Tom Cruise — Hollywood’s last true action hero and our most committed insurance liability — closes out the Mission: Impossible saga with The Final Reckoning. It’s a sprawling, frequently thrilling, occasionally messy chapter that mostly sticks the landing. It’s not the franchise’s finest hour, but it’s strong enough to remind us why these films matter — and why Cruise remains cinema’s biggest star.
The familiar setup is given a timely jolt: Ethan Hunt and the IMF team must stop a rogue A.I. known as the Entity from seizing control of the world’s nuclear systems. The key to stopping it lies with the Podkova, a module stuck in a sunken Russian submarine, which Hunt is forced to retrieve at the behest of his old adversary Gabriel (Esai Morales), who seeks control of the Entity’s source code. Add Grace (Hayley Atwell), a thief turned quasi-agent, some doomsday cultists, and a healthy dose of CIA double-dealing, and you’ve got a global chase stitched together by stunts, gadgets, and Cruise’s bravado.
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