Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning Review + Ranking the Franchise
Tom Cruise Season Has Arrived
Memorial Day weekend has arrived to usher in another Summer Blockbuster season! In fact, this weekend will break the record for the highest grossing box office over a Memorial Day weekend EVER domestically (primarily thanks to the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch). Not too bad!
There are a few movies contributing to this record breaking weekend, but today we are focused on all things Mission Impossible.
The Mission Impossible franchise will always hold a special place in my heart because it’s the first time I realized the difference between good action movies and bad ones. Action movies have never been my favorite genre and before watching the Mission Impossible films, I often wondered if I just didn’t like the genre. Turns out, I didn’t hate all action movies, I just hated bad ones!
The quality in most of these films is A+ stuff. From the top notch performances to the stunt design to the clever scripts, the franchise is often running circles around most modern action movies.
Thus, I was quite excited to sit down and watch how they decided to end this beloved franchise.
I will start with my thoughts on the film (all spoiler free, so no worries if you haven’t seen it) & then give a full ranking of all 8 films in the franchise from worst to best (including the new film)!
Mission: Impossible Final Reckoning Review (Directed by Christopher McQuarrie)
Plot - “Ethan Hunt and the IMF team race against time to find the Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence that can destroy mankind.”
My thoughts - The franchise has always been at its best when it fully leans into the absurd action sequences & at its worst when it resorts to dialogue dumping to move the story forward.
Final Reckoning does much more of the latter than the former. It is carrying the burden of not only moving the story forward, but also trying to unnecessarily tie up every loose end in the whole franchise.
One of my favorite parts about Mission Impossible is how sparsely connected most of the movies are outside of a few recurring characters or villains. This franchise has never been the MCU where you have to do homework to understand what is happening or enjoy the movies. Yet, Final Reckoning tries so hard to tie a neat bow around everything that it abandons this core idea & in doing so, weighs down the entire film.
Almost the entire first hour of the film is spent rehashing the plot of Dead Reckoning & you can feel so clearly that these films should have been one long movie. It is a bit baffling to pander to those who haven’t seen Dead Reckoning inside of the exact same movie where you are doing small & random callbacks to many other previous films in the franchise. I don’t understand the choice at all. It was almost like they knew they were backed into a corner and felt the need to reintroduce a whole new set of stakes. There is more filler and fluff in Final Reckoning than maybe every other Mission Impossible film combined.
That said, there are two action set pieces that I would put up there as two of the best in the franchise. The biplane sequence that has been touted in the trailer plus a sunken submarine set piece are action filmmaking at its finest. Tramell Tillman also makes a 10 minute appearance in the film that reminds you of the energy newcomers used to bring to the franchise when they were introduced. A spark that feels lost with most of the other new additions to the film.
Aside from those two twenty minute action sequences, the movie really didn’t work for me. It’s a bad movie that ultimately gets labeled mediocre because of the two great action sequences that save the day. The amount of time spent on characters explaining the convoluted plot or rehashing old plot is enough to make your head explode. It felt like an entire 2 hours of the runtime was spent solely on dialogue.
Did they have to do less because Tom is just simply older & can’t do as many big stunts as he once did? Were they just that confident in this mess of a script & hoped the dialogue would make up for it? I’m not sure, but either way it’s a tough note to end the franchise on.
Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning are going to have interesting legacies because they have great sequences in them but really aren’t great movies. The whole franchise has been nothing but diminishing returns since Fallout.
Guess it’s easier said than done to go out on top! Great run by all involved, but I really hope this is actually the last one with this regime.
Rating - 3/5 (I have a strong feeling this will drop to a 2.5/5 if I ever watch it at home)
Should you see it in theaters? - If you have a deep relationship with the franchise, I think it is worth the trip to the theater. If you have no relationship to the franchise or even a surface level one, I would easily skip this one.
Mission Impossible Films Ranked
Ranking the Mission Impossible films almost feels like an impossible task (pun very much intended). While there are varying degrees of quality throughout the franchise, almost everyone has their personal favorites. Plus, there is really only one truly bad film in the franchise (some would have you believe there are none though & they would be wrong).
There aren’t too many lists where #1 through #5 could be mixed in any order & the ranking would be totally justified, so it makes this exercise a fun one. Just speaks to the power of these films and their enduring presence in the culture.
Without further ado, here is my ranking:
8. Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) (Directed by John Woo)
Thoughts - If you didn’t already know, this is the only bad film in the franchise that I referenced above. John Woo has a very signature style that he brings to the world of Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 2 & while there are those out there who love it, I am not one of those.
I am convinced that the film could be half an hour shorter if there was no slow motion used constantly throughout. Baffled at how bad this one is compared to the rest of the franchise.
Rating - 1.5/5
7. Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning (2025) (Directed by Christopher McQuarrie)
Thoughts - As I noted in my full review above, this is a really weak script that is propped up by two genuinely great action sequences. If this were a ranking of best set pieces in the franchise, the biplane and the submarine would be near the top. However, since this is a overall movie rankings, it is towards the bottom.
Maybe time is more favorable to this one, but for now it feels pretty locked into the #7 slot.
Rating - 3/5
6. Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
Thoughts - The highs are really high. Like how remarkably upsetting Phillip Seymour Hoffman is as the villain (He essentially makes this movie for me). Plus all of the Ethan & Julia’s relationship stuff really works for me. It’s not perfect, but it’s the first time you see Ethan’s humanity & sets up the future films in the franchise nicely.
The lows however are pretty low. Like how confounding the editing is throughout. There are multiple times where you have no idea what’s going on because of how disjointed the cutting is. Plus the whole thing looks like a generic TV movie. Oh & not to mention how frustrating it is that we literally never learn what the rabbits foot is. It’s a symbol of a major problem throughout the screenplay - there are far too many characters/moments that serve no purpose other than simply moving the story forward.
Still better than a lot of other action movies, but not Mission Impossible movies
Rating - 3/5
5. Mission: Impossible (1996) (Directed by Brian De Palma)
Thoughts - I am convinced that your relationship to the original Mission Impossible film depends solely on when you saw it for the first time. If you saw it at 14 in the theaters upon its release, this may be your favorite of the franchise. If you weren’t alive when the film came out & watched it almost 30 years later for the first time (me), it is a fun, yet flawed movie.
Great introduction to the world but doesn’t hold up near as well as those who feel in love as teenagers would have you believe.
Rating - 3.5/5
4. Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning (2023) (Directed by Christopher McQuarrie)
Thoughts - The only film in the franchise that seemed worse on a rewatch than it did on the first. The others seems to get better with each rewatch while this one moves in the opposite direction.
It feels like this is where the franchise starts declining. It still is better than most action movies made today, but you feel the seams on this one more than the previous McQuarrie films. The villain especially is weak. Maybe it isn’t even the villain being AI that I have a problem with as much as I think Gabriel is a really poor physical manifestation of the entity (compared to Lane for the Syndicate).
Still think the Rome car chase is an all timer & love the Venice stuff (even if they do my girl Rebecca Ferguson dirty). It felt like in-between set pieces this one is missing something to draw you in that other films had, can’t quite put my finger on it.
Rating - 3.5/5
3. Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011) (Directed by Brad Bird)
Thoughts - This is the film that supercharges the franchise in the right direction for me. The jump in quality from MI3 to this one feels quite jarring at times.
Cruise climbing the Burj Khalifa is the often noted set piece from this film, but it’s the sequence after the climb that is breathtaking for me. The scrambling to copy the codes while on two separate floors is a masterpiece in tension & action filmmaking that you grow to expect from the franchise. I also adore the Kremlin break in scene. The moving screen to conceal the break-in is the kind of creativity that sets the bar high in the franchise (which somehow gets continuously topped going forward).
The whole film gives the franchise a look & feel that sets it up for success going forward. The McQuarrie films probably don’t happen without this solid foundation - this one is almost a palette cleanser.
Rating - 4/5
2. Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) (Directed by Christopher McQuarrie)
Thoughts - If Ghost Protocol is the film that supercharges the creativity & action filmmaking of the franchise, Rogue Nation is the film that supercharges the casting of the franchise.
Ferguson feels like the first person who brings the same energy & charisma to the franchise that Cruise does (and no, I’m not counting Hoffman in MI3 because he was a poorly written villain only opposite Cruise on screen for a few minutes). It takes a special person to go toe to toe with Cruise during action sequences & it’s something they finally get right with Ferguson. Léa Seydoux gets them on the right track in Ghost Protocol, but Ferguson is a home run.
We also get the best villain of the franchise in Solomon Lane. Hoffman gives the best performance as a villain in MI3, but Solomon Lane feels much more fully realized & authentic. Terrifyingly authentic. He’s a much better physical representation of the syndicate than Gabriel is of the entity.
It also finds a way to build on the action filmmaking & creativity of Ghost Protocol with possibly my favorite set piece in the franchise, the opera fight. A legendary sequence that is impeccably edited. That scene & the closing motorcycle chase automatically make it better than 95% of action films.
Rating - 4.5/5
1. Mission: Impossible Fallout (2018)(Directed by Christopher McQuarrie)
Thoughts - The film in the franchise where everything comes together. It somehow takes everything individually great about the previous installments & blends it together. As if that isn’t enough, it somehow finds a way to dial it up a few notches in every single area.
It takes casting to new heights with the additions of Vanessa Kirby & Henry Cavil. These new additions to the foundation of Cruise & Ferguson is *chefs kiss* in casting. The way Kirby holds the screen when she’s opposite Cruise is remarkably captivating & sexy. And of course Cavil giving the best performance of his movie career.
It also does the impossible & one ups the action filmmaking of Rogue Nation with essentially banger sequence after banger sequence for 2.5 hours. From the Halo jump to the bathroom fight to the Vanessa Kirby meetup/nightclub shootout to the Lane extraction to the helicopter battle it is all so so good.
Little did we know at the time that this would be the apex mountain of the franchise! In fact, it doesn’t just take the franchise to new heights, but also action filmmaking.
Rating - 4.5/5
That is all for now. Enjoy the holiday weekend!
Let me know in the comments what your ranking of the films would be.
Until next time, enjoy some great films!
Aaron Nolan
I’d put 1 a little higher and 7 is easily the 2nd worse of the franchise (I haven’t seen 8) but generally in agreement with your comments
and ranking.
I shied away from this series for so long due to enjoying the original show and hearing the movies were pretty different. A friend convinced me to watch Dead Reckoning together in the theater and I was surprised by how fun it was. I enjoyed reading through your ranking (and review)! I'll have to keep some of those comments in mind when going through the rest of the series. Aside from 2, would you say all of them are worth watching?