Nearly 30 years after Tom Cruise first stepped into the role of Ethan Hunt in the original Mission: Impossible film, the franchise reaches its climax with a grand finale that premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival. From the outset, the film leans into nostalgia, opening with a montage of clips from across the series, a reminder of Hunt’s long and dangerous journey through decades of world-saving missions.
Picking up directly from 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One, this final chapter continues Hunt’s battle against the Entity, a powerful artificial intelligence threatening global destruction. Armed with a crucifix-shaped key that could unlock the AI’s source code, Hunt is urged by the President, played by Angela Bassett, to surrender it for the good of humanity. True to form, he chooses another path, setting out on a perilous mission to access a sunken Russian submarine where the Entity’s origin lies.
Hunt is once again joined by his loyal allies: tech wizard Luther (Ving Rhames), the witty Benji (Simon Pegg), skilled pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell), and the fierce Paris (Pom Klementieff). The film delivers on its reputation for international scale, moving briskly through exotic locations including Austria, the Arctic, and South Africa.
New faces add fresh energy, with Tramell Tillman and Hannah Waddingham portraying military figures aiding Hunt’s cause. However, the main antagonist, Gabriel (Esai Morales), lacks the depth and menace of previous villains. Unlike Sean Harris’s Solomon Lane in Rogue Nation and Fallout, Gabriel feels underdeveloped, with his role mostly sidelined until the film’s climax.
Tom Cruise once again performs his own stunts, including a tense underwater sequence and an aerial chase involving vintage biplanes. While these scenes are impressive, they don’t quite match the iconic set pieces of earlier films. Still, director Christopher McQuarrie crafts thrilling action with precision, and Cruise, now 62, remains a magnetic presence on screen.
Narratively, the film takes some liberties, revisiting and reshaping earlier plots to tie everything together in a grand conclusion. At nearly three hours, the heavy exposition slows the pace at times. Despite that, the film provides a fitting farewell to one of cinema’s most enduring action heroes, allowing Ethan Hunt a dignified and emotional final curtain call.
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