For nearly 30 years, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt has been the only man alive who can save the world again and again. His skills have defined the Mission: Impossible saga, but as the franchise matured, it turned to the question of what happens when Ethan doesn’t get it totally right.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning shook the IMF agent’s resolve by pitting him against an antagonist who seemed to know his every move. The sentient AI known as the Entity won’t rest until it’s taken Ethan and his team off the board for good, and their first brush with the program was suitably devastating. That struggle will continue in the second part of the “Reckoning” duology, The Final Reckoning, and based on its first trailer, this may be the last mission Ethan ever completes.
Formerly known by the mouthful that was Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two, The Final Reckoning sees Ethan Hunt facing a true full-circle moment. His long-standing objective — to protect his loved ones and save the world — has created an insurmountable obstacle in the form of the Entity. The AI knows Ethan’s past, present, and future, along with his biggest weakness, and it plans to leverage all of that to reshape the world... whatever that entails.
“For every life you try to save, you gamble millions more,” explains Gabriel (Esai Morales), the Entity’s human liaison. “Now the fate of every living soul on earth is your responsibility.” Whether Ethan can fall back on old strategies is one of The Final Reckoning's biggest mysteries. If its title is any indication, however, Ethan may have to break his patterns to save the day. He might even have to sacrifice himself to complete his “ultimate objective,” which would be a dour if fitting way to end Cruise’s tenure with the Impossible Mission Force.
The Final Reckoning may not just be the end for Ethan, but the end of the saga as we know it, as it’s difficult to imagine more M:I without its leading man. There’s no doubt the franchise will go out with a bang, but if this is the final mission, we’ll just have to choose to accept it.
