It’s not exactly been the best month in the century-old history of Paramount. Within the past 30 days, both the executive producer of 60 MINUTES and his boss left the building, there is still no official completion of its merger with Skydance as the events surrounding that departure keep it in limbo, senators are literally begging them to keep fighting and Norm Peterson pulled up a stool in eternity’s pub. Suffice to say morale around the company has likely seen better days.
So the jubilation and excitement surrounding the release of the eighth and final(?) installment of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE theatrical franchise, appropriately dubbed FINAL RECKONING, was likely as much catharsis as it was celebration. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS’ Jake Coyle detailed last week exactly how much the once and current savior of The Rock was received amongst the industry elite:
Three years after flying into the Cannes Film Festival with “Top Gun: Maverick,” Tom Cruise again kicked up a storm on the Croisette with Wednesday’s premiere of “Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning.”
Christopher McQuarrie’s latest “Mission: Impossible” installment was the biggest Hollywood tentpole wading ashore in Cannes this year. It, and Cruise, stirred a frenzy at the French Riviera festival, which again played eager host to the American movie star. Just his arrival outside the premiere, beamed onto the screen in the Grand Théâtre Lumière, drew a response. When Cruise stepped out his car, oohs and applause reverberated through the theater. Cruise spent several minutes signing autographs for fans lined up on the Croisette.
“To be here in Cannes and have these moments, as a kid when we were growing up, I really can’t even dream about something like this happening,” Cruise said, addressing the audience. “I’m very grateful for 30 years to be able to entertain you with this franchise.”
Cruise is unquestionably the brightest star in the Paramount galaxy, and his recent resurrection of the TOP GUN franchise far and away the biggest infusion of cash and IP value that the beleaguered company has seen this decade. So that history, along with the timing of FINAL RECKONING’s release, has raised the level of hope for similar success more than a few notches.
The good news is, for the most part, it’s delivering on the creative front. VARIETY’s Owen Gleiberman was especially gushy with his review:
In the don’t-try-this-at-home climax of “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” the thrillingly doom-laden last chapter of the “M:I” series, Tom Cruise does something you expect — he’s featured in the kind of elaborate stunt sequence that’s become this 30-year-old series’ trademark — but he also does something you may not expect. He tops himself in the most outrageous way. He literally flies beyond all the stunts he’s done before, leaving us in an exhilarated state of awe.
Cruise, as the unstoppable IMF agent Ethan Hunt, is trying to catch up with Gabriel (Esai Morales), the film’s serviceably sinister villain, who wants to gain control of the Entity, the film’s apocalyptic projection of artificial intelligence and everything it’s capable of — like initiating global nuclear war, just because it can. Hanging around Gabriel’s neck is the digital “poison pill” created by Ving Rhames’ tech wizard Luther. If Ethan can get his hands on that device and slip it into the Podkova (a gadget the size of a cell phone that contains the Entity’s source code), he can trigger the end of the Entity’s power. The two men are in primitive propeller biplanes. Gabriel is flying a yellow-and-black one, and Ethan…well, he has climbed aboard a red one with a bad-guy pilot, and as the planes zoom through a sunlit canyon and then out into the open air, he attempts to gain control of it. This means walking on the wing and dangling from a thin bar and wriggling his way from the passenger seat into the cockpit, all while the plane is rocketing forward.
THE GUARDIAN’s Peter Bradshaw weighed in with similar thoughts from the other side of the pond:
Final Reckoning is a new and ultimate challenge (actually the second half of the challenge from the previous film) which takes Cruise’s buff and resourceful IMF leader Ethan Hunt on one last maverick, deniable mission to exasperate and yet overawe his stuffed-shirt superiors at Washington and Langley. And what might that be? To save the world of course, like all the other missions. t is a wildly silly, wildly entertaining adventure which periodically gives us a greatest-hits flashback montage of the other seven films in the M:I canon – but we still get a brand new, box-fresh Tom-sprinting-along-the-street scene, without which it wouldn’t be M:I. Moreover, this eighth film gives us a terrific new character, US sub commander Capt Bledsoe, played with suavity and the tiniest hint of camp by Tramell Tillman (from TV’s Severance) who has the chops for M:I9 whenever that happens.
And then there are these little nugget from MEN’S JOURNAL’s Ryan Britt which appeared out of nowhere yesterday which someone of my vintage and history with the franchise found particularly noteworthy:
(T)here’s actually a much deeper cut embedded in The Final Reckoning that predates the Cruise era. In one scene, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) learns that one rival agent has a secret name. And this revelation not only ties back to the 1996 movie, but also reboots two classic characters from the original Mission: Impossible TV series. Early in the movie, when Hunt is brought in by US agents, he realizes that enemy agent Briggs (Shea Whigham) secretly has a different, real name. He is actually Jim Phelps Jr., the son of Jon Voight’s character in the first Mission: Impossible movie. In that film, Mr. Phelps was a traitor to the IMF, but the concept of Jim Phelps as the leader of the IMF doesn’t come from the 1996 movie. As played by Peter Graves, Jim Phelps was the hero of the IMF in the original Mission: Impossible series, which ran from 1966 to 1973. Graves took on the role in Season 2 in 1967 and remained the star and primary protagonist of the show until the end.
However, when Shea Whigham showed up as “Briggs” in 2023’s Dead Reckoning: Part 1, we should have all noticed that the Easter egg to his true identity was hiding in plain sight. And that’s because the name “Briggs” references Mr. Phelps’ predecessor on the original Mission: Impossible. Before Peter Graves took over as the star of the show, Season 1 of Mission: Impossible had a different IMF leader, Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill. When Hill declined to return for Season 2, Graves became Phelps, Briggs was out, and history was made.
Well, that sounds more than enticing enough to potentially drag a few carcasses into theatres. But at least at this writing, delivering on that particular mission has been a bit less successful as how Hunt performs in the movie itself, as KOIMOI’s Esita Mallik observed earlier this morning:
Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning collected $2 million more than Fallout, released in 2018, and $1 million higher than Dead Reckoning Part One [2023]. Check out their respective preview numbers below.
- Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning (2025) – $8 million
- Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) – $7 million
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) – $6 million
The film is expected to collect between $60 million and $70 million in its three-day weekend. Meanwhile, MI8 is expected to collect $70-$85 million in its four-day Memorial Day Weekend, the franchise’s biggest four-day opening.
But put that up against another franchise reinvigoration that hit theatres this weekend and the news is a bit more sobering, as GOLD DERBY’s Denton Davidson shared:
Lilo & Stitch now holds the record for the year’s highest preview numbers as it chases down Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie to become the biggest movie of 2025 (so far). The live-action remake of Disney’s 2002 animated film is on track for a massive $150 million-plus opening weekend. Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, Lilo & Stitch snagged $14.5 million in previews.
Which makes the views expressed by TIME’s Stephanie Zacharek all the more noteworthy:
Cruise genuinely thinks he can save cinema. His optimism is touching, if unrealistic. But as hard as he, and we, might wish it could be so, Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning—directed by franchise veteran Christopher McQuarrie, who also cowrote the script—isn’t the kind of movie that will save movies. It’s big, extravagant, and at times very beautiful to look at. If you’ve seen the first half of this double whammy, 2023’s conveniently titled Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, but forgotten what the hell it was all about, you needn’t worry. You could queue up Final Reckoning at home, go out to walk the dog, and get caught up in a snap when you return. And how cinematic is that?
Considering Cruise’s alliance with Skydance, assuming that sanity somehow prevails he will undoubtedly emerge in some way, shape or form with whatever becomes of Paramount moving forward, and as Coyle noted even though on the record this appears to be a coda and victory lap for MI he;s certainly teasing all of us with some delicious possibilities to the contrary:
Cruise’s surprise appearance allowed the 62-year-old star a moment to reflect on his 30 years with “Mission: Impossible.” As to whether “Final Reckoning” is a last hurrah for him, he demurred, calling it “the culmination of three decades of work.”
And he and his business partner further observed they seem to have still more missions in mind:
Cruise and McQuarrie, as they did around the release of “Top Gun: Maverick” (which McQuarrie co-wrote and produced), have made themselves passionate pitchmen for the big-screen experience. McQuarrie on Wednesday granted: “I worry for the fate and survival of cinema.” “Streaming is in danger of driving the industry into extinction,” said McQuarrie.
Perhaps if they follow the lead of what this weekend’s audiences are telling them they might be open to getting a little help in their quixotic quest from the world of animation. Anyone for Special Agent Chase?
Until next time…