Critics React to ‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’

Tom Cruise’s final film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, is set to hit theaters on Memorial Day weekend. The film, directed by Christopher McQuarrie with a budget nearing $400 million, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, receiving a five-minute standing ovation. The movie picks up a few months after the events of 2023’s Dead Reckoning, with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the IMF team on a mission to stop Gabriel Martinelli (Esai Morales) from accessing a world-ending rogue artificial intelligence known as “The Entity.” The cast also includes Simon Pegg, Angela Bassett, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, and Pom Klementieff.

As of Thursday, The Final Reckoning holds an 82 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It will be released on May 23 by Paramount, the same day as the live-action Lilo & Stitch. Both films are expected to dominate Memorial Day box office sales. Here’s what critics are saying about the final installment in the franchise:

Praise for Cruise’s Stunts

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter commended Cruise’s dedication to performing his own stunts, stating, “Cruise’s commitment to performing his own stunts and giving audiences the analog thrill of in-camera daredevilry instead of digital fakery has progressed to ever more astonishing feats over the course of eight Mission: Impossible movies. It’s the key reason for this franchise’s longevity — along with the self-destructing mission instructions, the identity-switching facemasks, the heroic sprints and the high-speed vehicular chases.”

Mixed Reception

However, Rooney ultimately felt that The Final Reckoning “ends up being a bit on the dull side. If it’s going to be the last we see of one of the most consistently entertaining franchises to come out of Hollywood in the past few decades — a subject about which Cruise and McQuarrie have remained vague — it’s a disappointing farewell with a handful of high points courtesy of the indefatigable lead actor.”

Nostalgic Feel

Brian Truitt of USA Today noted an Avengers: Endgame vibe, writing, “Overall, there’s an Avengers: Endgame feel to Final Reckoning, throwing back to plot points and characters from previous films.” He added, “If The Final Reckoning is indeed at hand, you couldn’t ask for a better death-defying, free-falling, edge-of-your-dang-seat sendoff.”

Recovery from Early Struggles

Bilge Ebiri of Vulture observed that the film recovers from its initial struggles, saying, “Final Reckoning does eventually recover from the calamity of its first hour to give us an entertaining, if still messy, Mission: Impossible movie. It achieves this by tuning out the broody chatter of its first act and giving us a lengthy, ingenious (and refreshingly silent) sequence inside a sunken submarine, a wreck whose unstable spot on the sea floor ensures that our hero will wind up bouncing and rolling around a room inconveniently filled with floating torpedoes.”

Reflection on AI and Entertainment

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times highlighted the film’s thematic connection to the entertainment industry’s struggle with AI, writing, “Male-driven action movies often have a savior complex, with heroes who are beaten and brutalized only at last to rise vengefully triumphant. Final Reckoning leans hard into that familiar theme — the team faces betrayal, the fate of everyone on Earth is in Ethan’s hands — which gives the movie a quasi-religious dimension. That’s weird, no doubt, but there’s something plaintive about Ethan’s fight this time because it echoes the urgent struggles of workers in the entertainment industry (and everywhere else) to prevent their replacement by artificial intelligence. For years, Cruise has put on a very good show pretending to nearly die for our pleasure; now, though, his body really does seem on the line.”

Criticism of Storytelling

David Ehrlich of IndieWire criticized the film’s pacing and action, stating, “The longest Mission: Impossible movie ever has, by far, the least action to offer in return.”

Meanwhile, Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine took issue with the storytelling, writing, “It’s big, extravagant, and at times very beautiful to look at. The story is the problem: packed with expository dialogue, it feels as if it were written to be digested in 10- or 15-minute bites. Characters robotically repeat significant McGuffiny phrases. The Rabbit’s Foot! The Anti-God! The Doomsday Vault! Final Reckoning doesn’t flow; it lurches forward in a series of information-delivery packets.”

High on Films Review of Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

Our Film Critic Liam Gaughan noted that while the film delivers on its action sequences, it struggles with pacing and character development. The review highlighted that the film feels like a “greatest hits” compilation of moments from the entire franchise, rewarding long-time fans but ultimately feeling overshadowed by its self-importance. Despite the impressive stunts and ambitious set pieces, the film’s connective tissue is awkward and lacks the nuance seen in previous installments. High on Films concluded that while The Final Reckoning is well-crafted, it falls short of the heights reached by other films in the franchise.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning promises to be a thrilling conclusion to the beloved franchise, though critics have mixed feelings about its execution.