can’t work with any government. Like Frodo bringing the One True Ring to Mount Doom, if anyone other than he were to harness the power of the Entity, the lure to do something crazy with it would be too great. The phrase “no nations” is used several times, which either means that Cruise wants to lead us all to a New World Order, or Paramount Pictures means to salute the global market for the profitability of their blockbusters. Maybe both.

To get the Entity, Hunt has to retrieve it from a sunken Russian submarine. To accomplish this, his team (Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, and Greg Tarzan Davis) needs to send out a ping from somewhere in the Arctic, then retrieve Hunt from his dive. In the meantime, Hunt must convince the U.S. Armed Forces to get him there, via aircraft carrier, which involves a great deal of shirtlessness. The big set piece sends Cruise underwater, dodging torpedoes, and holding his breath. 

I look forward to actual physicians watching this sequence and finding a way to explain how Hunt survives the problems of deep water pressurization, other than throwing their hands up and saying, “Hey, he’s Tom Cruise!”

The second big showstopper, as you may have seen in ads, involves Cruise getting thrown around like a ragdoll on a biplane. The phrase “thrill ride” gets used a lot when describing movies like this, but I will tell you that these scenes truly did make me gasp and feel a little sick to my stomach. “Nauseating!” is hardly something they put on a poster, but believe me when I say it is the best possible compliment. 

Somehow, The Final Reckoning is 170 minutes, but, like Tom Cruise running across Westminster Bridge, it zooms. Even the acres of baffling dialogue are delivered swiftly.

There are frequent cuts to Angela Bassett as the President of the United States, barking at her department heads, including Holt McCallany and Nick Offerman. These terse scenes are shot in a lot of shallow-focused close-ups with enormous computer banks (with tape reels?) whirring in the background. It almost feels like a late nod to the series’ TV origins, and a rare case of an almost abstract stylistic move in these typically modern-sleek films. 

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There’s also the return of Esai Morales as the mustache-twirling villain whose motivation is as baffling as the Entity itself. A great newcomer to the series is Tramell Tillman (Severance) as a cool guy submarine Commander. Also, look for a surprisingly charming callback to the first film in the series with the reappearance of a key character that I don’t think you’ll see coming. 

Is The Final Reckoning truly final? Who can say? Yes, Ethan Hunt saves the day (I do not think it is a spoiler to say that this summer tentpole does not end in atomic annihilation), but not even his platitudes about fate and determination can eradicate villainy. Eventually, problems will arise. The thought that Ethan Hunt won’t be there is simply impossible. Grade: B