May 27th, 2025

Right out of the gate we witness a shot across the bow of the “streaming giants.” Ethan Hunt pops in a VHS to play his usual opening parameters, hearkening back to the days of physical media, before tech juggernauts started to take over our film, television, and music diets. It’s an artifact of a bygone era, (much like Tom Cruise is) and it is being showcased at a time when we need it most. Hunt’s mission, should he choose to accept it, is one that involves putting oneself in the line of fire, not idly hacking into a mainframe from thousands of miles away. Even his hacker friends are not in his ear much, as the main antagonist of the film, an AI named The Entity, is capable of accessing any digital space. It can learn, listen, even mimic his team if they try to communicate online. No, the only way they can talk is by standing together, in the reality, and using their own blood, sweat, and sinew to fight for a better, more analog world.

The crew is the usual, Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), with Grace (Haley Atwell) returning, alongside Paris (Pom Klemintieff). Usually these movies infer that if you are friends with Ethan Hunt, then you will never die, but that notion is put to the test in this chapter. As Ethan Hunt works to stop The Entity we get a supporting cast that each gets a moment to shine as well, Hannah Waddingham as an aircraft carrier admiral, Trammel Tillman as a submarine captain, even the magnanimous Angela Bassett shows up to play The President of the United States. These cameos aren’t just cameos for the sake of it, this isn’t Marvel, this is cinema, and McQuarrie gives each performance its space.

So Ethan Hunt navigates the world, with the only pathway to defeat The Entity being through corporeal space. As he traverse he has to pass along messages to each person that helps him. But they can’t just email or call one another, The Entity can’t be notified of their plans. Instead any message of import is handed alongside a physical object. A handwritten letter, a watch, a coin, a knife, none of the history of these items is ever explained, but we feel the weight of each of them as the messenger hands it over, and again when the recipient stares at it in their hands. An email could never, much in the same way a vinyl makes an MP3 look childish, or a Criterion Blu-Ray makes a download on Amazon pale in comparison. Reality is what we’re fighting to save, and its the pathway by which we can save it.

The forces that work with The Entity are numerous, and they are in every shadow of our lives. We’ve seen the ways in which social media has lead to a rampant rise in fascist sympathies and ideas. Fake news, trolls, ragebait, doxxing, SWATting, if humanity is to survive, The Internet has to be destroyed. These dangers are echoed in Final Reckoning as Tom Cruise kicks a would be assassin yelling “YOU! SPEND! TOO! MUCH! TIME! ON THE INTERNET!” The film begs us to recoil from our future of AI written doom in front of Instagram reels and Tik Toks. Art can, and should be better than that.

Tom Cruise is admittedly an imperfect champion for anyone, let alone what someone might try to call reality. But when he’s climbing all over an airplane as it flies through the skies, his cheeks blowing in the wind, risking his life? It’s hard to argue too much with his methods. He’s out there doing it! While some might throw a green screen up, or simply cover themselves in ping pong balls to CGI the sequence in, he’s actually there.

Final Reckoning is also easily the sweatiest of the McQuarrie films. Things often don’t make a ton of sense logically, or feel what nerds might call “grounded in reality.” But the vibes of the picture, even amidst all the self serious talk of AI world domination, absolutely land. Whenever Tom Cruise decides to hang it up and stop risking his life for our amusement, the world will be a less interesting place. So please, run, don’t walk, to see Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in theaters. As Tom says, “It’s the way it’s meant to be seen.”

4.5/5