150 Word Review: 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' (2025)

A good run

Photo: Paramount Pictures

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning isn't the worst installment in Tom Cruise's blockbuster franchise, which was born in 1996 (a Zillennial!). It's the second worst. And, Xenu willing, the last.

The Final Reckoning’s first hour is slow; the next hour and fifty minutes are frenetic. The villain is ChatGPT on steroids. The movie is a buffet of Mission: Impossible leftovers and a couple of stunts that push the boundaries from "Cool! How did they do that?" to "Sweet Jesus, is he trying to kill himself!"

Cruise's eighth outing as super-spy Ethan Hunt has been critically pooh-poohed, so here's some positive feedback: Cruise is in full "rage against the dying of the light" mode here. There is an underlying sadness throughout The Final Reckoning, a sense of loss—a long goodbye. Cruise is getting older, and so are you. The climactic aerial action scene is almost Freudian, a real-life dance with death.

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