Theaters: Ethan Hunt continues his mission to destroy the Entity while evading government agents and rogue assassins.

Release date May 23, 2025

The MPAA rated Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning PG-13 for sequences of strong violence and action, bloody images, and brief language

Run Time: 169 minutes

Despite the tortuous length of his last mission, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) still hasn’t been able to disable the megalomaniacal viral artificial intelligence known as the Entity. When we left our troubled hero in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Ethan had picked up both parts of the key that would allow him to steal the Entity’s source code from a sunken Russian submarine. He’s also got a little piece of malware, a last gift from the dying Luther (Ving Rhames), called the Poison Pill which, if he can attach it to the source code, will destroy the Entity for good. Speed is essential, because the Entity has started taking control of every nuclear weapon control system on the planet – but between the IMF, the CIA, and a couple of private interests who all want Ethan dead or imprisoned, success isn’t going to come easily.

Hey, remember my review for the first part of this duology? The one where I complained about the film repeatedly expositing its overly convoluted plot? Incredibly, this film does the exact same thing. Except now it has to explain the insane plot of the last film for an audience who indubitably forgot 90% of it and the plot of the movie you’re currently in - which also makes no sense, even by Mission Impossible standards. So there’s at least an hour of this flick that just beats you to death with heavy handed dialogue, most of which repeatedly reminds you that everything that’s happening is staggeringly stupid.

This bloated production also lumbers through what feels like another hour of flashbacks and flash-forwards. The flashbacks blitz you between every other installment of the franchise, plus the movie you’re currently watching, and then flashes forward to the parts of the movie you’re still waiting to see. I’m really not sure why director Christopher McQuarrie thought this was a good idea. The Mission Impossible movies already have zero tension since the franchise has established that the characters are all functionally immortal superbeings who can always stop a timer with one second left on it - so showing me in advance how things are going to pan out doesn’t solve that problem.

The other element of this three-hour atrocity against my free time is actually pretty good. It’s the standard Mission Impossible lunatic stunts, the kind of stuff that Tom Cruise loves to do in front of a camera to prove that he may be 62 years old, but he’s still way crazier than you. And, embarrassingly, in better shape. It’s fun, but it’s a little like nibbling the clean edge of a chocolate bar that’s two-thirds covered in mold.

Look, if you like the franchise and you don’t mind sitting through the sickly leftovers of the better entries in the franchise for the grand prize of watching a retirement-aged man risk his life, you’ll have a blast. I just can’t tolerate this kind of length, and this kind of bloat, for a plot that makes me feel like I have a concussion and a high fever at the same time.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Starring Tom Cruise, Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell. Running time: 169 minutes. Theatrical release May 23, 2025. Updated May 23, 2025

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for sequences of strong violence and action, bloody images, and brief language

Violence: Characters are shot, stabbed, blown up, thrown from fatal heights, suffer broken limbs, and threatened with torture. There are repeated scenes of physical combat. A character is treated to field surgery using a combat knife and a pen. A person’s dead body is seen with a cleaver stuck in his back (the death took place off screen.) Blood sprays out of a man’s face when he’s stabbed. Potential nuclear annihilation is a plot point.
Sexual Content: A woman’s breast is visible through a thin shirt and also during a fight scene.
Profanity: There are occasional uses of mild profanity and terms of deity. 
Alcohol / Drug Use: Adults are briefly seen drinking socially, and alcohol is used once as an anesthetic for impromptu surgery. 

Page last updated May 23, 2025