Movie Review: Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning & Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

Poster art for MI: The Final Reckoning

Released: 2023 & 2025

Watched on: BluRay and Theater

Genre: Action Spy Thriller

Posted age rating: PG-13

My Rating:  4/5 stars

I currently base my reviews loosely around the CAWPILE system developed by Book Roast on YouTube. I modify the categories depending on the format of the story I’m reviewing.

My star ratings are purely by my opinion and not measured by any particular metric.

SPOILER WARNING: This review will contain spoilers! Proceed with caution!

Summary

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

&

Our lives are the sum of our choices.

Characters

Ethan is Ethan. Luther is Luther. Ilsa is Ilsa. Always love Benji. They added a lot of new characters and I mean a lot. There’s the pickpocket, the assassin, the cop, the cultist, the traitors. They even brought back some way old characters, namely Kipling and the guy from the very first Mission Impossible (Dunloe). The  new guys are alright, but not quite as enthralling as the older characters were. Benji gets even more of a part, which I’m okay with because I love Benji. Ethan was even more intense than usual. And then there’s the Entity. Was it a compelling villain? Meh. It was okay. Even Gabriel wasn’t that compelling, almost a caricature of an extremist. I didn’t really get his motivation.

Atmosphere

So. Freaking. Intense. A little too much, honestly. It even turned into a horror movie at one point (if you don’t like underwater sequences, be warned). It did keep the movie moving, though.

Music

As good as every Mission Impossible movie. Nothing in particular stands out. Except! The music for the underwater scene. That, I do remember.

Plot

Again, it was very intense. A rogue AI called the Entity wants to destroy humanity, yada yada. It and Gabriel try time and again to put Ethan in a no-win scenario, but of course his is able to out-think it. We make some new friends and run into old ones. A couple of deaths that were very sad (Luther made me cry a little).

Intrigue

Will Ethan be able to think his way out of this one, or will he finally be forced to choose between his team and the world? It does keep it going and made the movie NOT feel like almost 3 hours.

Logic

There’s always a little leap of logic in these movies, but it’s done in such a way that you’re willing to accept it and move on.

Enjoyment and Final Thoughts

Overall, I did enjoy these two movies. It is a Mission Impossible story, and there’s a little bit of grace to be given since they are trying to end it once and for all. As mentioned before, it was very intense and it seems that the movies have been getting darker and darker for the last few and I find myself missing the levity they used to have.

This being the last one, I fully expected Ethan to die, but he didn’t.

Also, if they’d killed Benji, there would have been riots.

Would I Recommend It?

Yes, especially if you’ve watched all of the Mission Impossible movies. I’m being nick-picky because I’m writing a review, but I did like it. It was a little different than expected, but still a decent action movie.