MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 8: The Final Reckoning Ending Explained, Full Movie Breakdown & Spoiler Review

Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers Show I'm your host Paul and in this video we're breaking down Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning. The new movie is now here and it seemingly brings a close to Ethan Hunt's journey. Initially labelled Dead Reckoning Part 2 it's thought they changed this due to the box office of Part 1. I think this title probably fits that better though as this will apparently be the last time we see Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt but does it live up to the promise and send the franchise off on a high note. Well throughout this video we'll be going through it all and discussing our thoughts on the movie. If you enjoy it your mission is to hit the thumbs up if you accept it and make sure you subscribe for videos like this every week. With that out of the way though thank you for clicking this. Now let's get into Mission Impossible. Okay so the film continues the journey from last time with Ethan Hunt trying to shut down the evil AI known as the Entity. Casting your mind back to Part 1 we watch the driving force of this film. There's a stealth submarine known as the Sevastopol which was operating with the Entity on board. This then became sentient and destroyed the sub so it would crash somewhere in the optic. Activated by a two piece cruciform key this would give potentially control of the core. The first part ended with Hunt managing to retrieve the two pieces and delaying the Entity's agent Gabriel. Now cast out he wishes to gain control of the AI so he can rule the world. Since then it's infiltrated almost all aspects of every network on earth and is even worshipped like a god. It's followers are known as the Apostles and there's lots of religious imagery laced throughout. There's of course the keys but we have the Apostles, phrases like it was written, the Saint Christopher, mention of Noah's Ark and even Gabriel who's cast out like a Lucifer. Now he's desperate to get Hunt to steal a device known as the Podova which will give him access to the core. As it turns out the core module of the Entity is actually the rabbit foot from Part 3. It's all connected. Back then Benji brought up how it was the anti-god that could end everything. Just in the same way that Hunt stole it to save the woman he loved, Gabriel now wants Hunt to do a similar thing to save Grace. Though she gets out of it straight away. As for the Entity it wants to unleash atomic weapons that will destroy all of mankind. There's the potential it could wipe itself out though and thus it needs to be uploaded to a digital bunker. Now the wild card is a little device known as the Poison Pill. Developed by Luther this will act as malware and allow the one who holds it to control the AI. When combined with the Podova, Gabriel ends up stealing this from Luther and he then sets up a scenario that leads to his death. Leaving him with a nuke to disarm below London, Luther's able to remove the atomic side of it. However the blast from the detonators alone will kill him and thus he dies in the explosion. It's a pretty big way to kickstart the movie and it was really sad seeing the guy who's been there since the beginning die. There's lots of nods to that initial movie though including a big reveal with Briggs. Yes Briggs is actually Jim Phelps son who's called Jim Phelps Jr. Now in the original 60s show there was a character called Dan Briggs who it was thought this character was named after. That show also featured Jim Phelps who of course went on to be the first film's villain. Which apparently caused some contention amongst the fans upon it's release. How it plays into this though is that Briggs is Phelps' son who's had a vendetta against Hunt because of the death of his father. The movie is all about misinformation, finding out what the truth is and Phelps believes that his dad was framed and that Hunt was the villain. I do think this doesn't add that much in the end though and yeah I kinda wish we got like a major scene where Briggs had Hunt in the crosshairs and then decided to help him. Which is sort of how they used to guess who is his ex-partner. We also have Don Lowe who was the CIA analyst we met in the first film. Exiled to an island to basically edit screencrush videos he's been monitoring things along with his wife. Now one of the big things that wasn't revealed in Dead Reckoning is that the Sevastopol actually sunk in 2012. During this time Don Lowe noticed the explosion and mentally made a note of the coordinates. Cary Elwes, the guy from last time, he then arrived shortly after and destroyed all the information involving the sub. However Ethan manages to get these coordinates and after finding the sub he gets to the Padova. It's an excellent scene in which I think they do some of the best underwater stuff ever put to film. The constant rolling of the sub, the curveballs, yeah some of the best things they've ever done in the franchise. Hunt manages to escape and though he drowns he's then revived by Grace. However things are heating up in the world. America is worried that they have to strike with their nukes in order to avert destruction themselves. The entity is close to gaining control and thus President Sloane stands on the night bench. Sloane is once more played by Angela Bassett who returns from earlier in the franchise. This kicks things up a notch and I think in isolation this stuff alone would have made it's own really gripping political thriller. It's like some 12 angry men, Dr Strange love but serious thing where people in a room decide the fate of the world. Ultimately she goes against launching anything though and attempts to take the arsenal offline. This would have stopped the entity from gaining control of their nukes but unfortunately they did it too late. Thus everything rests on Ethan's shoulders. Hunt then enacts his final plan to isolate the entity on a physical drive. Described as putting the genie back in the bottle he travels out to South Africa. Waiting for him is Gabriel who reveals another nuke. Demanding the put over, Kittredge then arrives who wants the US to gain control of the AI. Capturing Gabriel and Hunt, the former's allies then arrive and this causes a shootout. During this Hunt chases after Gabriel in a plane while the inside team try and trap the entity. Benji's shot, Don Lowe's got to disarm the nuke with his waifu, just hilarious seeing this sweet little old lady alongside all this insane ---- going on and she doesn't really bat an eyelid. I wanna see her parachuting. I wanna see a bungee jump in. Either way Hunt chases Gabriel in the plane and clambers onto it mid air to get the poison pill. It's an incredible chase scene that has him constantly switching seats, dealing with stuff on the wings, hanging from the bottom and yeah it's just mental. Managing to push Gabriel off mid air he then gets killed when he hits the plane's rudder. Hunt then escapes and uses a second parachute which allows him to upload the entity. In the blink of an eye, expert pickpocket Grace snatches it as it's in the drive and thus it's isolated from the server. Upon landing the pill plays a final message from Luther in which he talks about fate and free will. Luther surmises that as long as you keep trying, keep pushing and keep going you'll see your destiny manifest. It's a great farewell from the character and it sums up Ethan as a whole, rather than things being written we can always make a choice. He is someone who will work in the shadows so others can see the light and give up his life so others have theirs. In the end Phelps shakes his hand which pretty much sums up the theme of the movie. Whether it's the nukes from all the countries, the different point of views, this film's all about people coming together. One of the things that the entity doesn't want people to do is work together and by keeping them divided it's able to gain control. The only way to beat it is to come together and do what it doesn't expect which is for everyone to hit the thumbs up. It's truly about working as one and doing what's best for each other instead of trying to destroy ourselves. Which I think this handshake at the end cements. It goes from like a regular one into more of a grip and shows people coming together even though they hated each other at one point. Well Phelps did anyway. We then close out with the team meeting back up in London. Grace gives Ethan the entity which he takes off to places unknown. Said throughout the movie to be the only person who could be entrusted with it, he will now guard over it. Now there were rumours that they had different versions of the movie and one of these versions actually had Ethan dying during the biplane fall. Instead of the second parachute deploying he'd plummet to the ground and end up brown bread. Now though I've spoken to people who are like yeah he should have died and put a lid on the franchise I think it would have been a weird thing to play out with the confines In terms of this tale I actually prefer the version where Ethan guards the entity rather than it being left to either of the team who would be left anyway. However because of that I'm not sure it truly closes the book on the series and I could see them making a film directly after this no problem at all. It's like basically the same ending as a lot of the other ones with Ethan walking off and yeah he's done that in a couple of films and I'm surprised that they didn't put a lid on it with this being pushed as the last one. Like Tom Cruise yeah he seems addicted to doing this stuff and I even have a theory that Tom Cruise is the mask and the real face is Ethan Hunt and he's basically just using these films as a way to do insane stunts all the time. Whether he can take a step back from it I don't know but I feel like they purposely left it ambiguous because if they want to do more down the line then that door's always open. As for a final film though I don't know if that necessarily goes off feeling like one and yeah I can easily see where it's like we have another one coming. Now if you love movies then definitely check out our merch store below the video. We've just dropped our brand new Predator themed shirt to line up with our breakdown series on the franchise. We also have our Thunderbolts Thundercats inspired one and our Ando one for the finale. We currently have a sale where if you buy 3 you get 20% off so go check them out below. Thank you. Now as for my thoughts on the movie I think it's interesting to kind of view this in two different ways. Well three really. The first is as a standalone film. The second is as a sequel to Dead Reckoning and the third is a culmination of the Mission Impossible franchise. Though I'm a big Bond head there was a time during the Craig era where I thought Tom had taken the crown of the Spy King around MI3 and the movie sort of became what the Bond films used to be. Not saying that he was like oh he's better than all the other Bond films but there was a time where I was like yep Tom is the future. They were big fun action films filled with gadgets and a fast pace that kept you on your toes. I do feel like the series has slowly gotten a little self serious though and sometimes it's bordered on being overly melodramatic. I really enjoyed Dead Reckoning the first time I watched it but on multiple viewings I thought the pace was a bit weird and it was probably overly long. There's like 20 minutes after the train collapse where they kind of just talk through stuff and yeah I think this movie sort of suffers from someone not controlling the narrative with a very tight grip. This needed some editing and some of the fat trimmed off it. When the film was being put together it was said they shot a lot without a script and they were mainly focused on the action scenes. Which you can understand because there's some massive moments in it. Unfortunately what this leads to is some of the most exposition heavy poorly put together dialogue scenes that I've ever seen in a spy film. Possibly ever. I'm really conflicted because again the action is excellent but I think the dialogue and script are bafflingly bad at points. There's so many, like so many side characters that are introduced purely to explain what the MacGuffins are and what the plan is. These scenes are often shot with Ethan in the room where there's three people and then one person will say a line, then the next person will be at a different angle saying the following from that line and then someone else will continue the next part of the sentence. Then another person over here. It's not how people talk mate. People talk over each other. They don't wait until it's their turn to speak and then deliver the next thing that they were just about to say to that other person. And this happens a lot in the film and it's like the movie doesn't think you're smart enough to keep up with what's going on and it needs to hit you over the head over and over and over again. I don't need the Padova explained to me for the third time in 30 minutes mate. We also have the constant cuts to previous movies and I really think that was the worry that people wouldn't understand the story. And to be honest, the story is actually really simple and straightforward. Go to the sub, steal a source code for the entity, take it to the server farm where you can lock it onto a USB drive. They add so much extra unnecessary stuff though that it just becomes really convoluted. It's bloated. Bloated is the word. I think you could legitimately lose an hour from the movie and the story would remain the same and it would actually work even better. Things stuff is so drawn out that it actually makes the action worse as well. There's some major action scenes in the film but they're spread out over 3 hours so it doesn't keep up the pace or necessarily keep you invested. Scenarios also just appear out of nowhere such as the party, then Hunt being caught and then all the government things and it's difficult to really get a hold of the movie because they're throwing so much at you at once that you don't really get time to sit in those moments because it's like bang bang bang here's what you need to know onto the next one. There's no time to kind of marinate. Which is weird when the movie's so long as well. There's so many moments where you jump back to Luther, Ethan and Benji talking to explain things and just so many situations and locations thrown at you. Then oh my god it's Jim Pulp's son but who cares it doesn't really go anywhere anyway. How about when that's out the way the movie ******* takes off and gets amazing. The submarine stuff's incredible and I love the rotating set and how the water constantly shifts around Ethan. It creates a really intense environment which I found myself tensing up in my chair because of it. The biplane chase is brilliant too and seeing Cruz clamber around these two planes is probably the most extreme thing he's ever done. The stunts are what people come for in the first place so it does make sense to give you all to that. The script is very much an afterthought though and when the movie's so long and so reliant on it giving dialogue to us it feels like that needed some focus. I also think a lot of the characters end up not being characters. They're just there to tell you information and that's it. And even characters like Grace. She feels totally different to what we had last time. I just thought she stood there screaming, lost her cocky attitude and was far less interesting than the character last time. They sidelined and killed Ilsa to usher her in and then sidelined her as well. But the stunts are amazing. Because of that though I'm really conflicted. I think we have the highest peaks in the franchise but also the lowest lows. Going forward it will be interesting to see if this is actually the farewell to the franchise that it's being pushed as. Tom Cruise isn't showing any signs of slowing down and I don't know if the series could survive a recast or a new main character. That's purely because of who Cruise is. I don't think there's many if any actors who will continuously put their life on the line in the same way that he has. Bond is someone that's survived continuous recasts which seems like a rarity in Hollywood. Whereas several actors have managed to fill his tux it's difficult to imagine there's anyone out there who could step into the shoes of Cruise. And this is someone who somewhat rebooted the franchise himself in the first place. Again Mission Impossible was a 60s show but the movies have definitely overshadowed that to the point I don't think many people even really think about it. So it can be done but if it will be successful remains to be seen. In the end though I think this is not only a pure sequel to Dead Reckoning but it's also a poor way to close out the franchise. Trying to tie everything together and make it so everything's connected led to a convoluted ending that leaves things on a weird note. In the end though I think I'd probably rank this second to bottom with it being just above 2. There's an incredible movie in there somewhere but it's held back by a really bad script. So in the end yeah I'm disappointed and I think it's difficult to recommend going to see this. Like in the week I'll go see movies early and then my wife will be like well will you go see it with me later in the week. Got in last night, we have tickets to the IMAX on the Friday and I said I don't think it's worth going to. I don't know if I can sit through that again. Which is really disappointing because you know this is a series that I really love. At one point I was like this is going to be the spy series of the future and then to end on this note it is a bit of a bum note and I'm disappointed with it. I'm disappointed. I think there was a really good movie in there but yeah that first hour just don't know what's going on. But obviously I'd love to know what you think. I know this is very divisive online and there's people who absolutely love it. If you're in that camp congratulations. I don't like shitting on movies and especially when it's a franchise like this that I really want to see be amazing and match what I have built up in my head. I want it to do well but yeah I just couldn't feel it. But if you can and if you do drop a comment below, argue with me, I'd love to hear your thoughts and you might even convince me I'm wrong. And yeah if you can give me something to enjoy about this beyond just the stunts and the final act I'd love to hear it. So yeah that's my thoughts. If you want to message me on something like Instagram make sure you check us out at HeavySpoilers and you might also want to support the channel if I haven't pissed you off but if you do then early access to our videos can be gained for just 99 cents a month. If you click the join button you'll get at least one breakdown a week a week before anyone else. All goes towards helping videos like this get made and huge thank you to everyone who's joined that. It means the absolute world to me. Now if you want something else to watch a bit Bondian then why not check out our breakdown of Thunderball. Yeah going massively in depth in that I think you guys are going to really like it and without the way huge thank you for watching this video. I've been your host Paul, you're the best, I'll see you next time, take care, peace. Peace. Don't know why I said please but peace.