Tom Cruise is back doing what he does best – running through chaos, dangling from impossible heights, and trying to save the world one explosive stunt at a time.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning marks the eighth and final entry in the beloved action series, and with its global theatrical release last week, fans and critics alike are weighing in on whether this swan song sticks the landing.
The final mission: high praise meets hard truths
From the get-go, the film delivers everything you expect from a Mission: Impossible movie: secret identities, exotic locales, and a driving score that never lets up. But while many fans are calling it a spectacular finale, others feel the movie is weighed down by its own ambition.
On social media platform X, one user raved: “#MissionImpossible the Final Reckoning is ONE OF THE BEST ACTION MOVIES & PEAK of Tom Cruise’s action career. The sum of all his stunt work have lead to this. Biplane stunt is the BEST STUNT I’VE EVER N. A 3 hour CINEMATIC FEAST for movie fans & LOVE LETTER TO THE FRANCHISE!!!” Another chimed in with a more specific moment of appreciation: “I will say despite all my issues with Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning there’s a line reading by Tramell Tillman that made me impulsively start clapping out of how perfect it was.” Another comment read, “MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING is exhilarating, suspenseful, and features some truly breathtaking sequences; the submarine one is right up there for best of the year. This one is definitely for the fans and your mission is to see it on the biggest screen possible!”
However, the praise isn’t universal. Some early viewers pointed to pacing issues and a story that didn’t quite hit the emotional or narrative highs of earlier entries. “I liked Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, didn’t love it. Strange editing choices, feels like things set up or established in the last one don’t fully pay off, uneven pacing, but man when the movie is working, there’s nothing else like it. The last half is fu**ing insane,” said one. Another claimed, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is too long & overstuffed to the point it’s boring at times. They drip fed the audience especially at the start. Lazy storytelling & questionable editing in places. The action of the final act is spectacular but it was too late.”
About the movie
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie and co-written with Erik Jendresen, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is the follow-up to 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One. It features the return of Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt alongside franchise regulars Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Czerny, and Angela Bassett. The story picks up the escalating threat from a rogue AI system known as the Entity and follows Hunt as he grapples with loyalty, trust, and the weight of his past decisions.
The Final Reckoning might not be the flawless goodbye some hoped for, but there’s no denying its ambition or the sheer scale of its action. For many fans, it’s a fitting tribute to an era of practical stunts and old-school espionage thrills. For others, it’s a film that needed tighter editing and a more focused story. What did you think about the movie?