Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning: A Thrilling but Flawed Conclusion to the Franchise

The new Mission: Impossible is a comedy wearing a convincing disguise

Charles Pulliam-Moore is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. What Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One lacked in narrative cohesion, it made up for by leaning into the reality that larger-than-life spectacle and Tom Cruise's enthusiasm for doing his own stunt work have always been the franchise's main draw. Even though the film's artificial intelligence-focused plot felt a little shaky, its action was thrilling, and it was obvious that Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie were trying to guide IMF agent Ethan Hunt's overarching story toward a conclusion that would satisfy longtime fans. It was also very clear that Dead Reckoning was just the first half of something bigger and even more ambitious. And while Paramount's original plan to release a sequel shortly after Dead Reckoning's debut ended up being waylaid by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, there is something kind of poetic about Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning arriving at a time when the push to incorporate AI into almost every aspect of our lives has become far more intense. The Final Reckoning is a shaggier and sillier film than its predecessor -- one that feels like it has given up any pretense of being about intriguing spycraft in favor of big set pieces designed to make you appreciate Cruise's willingness to risk his life for his art. A (literal) couple of those sequences are actually very solid and do an excellent job of reminding you what's made the Mission: Impossible series enjoyable over the course of its almost 30-year run. But there's a self-aware playfulness throughout the film that often makes it feel like a comedy encouraging you to chuckle at its absurdity. You can tell that the movie's moments of near cartoonishness are meant to help offset the tension that builds as Ethan Hunt embarks on what seems (for now at least) very much like his last adventure. But rather than sending its central star off in an appropriately explosive blaze of glory, the movie as a whole is an overlong exercise in reminiscing about the Mission: Impossible franchise's past. With the Entity, a malevolent AI fixated on destroying humanity, out in the wild and inserting itself into almost every facet of the world's digital infrastructure, things have become much more dangerous for Ethan (Cruise) since his last big-screen outing. It's not just that the Entity remembers how Ethan managed to get ahold of the physical keys necessary to destroy the program. The digital sentience knows that Ethan's one of the few people alive who can truly appreciate its ability to manipulate reality by warping people's understandings of what is true and what isn't. This is also abundantly apparent to former CIA director-turned-US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett, reprising her role from Mission: Impossible - Fallout) and her squad of advisors working feverishly to develop a plan to keep the Entity from taking control of multiple countries' stores of nuclear weapons. But as Sloane and her team struggle to decide how best to fight the digital threat, it quickly becomes clear that they have no choice but to call Ethan up with an offer to carry out a seemingly impossible mission, should he choose to accept it. Though you might expect Dead Reckoning to be required (re)watching ahead of seeing The Final Reckoning, the latest Mission: Impossible spends a surprising amount of time rehashing the previous movie's details in one of its many flashback montages. All of them (and there are quite a few) feel like McQuarrie and co-writer Erik Jendresen's way of simultaneously getting audiences caught up to speed and inviting them to take trips down memory lane. At first, the montages read as nostalgia plays that also work to create new connective tissue throughout the entire franchise. But it isn't long before the reused footage starts to feel like it's pulling focus from the story at hand. This wouldn't be a proper Mission: Impossible without Ethan's IMF crew -- tech savant Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell), and French assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff) -- using their skills to help him get the job done. And with the Entity's human ex-assistant Gabriel (Esai Morales) on the loose seeking to harness the program for his own nefarious ends, Ethan needs all of the help he can get. We're repeatedly told that the Entity is the most formidable enemy Ethan has ever faced. But the movie's fictional stakes seldom feel all that high for its heroes as they race around the globe to track down another MacGuffin with the help of even more returning characters from the franchise's distant past and newcomers like submarine captain Bledsoe (Tramell Tillman). Shots of the Entity taking over nuclear stockpiles one by one are buttressed with scenes of the team joking around and ripping off their latex masks with melodramatic flourishes that play like moments from a comedy. And that comedic energy bleeds into some of the film's action sequences, which catapult Ethan high up into the sky and plunge him deep beneath the ocean. While The Final Reckoning's fictional peril tends to feel a bit hollow, the movie does a tremendous job of emphasizing how much practical peril Cruise was willing to put himself in to bring the movie to life. That's exactly the energy you might expect from a feature that's also a love letter to its central star. But as Mission: Impossible stories go, the franchise has seen better days. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning also stars Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Mark Gatiss, and Katy O'Brian. The film is in theaters now.

Overblown and inanely plotted, Mission: Impossible's 'Final Reckoning' still thrills

Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning. ‎/Paramount Pictures and Skydance hide caption Pop culture has long had a tendency toward bloat. The catchy two-minute singles of the 1950s gave way to the laborious concept albums of the '60s. The slim, mind-blowing novels of Philip K. Dick and J.G. Ballard led to the doorstops of Stephen King and Neal Stephenson. And then there's Mission Impossible, which began in 1966 as a tautly unpretentious hour-long TV series with a fantastic theme by Lalo Schifrin. In 1996, it became a 110-minute movie with a megastar actor, Tom Cruise, and an auteur director, Brian De Palma who larded its silly story with big, gaudy action scenes. Now, seven sequels and three decades later we have Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning, the two hour and 49 minute conclusion to the nearly as long Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One, pictures so grandiose they require a colon and an em-dash just to write their titles. Predictably, this new movie is overblown, inanely plotted, clotted with expository dialogue and boundlessly self-congratulatory. But, you know, it's also fun to watch. Flaunting its big budget -- we zoot from tourist London to Norwegian snowscapes to sun-blasted South Africa -- this souped-up thriller offers the irresponsible escape that most of us want from Hollywood blockbusters. As the action begins, the world is being threatened by The Entity, a nasty piece of AI that's going to annihilate humanity in four days' time. Naturally, our hero Ethan Hunt (played by Cruise) wants to stop both The Entity and the velvety villain Gabriel (Esai Morales), who seeks to control it. Ethan enlists his Impossible Mission team. There's tech whiz Luther (Ving Rhames); Simon Pegg's jokey field agent Benji, and the recent addition Grace, a one-time thief played by Hayley Atwell who joins the stream of talented B-list actresses that Cruise seems comfortable with. The story is mainly racing around -- toward a gizmo hidden in a submarine, away from the CIA, which foolishly wants to stop Ethan. Because this is purportedly the last installment -- unless it makes a fortune, of course -- The Final Reckoning works hard to make the whole series cohere and give it emotional heft. We see flashbacks to stunts from earlier movies -- Cruise looks so young! -- and call-backs to the deaths of characters who've been lost along the way. Yet because Mission: Impossible storylines have always been unabashedly hairbrained, such stabs at depth ring hollow. This isn't like the second season of Andor, in which we feel the weight of characters dying because they're sacrificing themselves for a cause. Nor does the Mission: Impossible series possess any perceptible cultural resonance. James Bond was an icon of both the British Empire and a certain dated brand of masculinity. He helped shape our culture. Not so Ethan. Although Bond had no real inner life (sorry Daniel Craig), compared to Ethan, he's positively Dostoevskyan. We at least knew 007's snobberies, cruelties and pleasures: gambling in Monaco, drinking martinis shaken not stirred, sleeping with women then killing them. What Cruise -- and therefore Ethan -- lives for is eye-popping stunts. And it's been so since the first Mission: Impossible had him clinging to the outside of a high-speed train roaring through the Chunnel from England to France. The Final Reckoning boasts two gigantic action sequences -- an underwater bit that could've been spectacular were Christopher McQuarrie a better director, and a genuinely bravura climax that finds Cruise holding on to the wing of a biplane as it buzzes through and above the Blyde River Canyon in South Africa. It's this scene that everyone will remember. And of course, they'll talk about Cruise doing this stunt himself. Cruise has been on top for over 40 years, as long as John Wayne, longer than Cary Grant. He's not a great actor, but he is a terrific movie star. Though starting to look his age at 62, he still possesses the boyish energy and commitment of his younger self. Whether sprinting past Big Ben, diving into icy waters without a wetsuit, or simply letting the movie idolize him, Cruise is playing hero ball, and you know what? He's really good at it.

Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning review: A mind-boggling, soul-stirring finale

Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning review: A mind-boggling, soul-stirring finale Score Details "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is a spectacular and emotional wrap-up to a franchise that still raises some questions." Pros A heart-pounding final story Moving performances Compelling characters Jaw-dropping action Cons A few underdeveloped characters Some glaring plot holes "Why you can trust Digital Trends - We have a 20-year history of testing, reviewing, and rating products, services and apps to help you make a sound buying decision. Find out more about how we test and score products." Actor Tom Cruise embarks on his spectacular last mission as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning. Wrapping up the story kicked off in Dead Reckoning, The Final Reckoning shows Ethan and his friends on the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) racing against the clock to gain control of the rogue AI known as "the Entity" before it destroys the world. Recommended Videos As the creative force behind the Mission: Impossible films since Rogue Nation, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie clearly understood the mission when making The Final Reckoning. This action-packed blockbuster delivers plenty of incredible stunts, suspenseful action, poignant moments, and electric performances. A powerful plot with some holes As the second half of the IMF's war with the Entity, The Final Reckoning amps up the stakes as the evil AI goes full Skynet by altering the truth, turning people against each other, starting a doomsday cult, and taking control of nukes to push the world a second away from Armageddon. All this makes The Final Reckoning an especially haunting reflection of the modern age of AI, cyberterrorism, and misinformation. At the same time, The Final Reckoning tells a compelling story about how a person's actions have consequences, making for a particularly intense and personal mission for Ethan. Though Ethan's refusal to play by the rules has allowed him to save the world many times in the past, using some clever callbacks to previous films, The Final Reckoning hammers home how his impulsive decisions can have unintended and even disastrous effects on the rest of the world. In a shocking twist, the film reveals that the mysterious "Rabbit's Foot" that Ethan stole to rescue his ex-wife Julia in Mission: Impossible III was the primordial code that culminated in the Entity's creation, making the latter more than just another AI villain. The Final Reckoning even brings back Donloe (Rolf Saxon) from the first Mission: Impossible movie, revealing that Ethan's iconic vault heist got the analyst in trouble with the CIA. With all the secret connections unveiled in The Final Reckoning, the film shows how Ethan's choices have come back around in ways good and bad, making this feel like the true culmination of the entire franchise. But with this story moving faster than Tom Cruise can run, the film trips over a few plot holes that are hard to ignore, especially in the third act. Most glaringly, the film doesn't reveal anything new about Marie (Mariela Garriga), the woman murdered by Gabriel, who then framed Ethan for the crime. Characters old and new shine Having spent decades working together in the Mission: Impossible films, Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg deliver such raw, emotional performances as their characters embark on their last adventure together. Like in Dead Reckoning, Hayley Atwell's performance as Grace and the chemistry she shares with Cruise are highlights of the franchise's latest film. Other supporting players like Angela Bassett, Tramell Tillman (Severance), Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), and Nick Offerman (The Last of Us) also deliver some magnetic performances with such little screen time. It even gives Donloe the chance to be the hero as he and his wife, Tapeesa (Lucy Tulugarjuk), help the IMF save the world. After debuting as antagonists in Dead Reckoning, actors Pom Klementieff and Greg Tarzan Davis fit well in the IMF team's dynamic as Paris and Degas, respectively. However, their individual characters still seem underdeveloped and fade into the background at times. Even Gabriel, one of the film's core villains, had some untapped potential. Though he is a huge part of Ethan's origin as an IMF agent, the film skims over Ethan and Marie's relationship and fails to explain why Gabriel murdered the latter. As a result, Gabriel isn't as compelling or as challenging an adversary for Ethan as he could've been, especially when compared to villains like Owen Davian, August Walker, or Solomon Lane. Stunts that achieve the impossible Since this may be Ethan Hunt's last adventure on the big screen, the filmmakers went all out to make The Final Reckoning as practical and thrilling as possible. Once again, Tom Cruise performs many jaw-dropping, death-defying stunts, elevated by the franchise's trademark brand of nail-biting tension. The most notable example features Ethan hanging from flying biplanes for his final showdown with Gabriel, combining the former's opening stunt from Rogue Nation and Fallout's helicopter battle for a whole new level of airborne action. Also, Ethan's deep dive into the Arctic Ocean and through the sunken Sevastopol is a sight to behold. As Ethan explores an old submarine housing dead bodies and filling with water as it rolls on the bottom of the ocean, the film effectively mixes sci-fi, action, horror, and suspense to create one of the franchise's most captivating sequences yet. Should you choose to accept a ticket to The Final Reckoning? Despite its flaws, The Final Reckoning is a blockbuster epic that should be experienced in theaters. Filled with action, emotion, incredible acting, and clever writing, this film wraps up the Mission: Impossible film franchise on a spectacular high while leaving the door open for more adventures. It's hard to see how this iconic action franchise could top itself after this movie, but surely, it's not impossible. Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning is now playing in theaters.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning: Tom Cruise pulls off his most deranged stunt yet

Say what you will about the Impossible Mission Force, but the opportunities for internal career development are pretty good. Back in 1996, Ethan Hunt was a junior agent who was packed off to Prague to retrieve a floppy disc: 29 years later, he's personally tasked by the US President with taking down an AI-generated supreme being while all of humanity's future hangs in the balance. Even by the series' own now well-established standards, this widely presumed last entry in Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise is an awe-inspiringly bananas piece of work. Over the course of its near-three-hour run time, Hunt essentially becomes Secret Agent Jesus: there is a descent into the underworld, a death and resurrection, even a battle of wills in the desert with Satan himself. Or at least his fiendish digital equivalent - a malign artificial intelligence construct called The Entity, whom Hunt refers to as "the Lord of Lies" with a preacherly glint. A pressing question presents itself: what in the bing-bang fiddly-foo is this film? The tone couldn't be more different to 2023's flamboyantly cartoonish Dead Reckoning, with its Herbie-like car chase through Rome, sublime Buster Keaton train-crash homage, and plummeting grand piano straight out of a Looney Tunes short.

Film of the Week: 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning'

Has the Mission: Impossible series finally run out of steam? It would appear so. Over the course of three decades, the Mission: Impossible franchise has given us some of the most consistently enjoyable cinematic thrills out there. Thanks in large part to Tom Cruise's devotion to sprinting and pushing the envelope when it comes to making impossible stunts possible, the series has managed to become a blockbuster singularity which has bucked the inevitable downslope trajectory most franchises succumb to. But it seems that even an anomaly as impressive as Mission: Impossible must face its reckoning. If 2023's Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One felt like the M:I franchise finally hitting its diminishing return phase, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is proof that the series has truly jumped the shark. We pick up where we left off in 2023. The parasitic AI known as The Entity is still at large and has infected global cyberspace. As we're repeatedly told: "Whoever controls The Entity controls the truth." Having failed to stop the gaping digital sphincter in Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team have 72 hours before it gains full control of the world's nuclear arsenal and wipes out humanity. Thankfully, Hunt has always been "the best of men in the worst of times." He is "the chosen one" who can "deceive the Lord of Lies." Yes, these are direct quotes from this ludicrous new adventure, one whose scale and tone have more in common with the worst chapters of The Terminator and The Matrix films than it does with the franchise's espionage roots. Considering this supposed last instalment wraps up the storyline left hanging in the previous adventure, it's hardly surprising that the eighth M:I film shares its predecessor's bum notes - notably a jumbled script, laughably portentous dialogue, and one of the most forgettable villains (Esai Morales returning as Gabriel) in the franchise's run. Not content to simply ride out this already anticlimactic wave, The Final Reckoning adds a crushing sense of dourness hitherto absent from the series, as well as hefty exposition dumps that make the first hour of this 2h50 runtime an absolute slog to get through. And then there's the copious Ethan Hunt mythologising. Our hero is more end-of-times messiah than secret agent here, a grating development galvanized by endless po-faced talk of destiny. It's a shame that it should end this way, as the inherently promising AI antagonist had so much going for it. It taps into modern fears regarding the alarming proliferation of artificial intelligence and the correlation with the rise in disinformation. The execution may have been dumb in Dead Reckoning, but there was hope for some redemption - especially when Entity "fanatics" are mentioned at the start of The Final Reckoning. The IMF team vs a cult devoted to a digital overlord? Sign us up. Sadly, The Final Reckoning doubles down and makes The Entity a doomsday soothsayer and a manipulator of stakes straight out of a Michael Bay movie. It's genuinely baffling how producer / star Tom Cruise and director / co-writer Christopher McQuarrie thought this would be a fitting swansong to the Hunt era. They proved beyond a doubt with Rogue Nation and series high note Fallout that they had finessed the winning formula; here, everything they built is thrown out the window in favour of a lunatic devotion to callbacks and self-congratulatory flashbacks. By harking back so frequently to past M:I instalments and cackhandedly retconing certain plot points (not quite to the same extent as 007's Spectre, but close enough), they create a clumsy Greatest Hits compilation that falls into the Marvel-shaped trap of attempting interconnectedness at any cost. Which begs the question: When will directors and studios realise that not everything has to be uselessly intertwined? Most of all, if you're going to rely on the relentlessly frustrating storytelling device of using clip montages, the current film better be as deliriously entertaining as the past adventures you're visually referring to. Otherwise, you're just reminding audiences of films they'd rather be watching instead. By the time this instalment's two major set-pieces arrive - a terrifically shot submarine sequence and our indefatigable superspy hanging off a biplane with the fate of the planet still in the balance - the sluggish pace has taken hold and no impressive showdown can make up for it. Worse, the finale lacks the courage to commit to a send-off befitting the film's title. Unlike The Final Reckoning, the James Bond franchise had the cojones to cap off the Daniel Craig tenure with a surprising twist. Love it or hate it, killing off 007 in No Time To Die was bold move. No such luck here, despite ample opportunity to end with an emotional splat / bang. It's with a heavy heart, especially considering the impressive run of tightly wound and thrilling adventures the M:I franchise has delivered, that this legacy-obsessed victory-lap feels like this series' Die Another Day. If the long-running franchise isn't dead yet, what's needed is a Casino Royale-shaped, ground-level spycraft reboot. For now though, Ethan Hunt is done running, punching, swimming, flying and cheating death at every turn. Should his retirement be permanent, it's a shame that the fuse fizzled out with The Final Reckoning, which ranks at the bottom of the eight-film run. Because for all the early-00's nonsense that characterised M:I-2, there was never a dull moment in John Woo's silly ballet of slo-mo doves soundtracked to Limp Bizkit. Tom Cruise deserved a stronger swansong. Instead, audiences get the first mission they should choose not to accept.

The Most Delightful Surprise in the New Mission: Impossible Is a Twist 29 Years in the Making

In Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise hangs from a flaming biplane and dodges missiles at the bottom of the ocean. But the movie's most inspired stunt has nothing to do with death-defying acrobatics. It's the return of CIA analyst William Donloe (Rolf Saxon). Neither the character's name nor the actor's is likely to ring much of a bell. But you know him the moment you see him: the hapless, sweaty guy in an off-the-rack suit who keeps running to the toilet while Cruise's Ethan Hunt descends from a ceiling vent to steal classified information from a seemingly impenetrable vault at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Nearly 30 years after the first Mission: Impossible movie, it remains one of the series' most breathtaking action sequences, as fiendishly simple, and as pin-drop quiet, as the more recent movies' set pieces are spectacular and loud. But despite Brian De Palma's masterful staging, Ethan's triumph has always had a slightly sour aftertaste. We don't mind that Ethan has stolen a list of names that could jeopardize the lives of every covert operative in the world if it fell into the wrong hands, because we know that he'd never let that happen. But William Donloe, whose job it was to keep that list secure? He's left holding the bag. Even worse than the gastrointestinal issues (Ethan's team has dosed his coffee) is the wrath he faces from his boss: IMF Director Eugene Kittridge is apoplectic when he discovers the theft, telling an underling he wants Donloe "manning a radar station in Alaska by the end of the day." In The Final Reckoning, we find out that this was no idle threat. In search of a downed Russian submarine that contains the only means of stopping a rogue artificial intelligence that plans to destroy the world, Ethan's new team -- now with no other members overlapping from the first movie's -- makes its way to a remote island in the Bering Sea, where whom should it find but William Donloe himself. I confess that, blearily making my way into a Cannes press screening at 8:30 in the morning, I had completely forgotten that Saxon's casting had been announced two years earlier. But even if I'd remembered, that knowledge might have been drowned in the flood of callbacks that takes up much of The Final Reckoning's first hour. Christopher McQuarrie, who after writing and directing the past four Mission: Impossible movies has become almost as synonymous with the series as Cruise himself, is intent on styling Final Reckoning as a capstone to the series -- not just one last hurrah but a climactic summation that weaves all eight films into one majestic closing argument. As screenwriting challenges go, finding a common thread between movies that have always put thrills before narrative cohesion is the equivalent of scaling the Burj Khalifa without a safety line. Not even Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning writer of Chinatown, could make sense of John Woo's directive for the second Mission: Impossible movie, which essentially involved taking a handful of preconceived action sequences and inventing a story that would make them make sense. Pausing production to rework the script on the fly is a regular part of McQuarrie's filmmaking process, which is fine when you're making movies one at a time, but much trickier when you have to make the entire series seem as if it were all part of some great master plan. Final Reckoning barely manages to work as a coherent sequel to 2023's Dead Reckoning, even though the films were originally intended as two halves of a single unified story. That idea, along with the plan to label them Part One and Part Two, was apparently scrapped when the first part underperformed at the box office. The battle against the A.I. known as the Entity continues, but if you're waiting for the past history between Ethan and the mysterious human villain known as Gabriel (Esai Morales) to finally come to light, you, unlike Tom Cruise, should not hold your breath. Cruise has announced and then backtracked on whether The Final Reckoning truly marks an end for the franchise, but McQuarrie certainly tries to instill the movie with a sense of, well, finality. Like a night manager straightening up before he finishes his shift, McQuarrie ties up dangling plot threads from movies no one but the most die-hard of M: I fans has thought about in years. Remember the mysterious Rabbit's Foot from M:i:III? Well, here's a momentum-stalling montage and accompanying speech to jog your memory, for the sole purpose of claiming that despite having all the signs of being a toxic bioweapon, it was actually the Entity all along. Cool story, bro. William Donloe, though -- that's a different story. Action-movie objects are interchangeable, so much so that Alfred Hitchcock called them all by the same generic term: MacGuffins. But people aren't, especially when the actors do their jobs as well as Rolf Saxon did his. Donloe is on-screen for no more than a few minutes, but his flustered bumbling is integral to making the Langley sequence work, which makes it extra unjust that the movie condemns him to such an ignominious fate. (The worst thing he does is look a little rattled around Emmanuelle Béart, which you can hardly blame him for.) So bringing him back for what may be the series' last hurrah doesn't just come off as an Easter egg. It's more like repaying a long-overdue debt. The Final Reckoning pays William Donloe back, and it does it with interest. He doesn't only turn up -- he stays. Donloe has, indeed, spent the past 30 years tending a radar station in Alaska. (Technically, it's some sort of subsonic monitoring, but let's not split hairs.) But he's made a life of it. He married an Inuit woman (Lucy Tulugarjuk), assembled his own team (of sled dogs), and by his own account is happier than he ever was at CIA HQ. And Rolf Saxon, who had to pad his part in 1996 by devising improvised bits between takes, gets to be a full-on hero this time, willing to sacrifice his own life to save the world. Given that Ethan has evolved into the kind of hero who would solve the trolley problem with a helicopter, Donloe's noble gesture ends up being less fatal than he expects. But Mission: Impossible has already wrecked his life once. No need to do it twice. Saxon has never been one to get stopped on the street, and while Cruise and co. were posing on Cannes' red carpet, he was somewhere else. But he's been a working actor for 30 years -- he was, among other things, the narrator for the American version of Teletubbies -- and William Donloe's reappearance has given him a long-deserved moment in the spotlight. There's a weariness to the way Saxon plays the older Donloe, but a deep contentment too, the fruit of a life lived on its own modest terms. For him, at least, there was life after Mission: Impossible. Tom Cruise might want to ask for some tips.

'Mission: Impossible' spoilers! 'Final Reckoning' director on 'gnarly' Tom Cruise stunt

Simon Pegg reveals what it's like doing stunts with Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible - The Last Reckoning" Spoiler alert! We're discussing important plot points and the ending of "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" (in theaters now), so beware if you haven't seen it yet. Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" superspy Ethan Hunt finally gets the happyish ending he's long deserved, though he loses a friend and almost dies himself multiple times before it comes to fruition. In the eighth (and potentially last) franchise installment "The Final Reckoning," it's up to Ethan and his team to stop a rogue AI known as The Entity from causing a global nuclear apocalypse. Our hero also discovers that he's indirectly responsible, learning that the mysterious Rabbit's Foot he obtained for the government in "Mission: Impossible III" turned out to be the source code that evolved into The Entity. Ethan's mission this round: Head to the arctic and get The Entity's source code from a sunken Russian submarine. Of course, that's just one part of the complicated derring-do that he and his team have to pull off to save the world. Let's dig into the most important spoilers, from the death-defying finale to the Cruise stunt that worried director Christopher McQuarrie sick. What happens in the ending of 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning'? Ethan's pal and computer specialist Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) creates a "poison pill" malware to use against The Entity, but the AI's human helper Gabriel (Esai Morales) steals it and locks Luther in the tunnels of London with a nuclear bomb. (Luther is able to stop the bomb from annihilating the city but unable to keep it from partially exploding, killing him in the process.) To beat The Entity, Ethan and his peeps end up in South Africa, where Ethan (who earlier obtained the AI's source code from the Russian sub) has a final showdown with Gabriel in biplanes. Ultimately, he has to put the poison pill in the source code at the exact same time that in a doomsday vault, Grace (Hayley Atwell) traps The Entity in a data drive. And in the movie's final scene, the good guys silently meet at night in Trafalgar Square where Grace gives Ethan the drive and he walks off into the crowd, perhaps toward his next mission or maybe a needed vacation. "What I love about the way it ends is the way it ends," says McQuarrie, who's talked about doing that sort of satisfying finale all the way back to 2015's "Rogue Nation." "We've always wanted to end a 'Mission' that way, but you can't make these movies do things they don't want to do. 'Mission' has a mind of its own." What's the craziest stunt Tom Cruise does in the new 'Mission: Impossible' movie? If you thought that motorbike jump Cruise did in 2023's "Dead Reckoning" was nuts, well, Tom says, "Hold my popcorn" with this one. After Gabriel meets a gory fate at the business end of a biplane rudder, Ethan does his poison pill move and jumps but free-falls and flails frightfully for quite a bit of time before an emergency parachute saves him. Cruise had a camera mounted to him for that stunt, and he did it 19 times in total, scaring McQuarrie so much he wanted to throw up. "That was gnarly. I would say without question, that was the most nervous I ever was," McQuarrie admits. "Every other stunt you're seeing Tom do in this movie, I'm either in front of him or I'm behind him with the camera. With that particular stunt, I'm stuck on the ground. Just watching things unfold, there's no way to intervene and you're just watching it happen and you're a little bit helpless in that regard. "You're essentially just waiting for it to be over and for the footage to arrive. You can't even watch it while it's happening." Does this 'Mission: Impossible' have a post-credits scene? Nope, but it almost did! McQuarrie reveals that he originally planned for a "coda" on the movie. They were preparing to film it but nixed the sequence midway through production after the director showed Cruise what ended up being the last 10 minutes of "Final Reckoning." "I came to Tom and I said, Look, normally I would want you to see the whole movie before I showed this to you, but we're about to shoot this coda in a couple of days and just look at this bit,' " McQuarrie says. "He said, 'You know what, you can cancel Saturday's work because this is the end of the movie. This is it.' " So what would have happened in that coda? McQuarrie's not telling. "I'm not going to say because it could end up in another movie," he says with smile.

Every Mission: Impossible movie ranked ahead of the release of The Final Reckoning | Stuff

Before you watch The Final Reckoning, catch up on all the other movies. This list won't self-destruct in 5 seconds... Tom Cruise may have a phonebook of different roles in his illustrious movie career, but his most recognised is arguably IMF Agent Ethan Hunt of the Mission: Impossible franchise (now available to stream on Paramount+). With this movie series spanning nearly 30 years, Hunt has performed enough stunts to leave a Cirque du Soleil artist in cold sweats. He's gone free solo climbing, hung on to an airplane mid-takeoff, completed a HALO parachute jump and ran down the tallest building in the world. However, there's still room for a few more death-defying feats as the franchise wraps up with the release of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning. With this in mind, our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to rank all the Mission: Impossible movies and discover which of these thrilling spy action flicks takes the top spot. MI's trademark scintillating stunts and John Woo seemed like a perfect match, so why is the first sequel widely regarded as the worst of the franchise? Well, beyond those franchise-defining action setpieces involving a breathtaking free solo opener and the bullet-ridden motorcycle chase finale, the main story ends up feeling fairly dull and uninvolving. And even if the premise revolves around a deadly bioengineered virus, there's a love triangle between our leads that falls flat due to a severe lack of chemistry. Still, between a languid stopover in Seville, a half-hearted heist at the horse races and a cliffside careening courtship scene, you'll be egging for the action to kick in again. Fortunately, these rousing OTT sequences are enough to kick you out of drowsiness, for those who stick with it are treated to Woo's trademark slo-mo balletic gunplay and doves. It's a John Woo film, you can't not have doves. Ethan Hunt's fifth mission introduces shadowy organisation The Syndicate, a cabal of disavowed operatives turned rogue. If those individuals weren't enough, the IMF also faces blowback from the CIA, which brands the agency as uncontrolled and unchecked due to previous events in the series. With Hunt now on the run from both sides, he needs to bring down The Syndicate's leader, Solomon Lane, before the net closes in. This movie still fizzes with action and those ludicrous stunts, one of which features Ethan clinging onto the side of an Airbus transport aircraft during takeoff -- talk about no-frills flying. Extra credit also goes to new addition Rebecca Ferguson as the mysterious Ilsa Faust, a capable foil for Ethan with a penchant for rifles and badassery. Still, Rogue Nation doesn't quite carve out its own place in the franchise, as villainous group The Syndicate doesn't quite feel as fleshed out and threatening as it could be, even though Sean Harris offers a brutal antagonist to Ethan and co. The final act is also somewhat forgettable, ending proceedings with a subtle whimper rather than a bombastic crescendo. Part one of the team's final mission revolves around an AI asset known as The Entity gone rogue, which is right on the money, given public perception of this strange new tech. As various organisations race to secure this potential weapon, Hunt and his team need to make uneasy alliances and discover who or what is pulling the strings from afar. Adding to the mix are a whole host of new and old players, including Hayley Atwell as thief Grace, Henry Czerny as Kittridge, whom we haven't laid eyes on since the very first M:I, and Esai Morales as intimidating assassin Gabriel. Despite its lofty ambition, decent set pieces and technical prowess, Dead Reckoning feels very unbalanced under its vast juggling act, with an overly intricate plot, an excess of side characters with shifting loyalties, a bloated runtime, and confusing double and triple crosses aplenty. And while its endgame motorcycle jump was no doubt impressive, it was marketed to death, dulling its impact in theatres. The opening Mission: Impossible is very much a different beast to the missions that followed it, playing it straight and focusing on a deadly game of shadows, Cold War paranoia, and Dutch angles... lots of Dutch angles. When a mission goes awry, Ethan, framed and wanted by his own agency, must dive into a murky world with his talents for espionage and forge new partnerships with unscrupulous types if he's to clear his name and discover who's behind it all. As cool as its lead (perhaps a little too cold), Mission Impossible rarely ventures into OTT territory, though that train versus copter finale more than makes up for it. It takes things at a more slow-burning pace, with shady conversations over espressos rather than explosives. With lashings of suspense, it serves as a great introduction into this shadowy universe where you really can't trust anyone, while the CIA break-in scene is still a highlight that'll have you on the edge of your seat. A much-needed shot in the arm for a franchise that faltered somewhat with the previous entry, Mission: Impossible III sees J.J. Abrams take up the helm, having previous experience in shooting sleuthwork on Jennifer Garner's excellent ALIAS series. The story is much more accessible this time around, with Ethan Hunt trying to juggle a normal life with fiancée Julia and being a clandestine operative, which goes as well as you might expect. The teamwork, which the original TV series was famous for, is on point in this one, particularly during a hostage extraction job in a factory and a drone showdown on a highway. The standout sequence is the mid-movie heist, in which our team needs to infiltrate Vatican City to retrieve an arms dealer, played by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, who provides real menace and presence as one of the franchise's best villains. The plot moves at a breakneck pace and the screen is littered with Abrams' signature lens flares and grittiness thanks to its digital camerawork. Combining fun, humour, top drawer action and plenty of emotional stakes, this mission proved a great spy film needn't be so po-faced. Mission: Impossible confidently strides into its fourth film with big shoes to fill, but director Brad Bird nails it with Ghost Protocol, an enjoyable action romp with plenty of absurd stunts and a gripping story. The team is on a mission to track down stolen Russian nuclear launch codes, which takes them on uncharted ground. After disaster strikes, the team must regroup and stop a plot to envelop the world in nuclear fire. It's a suspenseful movie that expertly blends well-drawn characters and a rip-roaring story. Brimming with unforgettable action and some of the finest stunt (and wire) work in the franchise, including a high-altitude jaunt on the exterior of Dubai's Burj Khalifa no less, and a surprisingly tense Kremlin infiltration mission, Ghost Protocol benefits from a tight yet explosive plot that doesn't let up until the credits roll. Peppered in with the action is a fair bit of human drama and baggage, courtesy of a bowless Jeremy Renner as Agent Brandt, Léa Seydoux as shady assassin Sabine, Simon Pegg's fan favourite Benji, and Paula Patton as a vengeful Agent Carter. Fallout easily takes top billing as the gang's best mission, a perfectly taut thriller that quintessentially captures what makes this franchise such a hugely enjoyable popcorn blockbuster. Featuring an all-star cast, including the returning Ving Rhames as Luther and Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa, new additions include Henry Cavill's one-man (and meme-d) gun show, August Walker, and Vanessa Kirby as the daughter of the infamous arms dealer Max from the OG M:I. Fallout expertly positions these characters as valuable pieces on the chessboard who serve their own agendas while helping or harming our heroes' endeavors. Of particular note is the HALO jump onto a Parisien skyline, a helicopter duel that ends on a heart-stopping cliffside encounter and a brutal bathroom brawl that's less WC and more "did you see that??" Fallout breaks new ground in its thrilling sequences, thanks to Tom Cruise always going that extra mile, and then some, cementing the film's place among the hallowed halls of the finest action movies.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

In my opinion, the Mission: Impossible franchise is one of the strongest ongoing action film series, and if you take out a few stragglers from the overall picture, you can stretch it to "ever" without difficulty. So good is Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, Fallout, and the recent Dead Reckoning. The films, again especially under director Christopher McQuarrie, tend to play with act structure, with scene composition, and with classic archetypes to create sequences that almost drip with intensity. The Burj Khalifa encounter in Ghost Protocol that culminates in a car chase in a sandstorm, the epic dive in Rogue Nation that has you holding your breath the whole way through, and the airport scene in Dead Reckoning that was almost a quarter of the entire film - it's inventive, it's intense and, perhaps most of all, it's entertaining, so endlessly entertaining. The marketing has led us to believe that the latest Mission: Impossible film is a sort of culmination of the story that started so long ago, an ending, and while that obviously places more pressure on Cruise and company's shoulders, perhaps most of the pressure comes from the studio executives behind the scenes, who saw the surprisingly low box office numbers the previous Dead Reckoning produced and are now questioning whether this rather expensive, expansive, and sweeping action series can put butts in seats, as they say. Yes, the stage is set, and thankfully, The Final Reckoning once again fulfils the central mantra we've come to expect from Mission: Impossible, namely expansive, sweeping scenes, solid acting performances all round, and a sense of flair you simply don't really see elsewhere in the modern Hollywood landscape. It's not all fun and games, and in the frantic attempt to "up the stakes" in the classic action-traditional sense, the film loses some of its playful puzzlement, replaced by a bit too much melodrama. Tom Cruise is at the centre, it's always been that way, and it doesn't bother me at all. He once again delivers a rock solid, relatable, physically demanding, and emotionally resonant performance as Ethan Hunt, who is infinitely likable throughout. He's also flanked by an excellent crew of old favourites like Simon Pegg as Benji and Ving Rhames as Luther, and Hayley Atwell is also fine as Grace. We've lost a few comrades along the way, perhaps most notably Ilsa Faust played by the always solid Rebecca Ferguson, but beyond that, this is a great character drama delivered by actors who understand the essence of their character and what makes up Mission: Impossible. However, it's also in the individual exchanges that the film loses some of its subtlety, sometimes lost in oceans of pompous melodrama. It's not that the previous films were outright comedies, not at all, but here it feels like it's been cranked up to 11, and it just grates against the series' otherwise rather insistent focus on combining heavy topics with a quickness that isn't really present here. And then there's this thing about a malicious AI called "the entity" gradually taking control of the world's nuclear stockpiles - it quickly starts to reek of 90s dialogue sequences about hacking that sound like a grandpa putting together the script by reading about RAM in an encyclopaedia. It's not that the plot structure is unbelievable, but the way they talk about cyber-security, about hacking - it's made so accessible that it borders on the slightly comical, and this Entity isn't exactly scary, as it's constantly talked "about" but not really spoken about. It is referred to as a character, but never manages to come into its own. That said, The Final Reckoning delivers all the pomp and circumstance you'd expect, including some pretty striking scenes in the second half of the film, again provided by practical effects that will no doubt ensure the film ages gracefully. No, the film isn't as bold as Dead Reckoning, which is basically just three 45-minute scenes that constantly escalate and intensify, but there's plenty to enjoy here and it looks great on the big screen. It's a shame, all things considered, that Mission: Impossible ends this era with what can only be described as the weakest film of the recent chapters, but that doesn't mean the film is bad, quite the opposite. This is a summer blockbuster for the ages, and while it's not quite as masterful as many of its predecessors, Cruise and McQuarrie prove once again that they know how to put together an action banger.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Is Trying to Be Something the Franchise Was Never Designed For - IGN

Warning: This article contains full spoilers for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning. Red alert, Tom Cruise fans, because Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is now in theaters. The eighth and (maybe?) final installment in the long-running action franchise seemingly intends to wrap up the Ethan Hunt saga, culminating in the final battle behind the Impossible Mission Force's top agent and the villainous artificial intelligence known as The Entity. But despite all the hype, The Final Reckoning is something of a letdown, with IGN's Clint Gage saying in his review that the movie "tries to deal with no less than the end of every living thing on the planet - and suffers because of it." Given that Mission: Impossible has delivered some of the best action films of the past couple of decades, why does this latest entry feel so limp in comparison? It's a more complicated answer than you might expect. A lot of what goes wrong with The Final Reckoning is not contained solely to the film itself, but can also be traced back to cracks in the foundation from previous entries that finally caught up with the filmmakers here. The Final Reckoning tries to present itself as a finale for the entire series, as if this has been one giant story going all the way back to the first film, but that's not how Mission: Impossible used to work. Let's take a look at how The Final Reckoning exposes the franchise's greatest flaw. Originally titled Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part Two, The Final Reckoning is not just trying to tie up the plot threads from the last film, but also serves as a grand finale for the whole series. Yet even though The Final Reckoning comes in at nearly three hours, the finished product is incredibly unwieldy, simultaneously feeling like it has both too much and too little going on at the same time. There's an ungodly amount of exposition regarding how we got here, elaborating on all of the things Ethan and his team need to do to save the day, and this takes up so much screen time before they actually start doing any of it. What we end up with is a movie that is constantly insisting that stuff is happening where little of consequence actually happens. The movie frequently jumps between the massive cast of characters, which not just includes most of the still living recurring cast but also a handful of new members. It's telling that the opening titles can barely squeeze in all the names before the iconic theme finishes up. The deluge of plot (go here, get this, go there, do that, etc., etc.) makes for a numbing viewing experience that resembles Ethan's interfacing with The Entity early in the film. A tsunami of words and images assault Ethan, somehow imparting what he needs to accomplish, but with little in the way of emotional context that would make the journey worth investing in. There's not a lot of weight in saving the world if we don't care about the world in the first place. Add in Esai Morales' Gabriel being a flat villain with no clear motivations, Ethan being separated from his team for a huge chunk of the runtime, and multiple subplots that go nowhere (what's the deal with The Entity's cult?), and it becomes clear The Final Reckoning needed some serious reworking both on the page and in the editing suite. The movie doesn't even fully deliver on the one thing audiences expect from Mission movies: the stunt setpieces. There are really only two (!) of them across the three hours, those being Ethan's underwater trek into the crashed Sevastopol submarine, and the aerial showdown between Ethan and Gabriel in a pair of biplanes. They're well-executed for what they are, but given how long the movie is and how much money they spent on it (potentially up to $400 million), surely the filmmakers could've sprung for some more, well, impossible missions in their Mission: Impossible movie. Beyond the weirdly low number of big set piece moments, the next most jarring aspect of The Final Reckoning is how it treats the franchise's history. There is a liberal use of stock footage from previous installments, playing clips (sometimes more than once) when characters mention an event or plot element from the older films. In small doses this is perfectly fine, but The Final Reckoning overuses this device to the point of absurdity. Making matters worse is the rather disingenuous way The Final Reckoning bends the previous movies and its own plot into pretzels in an attempt to manufacture a greater sense of finality to this installment that the series hasn't truly built towards. It might be hard to remember now since director Christopher McQuarrie has been the custodian of this franchise for a good decade, but the Mission movies only started feeling properly serialized under his stewardship. But going back to the first film, the Mission: Impossible series was made of mostly stand-alone films to start, with each one having little continuity-wise to do with the others. There were some recurring characters and Ghost Protocol made it clear at the end that Ethan is separated from but still looking out for his wife Julia from M:I 3, but otherwise the Mission films weren't telling one ongoing story. The franchise started off as one of the holdouts from the wave of serialization that took over the film industry at the turn of the millennium. That all changed with McQuarrie's era, where he made the sixth entry, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, into a direct sequel to his first film in the series, Rogue Nation. Since 2015, McQuarrie's Mission films have built on characters and story threads with each subsequent entry, making the franchise feel like a proper saga. All well and good, but trying to reach back further and retroactively tie in the first four movies the same way is cumbersome. Reveals like Shea Whigham's character being the son of Jim Phelps (Jon Voight from the first film) or that the Rabbit's Foot, the unspecified MacGuffin from M:I 3, was actually a proto-version of The Entity AI (despite M:I 3 claiming the Rabbit's Foot was biohazardous in nature) come off as confusing and unnecessary. It's an unforced error, but there are also some forced ones because of questionable choices made in previous films. To be clear, there is a lot of talent and craft put into The Final Reckoning. McQuarrie proved himself as an action director with Rogue Nation and Fallout, which many agree are the two best entries in the franchise. Cruise is as much of a charismatic screen presence as ever, and he acquits himself admirably in the stunt setpieces we do get. The supporting cast is full of enjoyable personalities like Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, and Pom Klementieff. But surface virtues can only carry a shaky foundation so far, and The Final Reckoning finds itself unraveling at the seams not just by its misguided attempts to tie previous franchise canon together, but because the narrative world established by previous films is not capable of supporting such an ambitious level of scale. Specifically, The Entity is a threat to all life on the planet. Ethan Hunt and his IMF friends are being asked to safeguard humanity from nuclear extinction. But the audience can't invest in those kinds of stakes because the world of Mission: Impossible is so thinly sketched. Virtually no element intrinsic to the Mission: Impossible universe has been given any dimension in previous films; not even the IMF itself, since the organization remains nebulous at best and Ethan goes rogue from it in nearly every entry. Plot devices and factions are all simply some version of "The Noun": the Syndicate, The Entity, the Rabbit's Foot, the Acolytes, and on and on, with no further elaboration. This wasn't an issue before Dead Reckoning because the series wasn't interested in world-building beyond portraying Ethan Hunt as an unshakable axis upon which the world pivots, using Cruise's "the last movie star" energy as the IP's biggest draw. But now The Final Reckoning wants to be seen as the culmination of a world that has no definition. The ways The Final Reckoning can't live up to its ambitions can best be summed up with the last scene, where Ethan meets with his team one last time. We have Hayley Atwell's Grace, Simon Pegg's Benji, Pom Klementieff's Paris, and Greg Tarzan Davis' Theo. This is supposed to be the big goodbye to the franchise, but only Benji is a longtime player. Ethan only met Grace and Paris in the last film, with the latter being a villain for most of that one, and Theo feels like a random tagalong in this one. Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell dies in the first act of The Final Reckoning, and Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust suffered an incredibly ill-conceived death scene in Dead Reckoning. Now to be fair to Ferguson, she wanted out of the franchise, but her chemistry with Cruise and the integral role she played in the team dynamic is sorely missed here. We can't help but imagine a far more emotionally impactful final scene where Ethan says goodbye to Benji, Luther and Ilsa (and sure, throw in Grace and Paris for good measure) over the one we actually got. How would that film actually work? It's hard to say. It likely would have necessitated not doing Dead Reckoning as a two-part film, or perhaps it was unavoidable between the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. All we can do is evaluate the film in front of us, but sadly, despite all the talent of everyone involved, The Final Reckoning is far from Mission: Impossible's finest hour.