Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen's story is nail-biting. Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen's screenplay is a bit dry in the initial portions but is peppered with enough 'Mission Impossible' missions to keep the interest going. The dialogues are normal but the one between Ethan and the US President stands out. Christopher McQuarrie's direction is cinematic and commercial. The director maintains a balance – he tells a story in the best possible way and at the same time, he is aware that he needs to serve the fans. A significant scene gives a recap of sorts of Ethan’s extraordinary journey in the IMF. The makers also surprise the audience by bringing the most unexpected characters back in the series; one such character was seen in the first part, way back in 1996! The missions that Ethan undertakes also make for an exciting watch. This time, a lot is at stake and not just Ethan, but his associates also need to make their move and they can’t even be a second late. This adds to the tension levels. In the first half, the scene where Ethan gets attacked on the ship while an action sequence also takes place in Alaska simultaneously is memorable. Post-interval, the underwater scene is quite arresting. The finale, meanwhile, is clapworthy. On the flipside, the first half is mostly reserved for build-up. Those expecting non-stop action will be dejected. A few scenes are convenient, like Ethan leaving the ‘poison pill’ with Luther. The makers also leave a few questions unanswered about the Entity. The bigger issue is that on paper, all the missions seem exciting. But it also comes at a time when we have already seen Ethan doing enough death-defying stunts several times. As a result, viewers might not get the kick as intended. Moreover, the previous part also set a benchmark and the action scenes in it were more, both in the first and second halves, as compared to this one. Tom Cruise, yet again, is simply unbelievable. To see him hanging by the plane (and a lot more), that too at this age, is commendable. He also shines in the emotional scenes. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are adorable and add to the madness. Hayley Atwell makes her presence felt. Esai Morales is decent as the villain. Pom Klementieff has a crucial part and gives a badass performance. Angela Bassett is apt as the Head of State. Henry Czerny (Eugene Kittridge), Shea Whigham (Jasper Briggs) and Greg Tarzan Davis (Degas) lend able support. Hannah Waddingham (Admiral Neely) and Tramell Tillman (Captain Bledsoe) have small parts but leave a mark. Rolf Saxon (William Donloe) and Lucy Tulugarjuk (Tapeesa, Donloe's wife) are damn good and their track is a surprise. On the whole, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING delivers a thrilling and satisfying conclusion to one of cinema’s most beloved action franchises. With high-octane sequences, edge-of-the-seat moments, and Tom Cruise once again defying gravity and expectations, this is a true paisa vasool entertainer. At the box office, the film is poised for a thunderous start at the box office and is well on track to cross the Rs. 100 crore mark with ease.

The eighth instalment of the beloved Mission: Impossible franchise and a direct sequel to Dead Reckoning Part One, sees Ethan Hunt racing to shut down a rogue AI called The Entity. He must unite its source code with a 'poison pill' pen drive created by his friend Luther (Ving Rhames) to prevent it from triggering a nuclear catastrophe. But it’s far from a simple plug-and-play deal — the source code lies within a wrecked submarine, while the poison pill is in the hands of the villain Gabriel, who seeks to control its power. Mission: Impossible has earned a cult following for its larger-than-life action, slick execution, glamour, and humour — everything a great spy film needs. However, the latest entry by director-writer Christopher McQuarrie is bogged down by a convoluted plot and uneven storytelling. The first hour is heavy on exposition, slowing the pace with recaps and lengthy dialogues. While the plot has scale — nuclear threats, rogue agents, and chases across the globe, the execution often falls short. There are some brilliant sequences with stunning set pieces, such as the wrecked submarine track—Ethan’s solo mission inside a gigantic submarine amid torrential currents and debris is tense and visually striking at first, but the sequence overstays its welcome and feels repetitive. That’s the case with a few other moments as well. The runtime of 169 minutes stretches the story thin, and the narrative suffers from uneven pacing due to all the exposition. The sombre tone is a shift from the cheeky spirit of earlier instalments, which gives it a heavier feel. The movie still has its share of edge-of-the-seat moments. Besides the submarine infiltration, the race against time to disable the Entity plays out across two parallel tracks—Ethan trying to retrieve the poison pill from Gabriel, and his team comprising Benji (Simon Pegg), Grace (Hayley Atwell), French assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff), Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis), William Donloe (Rolf Saxon), and his wife Tapeesa (Lucy Tulugarjuk) tackling their own challenges. The biplane sequence between Ethan and Gabriel is the most thrilling and visually impressive — courtesy of cinematographer Fraser Taggart and Tom Cruise performing his own stunts. The film also taps into nostalgia, bringing back Rolf Saxon from the first part and referencing the iconic ceiling-drop and the knife-in-the-floor scenes. There are a few humorous moments, even during high-stakes scenes, such as when Benji, Grace, and Paris attempt to diffuse the Entity. Tom Cruise is brilliant as Ethan Hunt and shines in every frame, performing stunts with the same finesse he’s shown over the past 30 years. Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff stand out as new additions, while returning team members Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames deliver strong performances. While the film delivers on scale and spectacle, its narrative complexity and repetitive stretches slow the momentum. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has moments that truly soar, but as a whole, it doesn’t quite enthral. Still, for longtime fans, it serves as a decent finale to Ethan Hunt’s world of impossible missions.

There is nothing that Tom Cruise can’t do! He can jump off moving planes, climb up the tallest building in the world, dangle mid-air and save the world from a nuclear holocaust and, of course, wear multiple masks that could con the best of spies. But in 'The Final Reckoning', Cruise lends his charisma to two big action set pieces that prove that there will never be another Tom Cruise. While the film might not be the smartest MI film in the franchise, it’s the attention to detail that goes into the making of these action sequences that puts 'Final Reckoning' right on top of the franchise. The first opening few minutes of the film will give you an adrenaline rush purely based on the fact that it’s filled with so much nostalgia. Perhaps as a device to fill in the gaps for those who haven’t tracked the previous films or are a bit dodgy on where the track leads, we get to revisit some of the most iconic moments of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) right at the onset. That’s a good thing because the nostalgia in these films is heavy. If you have watched all the MI films, then this series of back-to-back sequences that sort of stitch together a mini prequel to catch up on what you have missed so far is perfect. There are two pivotal sequences - one involving a sunken Russian submarine and the other has dangerously manoeuvred planes flying high over the treacherous South African terrain. These two scenes are ammunition enough to sail the film through some rough, turbulent weather. The patchy seas come in the form of too many subplots, some characters that don’t really have any graph and some really long gaps of eerie silences. The follow-up to 2023’s 'Dead Reckoning' completes the storyline from Ethan’s POV. But this time around, the world has changed with the danger of nuclear annihilation seeming closer than ever before. Ethan’s job is not just to kill another agent or save a damsel in distress, but, to simply put, save the world from destruction! There is a major reason why we line up to watch the MI films. Unlike other franchises, despite this one spanning over a decade, there is barely a sense of fatigue set in with these films. Tom Cruise is solely responsible for carrying the sometimes laggy burden of the MI films on his able shoulders. The draw of watching him physically put himself through the effort to perform stunts without a body double is commendable. At the young age of 62, Cruise isn’t just giving the young lads a run for their money, but he’s winning every possible marathon in the town. When the baddie, called ‘The Entity’, is not human but an AI, you know that the writers huddled up close in the writers' room to say, “how do we make this one relevant?” While technically the film manages to break new ground with the stunts, it lacks the finesse and charm of the previous chapters. Despite its shortcomings, it’s a treat to watch the most famous actor of our times push the envelope and give his all to keep us entertained. Get some popcorn, play the title track on your way or binge the previous MI films before you head over to 'Final Reckoning'. Also, don’t miss the last frame. Is it really over? Or...

Did someone switch a few vowels, maybe? In a film where so many are talking so much, that won’t be entirely, well, impossible. For, this eighth and last (or so they say) film in the M:I franchise could as easily have been called Mission: Impossible, given its tortuous course. The Final Reckoning, of course, is the second half of what began as Part I in 2023. Five hours and 31 minutes later (making the two Final Reckonings the longest films in the franchise), you are still trying to care enough about the villain to hate it. And given that you have arguably the biggest movie star in the world on the other side, that should not be so hard. Tom Cruise is still out there giving it his all – and yes, doing his own stunts – kicking butt, dodging bullets, diving off submarines, dangling now not from one but two planes, almost dying not once but twice. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie spares no expense, taking the story from London underground to the Arctic Circle, Virginia’s Emergency Command Centre to South Africa’s Doomsday Vault, and some other stops in the middle. But, it must be asked, why exactly. The chase remains – like in Part I – of an Artificial Intelligence software gone rogue and dubbed the Entity, which is apparently trying to destroy the world (Ethan Hunt, that is Cruise, must take the President’s word for it, which is surely not a good starting point in a world where tech lies in bed with power). Surely, a simpler investment would be someone to write a counter code. But that would not leave Ethan much to do, would it? Particularly as the brains in that department are his two loyal sidekicks returning for the job, Luther (Rhames) and Benji (Pegg). Also returning is Grace (Atwell), whose pickpocketing skills that we saw in Part I are the best resource in a world running out of time. So this time, Ethan’s mission is retrieving some sort of a device from a Russian submarine that crashed somewhere in the ocean bed sometime in 2012. When a poison pill developed by Luther is plugged into it, Entity would be poof! If only someone would say poof! If it’s not complicated enough that Entity has brought the world to the brink of a nuclear disaster (a lot of nuclear talk here), lots of men and – hats off – women hold whispered, urgent conversations throughout The Final Reckoning about “counter-acoustic devices”, “primordial digital ooze”, “hyperbaric decompression chambers”, underwater pressure and what it does to a human body… etc etc. And this is even before Cruise gets to the Russian submarine. The action inside that submarine, precariously balanced and one tip away from crashing, with water filling up and missiles floating about, dead bodies jumping up, and Ethan figuring out its many panels and chambers, is one of the most breathtaking sequences of The Final Reckoning. At the very least, it is something original in a franchise that seems to have run out of original ideas on what to put Ethan through – though Cruise still makes running that fiercely and hanging mid-air that fearlessly look easy. The M:I score barely makes an appearance, and those famous masks get barely a peeling. Above all, The Final Reckoning is an ode to that Cruise, in its numerous flashbacks to the previous M:I films, underlining the times he saved the world, and just how jaw-droppingly, the sacrifices he made, the people he loved and lost.

Oh, the joy of watching Mission Impossible films! There's boisterous fun to be had in these films which is essentially a vanity project of the highest order for its marquee star Tom Cruise who once admittedly said: 'It all comes down to one thing: The audience.' The opening credit slate of the latest entrant, The Final Reckoning, says, 'A Tom Cruise Production' which highlights the singular appeal of this franchise, much like the iconic circular stamp in S S Rajamouli's movies that acknowledges his unique identity. For this long-enduring, consistently dazzling action franchise, it is Tom Cruise who we really want to see, as he shoots, fights, bleeds, runs and performs death-defying stunts. And he has been doing this for nearly 30 years! Fans of Mission Impossible know that the other half of its glorious title is never about the implausibility of the task at hand for our pièce de résistance action star. It is perhaps to hit the same brilliant heights and scope in its ambition that makes this such a prolific action series of its time. We are now eight films deep into the Ethan Hunt saga and The Final Reckoning, which is essentially the second half of The Dead Reckoning Part One, offers a more personal look of its hero while teasing you with a this-is-the-end feeling. As the continuation of earlier part, we jump right in where the prequel ended. The all-knowing, super-powerful AI programme 'The Entity' is about to unleash global terror. Gabriel (Esai Morales) is on a hunt to grab the missing key to gain control over its powers. It is up to Ethan Hunt and his specialised team to stop the evil plan before it leads to global devastation. The story is yet again straight-forward and simple but can be overwhelming if you are not familiar with the earlier parts, especially the original trilogy and of course, The Dead Reckoning. From a few old characters re-entering the picture to some heartfelt flashbacks, this one pays homage to its predecessors with plenty of hat-tips while meshing together the adventures of Ethan Hunt. It feels like a nostalgia bet that many modern franchise movies are prone to but works because Director Christopher McQuarrie, who has also written the story, doesn't render it to superfluous melodrama and treats the story with matter-of-factness. Even the usual scenes of wry humour (reserved for Simon Pegg’s scene-stealing character of the franchise, Benji) are muted as the overall tone remains rather sombre with grim undercurrents. At one point, we see vivid imagery of nuclear war, including scenes of rockets launching and the Earth engulfed in flames, similar to a symbolic event that Cillian Murphy's Oppenheimer imagines in the climax of the Christopher Nolan film. But besides its big, daunting ideas, The Final Reckoning manages to make the mission personal to Ethan as the film finds ways to focus on his emotional relationships. The chemistry between Cruise and Hayley Atwell's luminous Grace is especially smouldering. At one point, I almost expected him to break into Fast & Furious line 'I don't have friends, I got family' in a true Dominic Toretto style. But, of course, The Final Reckoning plays with this standard trope with a lot more flair. The only grip is the lack of any formidable villain as Esai Morales' baddie doesn't get much scope despite showing promise in the earlier part. As the faceless enemy, we keep hearing how mysterious and dangerous the AI device is as characters sometimes over-explain the situation in a very annoying Tenet-esque exposition dump that just goes on for way too long. These talky scenes add dramatic heft to the performances of the actors but the plot is inherently not that deep or complex, so what's the need of this? The film truly soars during the action set-pieces, which is among its signature pleasures. The Final Reckoning, with all its startling ambition and scope, puts a dazzling display of stunt-work by Tom Cruise. He is the man who climbed the Burj Khalifa, biked off cliffs, flown helicopters and fighter jets, and this time, we see him gasping for breath underwater and then dangling from a plane high in the sky. The episode in the submarine is especially so terrific that you can't help being swept along by it, as you feel the excitement pounding throughout. You have to see it to believe it! Finally, The Final Reckoning comes with a reminder that like all good things perhaps our time with Ethan Hunt is also coming to a close. But it's not done until Tom Cruise says it's done.

There’s a reason Mission: Impossible has survived eight long films, and that reason is Tom freaking Cruise. In The Final Reckoning, Cruise doesn’t just run, jump off cliffs, hang from planes or defy gravity in some ridiculous fashion. This time, he bleeds, he reflects, he aches, and does he go out in style. The Final Reckoning is many things from explosive to emotional, and sometimes flat-out bonkers, but above all, it’s a love letter to the legend of Ethan Hunt and the cinematic legacy that Cruise has built over nearly three decades. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the eighth and final installment doesn’t just wrap things up but launches them off a cliff (literally) and lands them squarely in our adrenaline-fuelled hearts. This isn’t just another action film. It’s a curtain call with purpose. Yes, the action is outrageous. Well, it wouldn’t be Mission: Impossible without at least one sequence that makes you scream “HOW IS HE EVEN ALIVE?" But what really makes this film soar is its soul. For once, Hunt isn’t just chasing the mission. He’s questioning it. And in those quieter, haunted moments, you see a man who’s tired, not of saving the world, but of what it’s cost him. Ethan and his fractured IMF family must stop a rogue AI “The Entity" which has already begun manipulating nuclear protocols and global alliances. But McQuarrie makes it feel fresh by focusing on the human cost of these high-tech battles. When your enemy is everywhere and no one can be trusted, who do you become? Cruise delivers a career-high performance equal parts physically punishing and emotionally raw. There’s a vulnerability here we rarely see in action stars. He’s not just a man on a mission anymore, he’s a man on the verge. You feel every fall, every heartbreak, every impossible choice. It’s his most human performance as Hunt yet. Daniel Bruhl is terrifyingly brilliant as Klaus Richter. He is calm, calculating and far more dangerous because of how real he feels. He’s no cartoon evil; he’s quietly, insidiously terrifying. And it works. The supporting cast shines. Rebecca Ferguson returns with that cool assassin mystique. Hayley Atwell brings spark and smarts. Simon Pegg’s Benji continues to be the emotional glue, and Ving Rhames’s Luther is a grounding force in the chaos. Everyone gets their moment. Everyone earns it. Talking about the set pieces, one minute you’re deep-sea diving into a wrecked submarine, the next you’re hanging off a jet mid-air. Practical effects and Cruise’s need-for-speed insanity make every sequence pulse with tension. There’s something delightfully retro about how real the danger feels. But what truly sets The Final Reckoning apart is its tone. It’s not just an action blockbuster. It’s an elegy. A goodbye. A thank-you. And somehow, despite all the chaos, it’s also a reckoning with legacy, with sacrifice, with what it really means to be a hero when the world keeps moving the goalpost. The Final Reckoning is the most fitting, heart-racing, gut-wrenching finale Ethan Hunt could’ve asked for. If this really is the last mission, then hats off, Mr. Cruise. You didn’t just complete it. You aced it.