Trust in the Mission: Impossible series that, when it does cave fully into self-indulgence, it does so with the fatalistic pomp of Wagner’s Ring cycle. It’s hard to say, in an industry where money decides, whether The Final Reckoning will be the last time we see Tom Cruise’s IMF operative Ethan Hunt. But if this is our final farewell, we’ve at least gone out with demonstrable proof that he is, as Alec Baldwin’s character once described in 2015’s Rogue Nation, “the living manifestation of destiny”.
The Final Reckoning is inherently absurd. It also reaches such highs that it’s hard to really be that bothered. It’s the sort of lumbering titan that feels perfectly fitting, as reportedly the fourth most expensive film ever made. We kick off with the implication that Hunt, in his continuing efforts to defeat the all-powerful AI known as The Entity (the film was originally conceived as part two to 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One), is primed and ready to lead what Frank Herbert would call, in his novel Dune, the Butlerian Jihad, the eradication of all thinking machines.
