Even after several days, I find it challenging to comprehend the development process of this film. As I mentally rewind each scene, revisiting the events, nothing clicks: I can’t grasp how such an endeavor could fail so spectacularly. How could an installment of the Mission Impossible series—especially one billed as Ethan Hunt’s swan song—reach such a creative impasse? What was going through the minds of Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie? The blame is shared, and it would be dishonest to point fingers at one without the other. To be candid, Mission Impossible 8: The Final Reckoning stands as my greatest cinematic disappointment of 2025. It’s a blow, not the kind that awakens, but one that leaves a bitter taste of bewilderment. Understanding this letdown is crucial, so let’s delve into how a project so ambitious, with a $400 million budget, ended up producing a film so dull…
Who would have thought a Mission Impossible movie could fall short this much? The narrative is confusing, the pacing sluggish, the direction lacks inspiration, and the editing is overly fragmented. The verdict is harsh but undeniably accurate. Out of nearly three hours of screening, only two sequences truly stand out. One of them—the now-famous bi-plane chase over South Africa—salvages some dignity but doesn’t justify the 2 hours and 40 minutes preceding it. Yes, the scene is technically impressive, even breathtaking, but when spectacle is confined to ten minutes in a $400 million feature, the imbalance is alarming.
To understand the failure, we must revisit Dead Reckoning Part 1, released in 2023. Initially, the films were intended to form a two-part series, shot consecutively. However, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this schedule, fragmenting the shoot and enforcing a production hiatus. The result: a second installment stripped of its original momentum, trapped in an irrecoverable narrative isolation. Blaming the pandemic alone would be too easy. Dead Reckoning Part One already showed signs of fatigue: a bewildering plot, a caricatured antagonist (the AI), and a blundering marketing strategy that gave away the best scenes upfront. The infamous motorcycle jump? It was overexposed on social media three years before the film’s release. Aware of the disappointment caused by the first part, Tom Cruise and McQuarrie attempted to overhaul the sequel. The “Part 2” label was dropped in favor of The Final Reckoning’s evocative yet misleading title. For nowhere in the film is an actual conclusion presented, despite the promotional campaign’s insistent refrain: “I need you to trust me one more time”. This omission might almost be forgivable if the result had lived up to expectations. But it doesn’t.
The core issue is pacing. Poorly managed and conceived, it plunges the audience into a trance that no scene manages to break. For an hour and a half, the movie stagnates in heavy-handed dialogue, set in soulless office environments, reiterating AI dilemmas already exhaustively explored in the previous film. This laborious retelling is symptomatic of a script unsure of its direction. From the outset, it’s clear that instead of tightening the stakes to effectively conclude the saga, the story further entangles itself in the narrative chaos inherited from the first part. Characters from 30 years ago, whose relevance has long faded, reappear, others contribute little, the main antagonist, Gabriel, loses interest as we learn he no longer works for the Entity, the super AI capable of shaking the world, reduced to an incidental villain. The choice of AI as the antagonist promised a thought-provoking narrative, reflecting some of the excellent ideas of the previous film, but here, the AI is reduced to a few interfaces, a sarcophagus with a connected mask, and a large hard drive waiting to be hacked. We are far from the ominous threat the subject of AI could have been. The Matrix can rest easy.
RÉAUMUR-SÉBASTOPOL
Amid this drawn-out narrative, a couple of sequences manage to stand out: the abyssal dive through Arctic ice, followed by a glider escape over South Africa. The entire sequence in the submarine, Le Sébastopol, is reasonably executed, though overly lengthy for its intended purpose. Ethan Hunt navigates from room to room as the submarine starts to tip over and time runs short, but the danger never feels real. He’s faced greater perils before, making his struggle in a submarine unexciting. Worse, the film delves into absurd narrative choices, such as Ethan Hunt having to remove his suit to crawl through a duct. We understand Ethan Hunt is an exceptional agent, but being at the bottom of the abyss in freezing water, stripping to swim trunks without fear, and removing his mask without considering decompression risks—as well as surfacing exactly where expected—pushes believability. Yes, he had his GPS beacon, but this narrative convenience is eyebrow-raising.
The final action scene set in the stunning South African landscape remains memorable. The moment is both majestic and dizzying, with Tom Cruise offering vertiginous thrills once more. Technically, it is flawless, showcasing an aerial dance where he leaps from one plane to another, his body suspended in midair, demonstrating Tom Cruise’s commitment to authenticity in his daring pursuits. Especially at the age of 62. Another major flaw is the near absence of teamwork. Where the series thrived on the synergy of secondary characters, The Final Reckoning sidelines them, overshadowed by Tom Cruise’s narrative ego. The poster itself makes no secret: everything pivots around him. He still impresses physically, but this pursuit of personal triumph eventually eclipses everything else.
As you can see, Mission Impossible 8 left us greatly disappointed. We expected a spectacle, but received a sparkler. The Final Reckoning focuses too much on one man, Tom Cruise, leaving others to fade behind his aura. Most disappointingly, it’s the tedium that permeates it. It feels like the film’s structure resembles a sleep loop, as if it’s reluctant to end, or more cruelly, refuses to entertain. We hoped to commend audacity, ambition, and the drive to close the saga grandly, but The Final Reckoning evokes a sense of a system operating on empty, a film trying to condense everything while saying nothing. It’s a pot of clichés composed of leftover elements from previous installments, hoping the mix would work. But it doesn’t. The occasional bursts of energy fail to mask the overall lethargy. What a shame…
OUR SCORE: 5/10
