Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg*

Have I Seen it Before: Never, and maybe never again?

Did I Like It: Here’s a confession, if I haven’t already made it in previous reviews for the Mission: Impossible films. Most people are never more delighted during these films than when Ethan Hunt (Cruise) dangles off of increasingly precarious things. That’s the brand. That’s why the vast majority posters for this movie show a biplane flying upside down with Cruise holding on by one hand. That will gets butt into seats**.

I, on the other hand, am never more delighted in this series when they make references to the original Mission: Impossible (1996). I have a weird affection for that uneven first entry with the byzantine plot, even when I’m willing to admit that Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) is likely the most satisfying entry, pound for pound. From Alec Baldwin’s muttering about the CIA Black Vault in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) through the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) being the heiress to Max (Vanessa Redgrave), all the way to the return of Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023), McQuarrie either has the same soft spot for the first film as I do, or had an interest in making the story of Ethan Hunt one where what came before has an impact on what is still to come. A valid ambition in my eyes, either way.

The references to the original film abound here as well. I found the revelations that Jasper Briggs (Shea Whigham) is actually the son of Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) to be a little anemic, especially when it confirms finally and beyond all doubt that these films don’t share a continuity with the original television series.

But then there’s William Donloe (Rolf Saxon). The hapless mark in the aforementioned Black Vault, he was just a guy who knew how to manage a database. A man after my own heart, who go mistreated.

And he’s the secret heroe of the series, and steals every moment he’s in this film.

I am delighted, in that much at least, and that’s more than enough to recommend a movie.

Is this really the end for Ethan Hunt and company? Aside from dispensing with Luther Stickell in the first act, the film doesn’t seem like it wants to commit to a valedictory for the dangling man. This is as close as we’re going to get, and I hope it is the end. If for no other reason than I find it increasingly hard to believe that Scientology can give a man the tools he needs to do his own stunts into his 70s. This would be a good place to stop.

But if they want to do a spinoff series with Donloe, I’ll be the first one there on opening weekend.

*It took me all of my patience not to list Rolf Saxon in the main cast. More on that later. Also learned that he narrated the American broadcasts of Teletubbies. So there’s that.

**Enough butts in seats to cover a $400 million budget? One wonders, but maybe that’s a discussion for a different time.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg

Have I Seen it Before: Nope, but if the one religious figure who takes a clear stand on the vagaries of motion blurring wants me to do something, I do it. Especially when it means coming out to the theater for his nearly 300 million dollar* epic. If he starts making other demands of me, we’re just going to have to take those on a case by case basis.

Did I Like It: I like it when the following things happen to me:

- Spy movies make me feel like I could engage in espionage and intrigue, even though there is a plethora of airtight evidence that I would be absolutely crushed by any job with even slightly higher pressure than the one I currently have.

- I am witness to Tom Cruise proceeding with a series of increasingly preposterous stunts, which will inevitably culminate in what I can only assume is his somewhat hilarious demise.

- I get to sit in a darkened, air conditioned room and eat M & Ms. (Really, this would qualify when I get to sit in a brightly lit room with M & Ms, but they work even better in the dark)

- Mission: Impossible sequels make reference to the first—and for my money, the best—Mission: Impossible (1996).

On those qualifications, the movie is an unparalleled success, especially the last one, where with the inclusion of Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) this feels like—more than any other film in the series—a direct sequel to the original. Sure, the plot may feel a little saggy in the middle and a little convoluted, but the impulse to label that as a complain about the movie should really be redefined as a return to form.

* Studios, if you keep doing that… Forget it. It’s not worth getting into it right now, but one imagines I’m going to have a lot more to same by the time Barbie and Oppenheimer roll into town.

Mission: Impossible -- Fallout (2018)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill*, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson

Have I Seen it Before: Certainly.

Did I Like It: I was a little down on Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) as by that fifth entry in the series, the sameness that plagued the television series was starting to just bubble to the surface. The prospect of the series now settling into a regular cast and a regular director only increased the fear that said sameness would be the order of the day for the foreseeable future.

I’m happy to report that it appears McQuarrie may be just getting warmed up, but at the moment, he is content to make subtle changes to the tried and true format. Giving Hunt and company recurring heavy (Sean Harris) at first blush feels like more descending into monotony, but for this series it is a breath of fresh air. 

Up until this point, Hunt has been presented as an unassailable movie spy. Here, it’s sort of delightful, a measure more realistic, and includes an added dimension of suspense into the final set piece that it appears Hunt has no clue how to fly a helicopter, but must do so anyway. One might spend some spell of time after seeing the film wondering how Hunt could have been in the line of work that he was for as long as he had and not get more expert in the operation of various types of vehicles, but that time would be ill spent, and I don’t recommend it.

Even if the promise of these new elements reverts back to the mean while McQuarrie is at the helm, the hand at the wheel is steady enough that I will still enjoy entries in this series, even if they don’t continue to try and surprise.

*Will it ever be possible to look at Cavill’s mustache in this film and not revel in the reality that it is pointedly one thing that made Justice League (2017) a bizarre, unlovable Frankenstein’s Monster of a film? I think not.

Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation (2015)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly enough, I think this is one film in the series that I somehow missed in the theater, thus I’m remembering it the least upon this screening.

Did I Like It: Yeah…

On that note, I’ve come to some conclusions about the Mission: Impossible series as a whole. Like the television series that begat it, the movies suffer ever so slightly when watched in succession. The format is relatively unchanging, especially after the series fell under the auspices of J.J. Abrams and his company, Bad Robot effective with Mission: Impossible III (2006). There is little variation in these films. Sure, the ubiquitous “your mission, should you choose to accept it” scene in this film harkens back to its televised analog roots, before pulling the rug out from under us and enveloping super spy Ethan Hunt (Cruise) into a web of villainy before the first reel is over. That’s refreshing and does its level headed best to renew interest in this new story.

From there, however, that twist doesn’t hold up. It gives way to yet another survey of internal difficulties in the CIA that Hunt will nullify with his brazenness. What’s more, the proceedings have continued to grow a little pat in other ways. There are masks. Tom Cruise dangles from improbable heights. Ving Rhames shows up. There’s a throwaway reference to the first film that floats in the air for an instant before evaporating just as quickly as it arrived. Incidentally, those scant references are usually my favorite part of one of these movies, Cruise conscientiously defying the forces of gravity be damned.

All of that isn’t even meant as a criticism of this film or the series as a whole, really. This film, too, is a pleasant way to spend two hours. It may be better to do so every couple of years and then not think too much about it afterwards.

At the time of this writing, McQuarrie is hard at work on the seventh and eighth film in the series, his third and fourth. This series once was a showcase for great (or in some cases, potentially great) directors to play around in a tried and true genre. Now that McQuarrie is here to stay, let’s hope he gets bored and decides to throw us a few more curveballs in the process.