Cannes 2025 - Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning by Christopher McQuarrie

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning arrives carrying the weight of a long awaited conclusion, expectation and legacy, and it buckles under all three. Dour, interminable and strangely inert, it feels less like the culmination of a long-running franchise than an exercise in narrative exhaustion. What should have been a celebratory send-off instead drains the series of its defining pleasures, replacing fun with solemnity. 

The follows directly from the previous instalment, with Ethan Hunt once again racing against time to prevent a global catastrophe on the cusp of being triggered by a rogue A.I. Governments are paralysed, institutions are compromised, and only Hunt possesses the moral clarity, physical ability and spiritual resolve to avert disaster. His team follows, loyal and supportive, but largely sidelined. The narrative frames this as necessity rather than choice, but the effect is to narrow the film’s emotional and dramatic core to a single, overburdened figure. 

This narrowing is the film’s central problem. Mission: Impossible has always been built around a paradox: the myth of the lone superspy offset by the pleasure of collective action. Even when Ethan Hunt took centre stage, the films thrived on ensemble dynamics, on plans within plans, on the sense that success depended on trust, timing and collaboration, even when the never bettered first film despatched its original team in the first act. 

Here, that balance is lost. Hunt’s messianic status, already present in recent entries, is pushed to such an extent that it drains the film of tension and humour. Everyone exists in orbit around him, their primary function reduced to witnessing his prowess. The messiah element is not new, but here it reaches a unprecedented level. The film seems convinced that elevating its hero will heighten the stakes, but the opposite occurs. 

To be fair, there are a few welcome touches along the way. Several minor characters from earlier entries reappear and are given some unexpectedly substantial material and it actually works, not falling into the trap of references and cameos for the sake of it like so many recent legacyquels. The action, too, remains solid on a purely technical level, with one genuinely memorable set piece staged in and around a small plane that recalls the franchise’s former talent for clear, physical spectacle. These moments land, and they remind you of what Mission: Impossible has often done so well. 

Unfortunately, they are isolated highlights. At nearly three hours, The Final Reckoning feels interminable, not because of complexity, but because of repetition.  Where previous entries balanced exposition with action, this one lingers, explaining and re-explaining motivations that were already clear. 

There is also a curious lack of emotional payoff, for a film positioned as a conclusion (or is it...?) As a conclusion, it is dispiriting. As entertainment, it is oddly forgettable and it all the more a shame considering that, while uneven, all previous entries in this franchise were enjoyable to a certain degree.

At least with this franchise out of the way, perhaps Tom Cruise will finally consider some different and more interesting projects?

Review by Laurent de Alberti

Star rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Official Selection, in Competition

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales...