Lamar Reviews - Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (Airdate 5/30/2025)

If you’ve been following my movie reviews for the last almost 30 years, you are aware that I have a complicated relationship with Tom Cruise. The first complication is that Tom Cruise has no idea of our relationship, and the second one is his

Hi-ra-grif-ically inconceivable connection with scientology. But in spite of that, when the cameras are rolling, this fool is movie magic! He gives it his full 100%.

I have loved every one of the Mission Impossible movies and could not wait for this one. Just for the record this franchise has made over $4 billion at the box office.

This is the 8^th film of the franchise and the second half of the 7^th film Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, and if you believe what they are saying, the last of the Mission Impossible movies. Which makes me really sad.

The film treats us to several flashbacks early in the movie to not only catch you up, but to remind you of bits of the earlier movies, as well as the people that Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt has loved and lost. One of the long running threads that connects all of these movies is the lengths that Ethan is willing to go and the risks he will take to protect his team and the people he loves. That not only includes risking the country, but in this instance the entire human race.

Picking up where the last movie left off, Ethan and the team are tracking down villain Gabriel, played gleefully by Esai Morales, but who is working for the real villain The Entity, an artificial intelligence that has infiltrated the internet and is going to destroy the world and humanity as we know it.

Ethan is tasked with the most impossible mission ever by the President, played by Angela Bassett. None of her staff agree with her decision including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is played by Nick Offerman from the office. It actually took me quite a few seconds to recognize him without the beard. But when the world hangs in the balance, and only one man can save it, who better than Ethan Hunt?

It is the longest Mission Impossible yet at, 2 hours and 49 minutes, Rated PG-13 for strong violence and action, bloody images and some language. Could it have been a little shorter? Yes. Do I wish it had been any shorter? No.

To keep the PG-13 one of the fight scenes that would have been the bloodiest happens completely off-screen. We hear the fight, which sounds horrific, but all we actually see is one of the characters’ shocked reactions to what happened, the rest is left to your imagination.

As you would expect there are a couple of stunt scenes that of course Cruise does himself that one will leave you gasping for air, and the other white knuckling the arm rest.

My high expectations were met and exceeded. This one makes me want to go back and watch all of them again. They keep saying Top Gun 3 is coming, and I can’t wait. Tom, still saving you a seat on the J-Team bus.

My Score: A Full 6 pack of Ice Cold Budweisers