The Mission Impossible Movies are Absolutely Insane

Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning just came out. It's probably the last mission movie starring Tom Cruise, so I want to review all eight of them because it's really hard to find a bad one. Adapted from one of many Cold War-era spy fiction TV series, the Mission Impossible movies continue a long list of celebrated traditions. The IMF, or the Impossible Mission Force, does the missions that no one else can do. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will include instructions that will self-destruct in five seconds, single-use novel spy gadgets, realistic disguises that will fool anyone, and of course, a Latin-inspired jazzy theme song. Each movie feels like an episode of television, beginning with a cold open and then hitting the title sequence like your favorite show was back on the air. 1996's Mission Impossible was the first project Tom Cruise took on as a producer, bringing in a brand new tradition of big action sequences built on an escalating series of stunts performed by Cruise himself. He's trained to hold his breath for six minutes, to speed parachute, to fly a helicopter while acting and operating a camera. It doesn't matter if the IMF is stopping a nuke or a biological weapon, reading into how these movies are made feels like the real Impossible Mission. Cruise is a perfect fit for Ethan Hunt, who is absolutely the most chaotic main character across franchise cinema. He'll ride a motorcycle off a mountain to parachute onto a moving train, hang onto a plane as it's lifting off, and use a motorcycle to joust another motorcycle. This is poetry. These films are so good that it's basically rehabilitated Tom Cruise's From a superstar with off-putting behavior and an allegedly powerful position in the abusive structure of Scientology, to the apparent last movie star whose dedication as an entertainer and to the craft may just be saving Hollywood cinema. That's what they say! That's not even the craziest thing Tom Cruise has ever done. Have you seen the way he eats popcorn? Yeah, this is Billium and this video is sponsored by me, but this message will self-destruct in five seconds. You can support us directly on Patreon by going to hipstertrash.com. Thanks to our patrons like you and our hipster gold members! Now back to the video! Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible, Rated PG-13. The perfect gift. Buy it today where video cassettes are sold. First up is Mission Impossible. During a mission in Prague, Ethan Hunt and his team hope to capture a rogue agent planning to steal the CIA knock list containing the identities of every covert CIA agent. Ethan is framed when his entire team is killed, so to clear his name he assembles a new team to successfully steal the knock list from the CIA headquarters and lure out the real culprit responsible. Franz and Luther, played by Ving Rhames who has also been in every Mission Impossible movie, giving Ethan a friend with a sense of warmth and trust. We love Luther. The scene where Ethan drops down into the computer room by wire is easily the most iconic piece of imagery from the entire franchise. It's a pure collaboration between Tom Cruise's physical dedication as an actor and director Brian De Palma's dedication to this Hitchcockian sense of tension. Blowout, Carrie, Mission Impossible, they all have these sequences with a great sense of cause and effect, which often feels like a game of mousetrap. First they have to poison William Donahue, the CIA agent monitoring the central computer, sending him to the bathroom which creates this unrelieving sense of comedic relief as Luther monitors his movements. The room is sensitive to sound and temperature, so Ethan has to drop in, get the computer password from Luther, steal the files, and get out as quickly as possible before his body heat triggers an alarm. Meanwhile, he's being physically held up by Franz who starts shaking from the effort, struggling to stay quiet. Donahue makes his way back from the bathroom and Ethan has to be pulled back out and we get another De Palma signature as a split diopter shot puts both Ethan and Donahue in focus in the same frame, revealing their proximity. The temperature is rising, a bead of sweat almost drops and activates the sound alarm, but finally Ethan gets into the computer and Luther's jaw drops when he sees what they're stealing. And right before they can get out without a problem, Franz drops his knife, hitting the desk. But before they can get caught, they're out of there, having disguised themselves as firefighters, a great campy cap to this incredible sequence. The action set pieces are always the most important part of these movies, and from the first movie on, the script is often structured around the predesigned action sequences. At its best, Mission Impossible stories use the same kind of misdirect that the IMF does. Ethan is introduced as he's playing another character, not revealing Tom Cruise's face until he takes off the mask. And then it turns out the room they were in is all a set made to fulfill a mission, and the woman who he just watched get shot was faking it. This teaches you how to watch the entire series, they really want to get one over on you. Side note, I love the character of Senator John Waltzer. There is no actor credited playing this character, because it's so obvious just Tom Cruise wearing old man makeup so Ethan can convincingly disguise himself as this character later. Like what the **** is this, Bad Grandpa? All the IMF agents love Bad Grandpa. Headcanon. There's too much ******* ---- on me, I can't breathe. Later, Ethan's mission leader Jim Phelps, played by Jon Voight, is revealed to be alive and tries to convince Ethan that the director of the IMF set up their team in Prague. But in a great use of dramatic irony that highlights Ethan's intelligence, a flashback lets us know that Ethan has figured out Phelps was the one who set him up. A fun twist in the movie that makes Ethan the better agent over Phelps, which stirred a controversy in the Mission Impossible fan community, because Jim Phelps was originally played by Peter Graves. The character is the lead of the Mission Impossible TV series and its revival, which only ended six years before this movie came out. Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Graves actually rejected a chance to reprise his role for the movie, being disappointed that Phelps is revealed to be the twist villain. And Greg Morris, who appeared in all seven seasons of the original show and the revival, walked out of the movie's premiere because of the twist. It is a twist that comes at the expense of a legacy character. So I can understand why people growing up with the show or who were involved with it may have not liked it. But I was born the year this movie came out, and I think the sequence where they kill Jim Phelps is pretty cool. ILM helped animate something that would be impossible to shoot for the movie's climax, as Franz betrays Ethan and tries to extract Phelps from a moving train via helicopter. The chase moves into a tight tunnel, and it kind of feels like a video game in the most complimentary way possible. The helicopter crashes, killing Franz and Phelps, and it almost kills Ethan, too, with the blades sharpening and stopping just inches from his throat. Incredible. I love Luthor. Overall, this is a pretty solid blockbuster. So released in 2000, Mission Impossible 2 is one of the most aura-filled, big-budget blockbuster Hollywood films ever made. The director's signature dub flies in slow motion through a burning door before our hero Ethan Hunt reveals himself to the villain. Slow motion. Sexy long hair. Hell yeah. This is the most aura anybody has ever had, but this movie's also widely considered to be the worst in the series. I have to start by talking about the opening. I love this mad scientist-looking guy. He wants to sell a virus and its cure to Ethan Hunt, but Ethan kills the scientist. But Ethan isn't Ethan, it's a mask, revealing our villain who takes the virus and its cure, planning to weaponize it in profit. Ethan is told to get beautiful thief Nia Nordoff-Hall on his side to help steal the virus, putting her in the middle of a love triangle between Ethan and her ex-boyfriend, the villain, Sean Ambrose. Uh-oh. This movie is nuts, but hell yeah is the only way to describe it. Directed by Hong Kong action director John Woo, this is either people's favorite or least favorite Mission movie. I do find it funny that before this, John Woo directed Face Off, which also features a member of an intelligence community using a gruesome, state-of-the-art technology to disguise himself as somebody else. It's very within the world of Mission Impossible, starring yet another Scientologist. In our first shot of true Ethan, he's climbing on the side of a cliff, something which Tom Cruise actually did. He gets his new mission via Oakley sunglasses, which would definitely become an iconic spy look following this movie. The message will explode, so Ethan tosses the glasses toward the camera, exploding in slow motion. Hell yeah. His first spicy moment with Nya comes during a car chase. Cruise compared the love triangle in this movie to West Side Story, so this must be Mission's version of a lustful choreographed dance. Hell yeah. In another scene, Hunt spins around on his motorcycle, shooting during an epic 360. Ethan and Sean come at each other on motorcycles like knights chousting? Hell ******* yeah. I don't think I can do it. You mean it'll be difficult? Very. Well, this is not Mission Difficult, Mr. Hunt, it's Mission Impossible. Hans Zimmer takes over the soundtrack, bringing a bold electric guitar sound to the music, including a new metal version of the Mission Impossible theme. I'm not typically a Zimmer guy, but here he makes me say hell yeah. Honestly, I think I like this movie because it so obviously became the tonal inspiration for Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids, which came out the year after. Robert Rodriguez has always been a huge fan of Hong Kong action films, and he takes so much of Mission Impossible 2's aura for Spy Kids. The sunglasses, the electric guitar, the main villain having their own island. Mission Impossible 2 dares to ask the question, what if spy kids were spy adults? And I kind of love that. Hell yeah. Oh yeah, side note, hell yeah. Luther is wearing a name dropping designer clothes during this film, enjoying his new success. So I love that for him. But I will say this is easily the weakest story in any mission movie. There is a reason I did not really talk about the story between my hell yes. Sean Ambrose is easily the most forgettable villain in the story. Cruz would have much better chemistry with later female leads, but it's visually incredible and its heightened sense of action would definitely inspire later entries in the series. Hell yeah. Released in 2006, Mission Impossible 3 has the best cold opening in the entire series, which really gives Cruz a chance to showcase his range that he really wasn't able to do in the last two movies. Arms dealer Owen Davian, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, tells Ethan he is going to kill his wife in front of him at the count of 10 unless Ethan tells him the location of the rabbit's foot, a mysterious MacGuffin that can wreak havoc in the world. At each count, Ethan's tactics shift from threatening to bargaining to desperation. He is the most vulnerable he's ever been. It's a completely new side to the character. With the rabbit's foot a mystery box at the center of it all, it's no surprise this movie is directed by J.J. Abrams, who was chosen to direct after Tom Cruz saw a few episodes of Alias, which he described as a character-first secret agent story. Famously, Abrams would leave Lost immediately after directing the pilot episode to do this movie, springboarding his feature film career. I think the biggest contribution Abrams made to the franchise is sort of reworking these characters in a way that provided the franchise with longevity. We move to earlier in the story as we see the double life Ethan is trying to live, married to his new wife Julia, who has no idea he is a super spy and his super spy friends like Luther, who's upset Ethan hasn't introduced him Simon Pegg also permanently joins the cast as Benji, a technician who will turn into a field agent, who helps Ethan after going rogue. This sort of creates a core cast of characters that all have a relationship with each other. I feel like not having a marquee stunt makes this movie feel smaller than later entries. But that is absolutely not the case on the production side. They drive a semi-truck over Tom Cruz, and these guys built an entire stretch of highway for an incredible bridge set piece. The cold opening leads all of Ethan's moves against Davian to this inevitable failure, creating a constant anxiety around the character. Ethan impersonates Davian, kidnaps him, and Ethan, that's just gonna make him mad, you gotta stop this. They accidentally slip Ethan's name in front of Davian, and then he says he's going to find somebody he cares about and hurt her. And we know it's true. I wouldn't say Hoffman is given a ton to work with, but nonetheless he soaks up every second of screen time, effortlessly making Davian the scariest villain in the franchise. Davian shoots Julia and Ethan thinks she's dead, but it's just psychological torture because it's just a Julia mask, he shot someone else. But now Ethan knows he's serious. Julia finds out about Ethan's second life as he's rescuing her, which I think is a perfect example of how this series is so good about developing the characters and the plotline with the action, rather than at arbitrary resting points in the story. That's on full display here. I love Ethan handing Julia a gun and teaching her how to shoot on the fly. At the end of the movie, Hunt tells Julia about his secret life, name dropping the Impossible Mission Force for the first time in the series, which made me cackle out loud because I did not know that's what the IMF stood for. Seeing Luther meet Julia and giving her that big warm smile makes me so happy to think about, and is sort of the turning point when I really started to care about these characters, which is so important in getting audiences invested for continuing sequels. This movie came out at the height of Tom Cruise's controversial era. Before the movie came out, there were rumors Tom Cruise had sort of strong armed Paramount who produces South Park into pulling an episode that made fun of him and Scientology, so obviously a boycott followed. I think the timing of it all sort of resulted in this being one of the most underrated movies in the franchise. People were not excited about Tom Cruise at the time. And between the bold stylistic choices of the previous two entries and the marquee stunts of later entries, it's kind of easy to see why this movie gets overshadowed, but it's lowkey one of the best ones. 2011's Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol is a fan favorite in what cemented the series as a great franchise. An IMF agent played by Lust's Josh Holloway, handsome, is killed retrieving stolen Russian nuclear codes. They just kill them like that. Why do all spies shoot like this? The lady walked up to Josh Holloway and killed him like this. So the IMF extracts Ethan Hunt from a Moscow prison to infiltrate the Kremlin and learn about the culprit who stole the launch codes, but it's a trap and the Kremlin is bombed, leaving the IMF to blame and disavowed by the US government. So Ethan and the gang, which now includes Jeremy Renner, secretly team up to clear the IMF and secure the launch codes from being used to incite a war. Brad Bird directs his first live action film, coming off a successful run at Pixar. Obviously the Incredibles would pay tribute to Mission in a very overt way. This message will self-destruct. Also composer Michael Giacchino would get his second go scoring the series, working with his two homeboys Brad Bird and J.J. Abrams, who produces the next couple entries. Without a doubt, this movie has the greatest sense of fun out of any of them. The novel gadgets and gags are incredible. The scene where Benji and Ethan use a screen to project an image of an empty hallway, making themselves invisible is the most Scooby-Doo ass setup in the entire series. But it's so clever, and giving Ethan the silly little mustache and makeup disguise rather than a realistic mask just adds to the charm. It's just so silly, the camera fails and Benji's face takes up the whole hallway. Brilliant. Then there's the whole cat and mouse angle with the Russian agent tracking Ethan around the world. Ethan tries to escape from the hospital and the Russian, having no idea who he's dealing with, gives Ethan permission to jump to the ground stories below. That's a mistake, guy. That's Ethan Hunt. That's Tom Cruise. This movie would cement the idea that every single Mission movie has to have a marquee stunt, with Tom Cruise dangling off the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Which would prove to be the key marketing tool the series and Tom Cruise's PR team needed. This also started Mission Impossible's tradition of having stunt sequences shot on the IMAX film format. It's kind of crazy that before big Hollywood movies started shooting on IMAX, most things shot on IMAX were things like this T-Rex Back to the Cretaceous documentary movie. Production was able to take over multiple floors to securely place Tom Cruise on the outside of the building, which really seems to be where he's most happy. He says he's doing Bambi leaps. That's joy. In the sequence, Ethan is given these Spider-Man gloves to climb the building, but they start failing and he starts slipping. So he has to use his body to jimmy up to the right floor, making an imperfect incision in the window and using his weight to break inside clumsily. To get back downstairs, he improvises with a rope to descend, but it's too short and he has to jump into the open window floors below. He smacks his head on the top of the window frame and has to be caught by the rest of the team. It's incredible. Even with all of the aerial stunts later on, this is still one of the best stunt sequences in the series. It's exhilarating. But this film underutilized Josh Holloway. I'm no Jeremy Renner hater, but you know he doesn't add too much, I would say. Should have been Josh Holloway, dammit. That man should have had a multi-billion dollar feature film career. He still can. Also, this is the only film that does not really feature Luther as a part of the story, but he does make a cameo at the end of the film, along with Julia, showing us that Ethan has let her go to protect her. The final fight with the villain, who I can barely even remember what his deal is, takes place on this incredible 65 foot tall moving garage set, complete with a fleet of cars on lifts. It's absolutely massive. And when Ethan prevents the nukes from being launched, he says, mission accomplished. Very cute, Ethan. But needless to say, this movie popped the f*** off. Released in 2015, we have Mission Impossible Rogue Nation. Ethan Hunt is tracking down the Syndicate, a secret organization made up of compromised operatives from various intelligence organizations. But after the international incident of the last movie, the director of the CIA, played by Alec Baldwin, is attempting to absorb the IMF. So Ethan teams up with MI6 agent Ilsa Foss, played by Rebecca Ferguson, to take down the Syndicate before they sow more discord with acts of terrorism. The opening of this movie is one of the craziest things ever put to film. Tom Cruise literally hangs on the side of a military plane as it takes off before Benji can get him inside. They did eight takes of Tom Cruise doing this. He did this eight times. And he was wearing sclera contacts to protect his eyes from debris, meaning he did this while not being able to f***ing see. My god, he would be the coolest guy ever if it wasn't for... you know. And Rebecca Ferguson is easily the best recurring cast member introduced after the first movie. Not that Benji isn't my boy. After Ethan let go of Julia, we're introduced to someone who matches Ethan's freak. It's not romantic per se, but holy f***ing s*** you want it to be. You want it so bad. Ethan is captured and tortured, but rescued in part thanks to Ilsa, who is there for a completely other mission, but he's impressed. The dude is down so f***ing bad, and it's not just because Tom Cruise is short. Of course, we're not sure if she's a part of the Syndicate, and honestly, thank god she's here, because I don't think the Syndicate is particularly interesting. There's a chase in the movie that was originally between Solomon Lane, the leader of the Syndicate, and Ethan, but they reworked it to be Ethan and Ilsa, which absolutely makes it more interesting. Solomon Lane trying to fundraise for his evil organization has got to be, like, the worst MacGuffin in the whole series. We used to be working with, like, pathological weapons and nuclear bombs. Now it's, like, funds. It's the mildest story in the whole series. And at this point, Christopher McQuarrie becomes the director of Mission Impossible. He had collaborated with and they just settled into each other as trusted collaborators. At this point, McQuarrie and Cruise cracked what makes a good Mission Impossible. They had the formula. It reminds me of David Yates taking over the Harry Potter series. Like, the first four have their own distinct identity, and the last four are, like, homogenized. But it works. It's the crazy action of John Woo, the fun spirit of Brad Bird, and the character work of J.J. Abrams all wrapped together. Cruise in interviews and many of the people involved in the film discuss the major benefit of an actor doing their own stunts are being able to perform while doing the stunt. You're not obscuring a stunt person's face to double as the actor. The character motivation always carries through the stunt work, which is why I love the scene where Ethan and Benji go on a car chase immediately after Ethan had been killed and resuscitated. Ethan is totally out of it, but the chase proceeds. It's intentionally chaotic, and Cruise and McQuarrie explain the vibe of this movie being derived from the process they go through to make these movies. The experience of which obviously made them very in tune with what made Mission Impossible good. They were doing their own micro version of it. I do think Jeremy Renner working off of Ving Rhames makes his character more likable here. There's a great scene where Luthor picks out a bulky 4x4, which ends up becoming inconvenient later during a chase scene, which is a callback to Luther having a distinguished style and Jeremy Renner being a stick in the mud. The heist in this film takes place in an underwater vault requiring Ethan to hold his breath for an extended sequence, which required both Cruise and Ferguson to intensely train their breath control, all in service of what ends up being an incredibly stressful sequence. Focusing on Ethan's oxygen intake, with every unexpected obstacle added and every second that passes feeling like a nightmare. Foss has to dive in after him, rescuing Ethan, and together they pull one over on Solomon Lane, trapping him into a plastic box. He's a I would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kid's ass character. And obviously this preserves him for a role in the next movie. Overall I think this is a very solid entry that honestly doesn't stand out too much. Released in 2018, Mission Impossible Fallout is another fan favorite. After the leader of the syndicate is arrested, its remaining members form a new organization called the Apostles, who are recruited by a weapons dealer operating under the name John Lark to collect plutonium cores and create a nuclear weapon. Ethan is suspected of being John Lark, and Ilsa Foss returns not knowing what to believe, but choosing to give Ethan the benefit of the doubt. After all of his risky missions, the CIA forces Ethan to be paired with Agent August Walker, played by Henry Cavill who may just be a part of the new syndicate. That's a man who's twirling his mustache. Watching this film, sometimes I was a little confused how some scenes flowed from one to the other. But individually I do think every single scene contributes meaningfully to Ethan's story. It kind of examines his willingness to complicate the mission to avoid unnecessary casualties, ultimately culminating with the reintroduction of Julia in the final act, who despite letting go he still wants to protect. Now we get a reason for why he does what he does, creating this emotional backbone for the ******* crazy ---- the character does. As ridiculous as it is, he's doing it to save his team and civilians' lives, not just cause he's an adrenaline junkie. They do it for those who they never meet. The Halo drop sequence is incredible and was cut together between multiple takes where Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill's stuntman dropped from a plane. In the scene, August Walker loses consciousness in the air and Ethan has to make sure he lands safely. So not only is Tom Cruise skydiving for this scene, but like in all of his stunts, a great deal of concentration is given to maintaining the character motivation. He just met Walker but will desperately attempt to save his life. Funny enough, before this movie Henry Cavill was in an adaptation of The Man from UNCLE, another Cold War era spy series that predated Mission Impossible. I just think it's so funny how many creatives involved with this series did something kind of tangential to Mission Impossible before joining the series. And you know, I really love in certain roles. He's an incredibly attractive man, but I think his strongest roles are the ones where he's supposed to be intimidating. The bathroom scene is famous because he cocks his fists like a gun, like before he punches he goes, like add some like gun cocking sound effects. Also very famously, Paramount would not allow Henry Cavill to shave his mustache when he was brought on to do reshoots for Justice League. Warner Brothers offered to pay for a high quality fake mustache for Cavill to wear, but Paramount refused, leading to the theatrical cut of Justice League to have these like horribly uncanny scenes of Henry Cavill's Superman with like a CGI mouth over it. And then Vanessa Kirby joins the cast. She's an arms dealer posing as a philanthropist who thinks Cruise is John Lark, and there are too many stupidly hot people in this movie. That is so unfair that this movie wasn't 3D. I'd be there with them. August Walker is of course revealed to be John Lark, and the final confrontation between him and Ethan is this crazy extended helicopter chase scene. Cruise would not only get his helicopter license for the movie, but he would pilot his helicopter while performing the role of Ethan Hunt while also operating the camera, and while maneuvering dangerously close to another helicopter and a bunch of rocks everywhere. Their helicopters crash and the fight continues as Ethan and August fist fight over Norway's Pulpit Rock, an absolutely gorgeous location for this desperate final scrap. The location was very hard to access with all the equipment needing to be helicoptered in, and as usual the stunt team created rigs that allowed the actors to actually get onto the side of the cliff. But it's all worth it as Ethan fights off against this physically intimidating opponent. The helicopter falls off the cliff and a payload hook snags August right on the forehead, killing him and dragging him to his death, which is probably my second favorite villain death in the series, short of the final reckoning, but we're not there yet. This is one of the best films in the franchise, no doubt. Maybe I need to watch it again, but I'm just still not crazy about the Solomon Lane character, I think he's kind of boring. But I like August Walker, so the syndicate story works better in this one than the last one. So I've been literally watching every movie franchise, and so far we have a few S-ranked franchises. First up, Planet of the Apes. The progression from movie to movie is just absolutely wild. No movie ends the same way it starts in this franchise, in the craziest way possible. Next up, Alien and Prometheus. They carry the rest of the franchise, most of which are pretty good movies, up to the S-rank. And then we have Jackass, just magnifique across the board. In the final S-ranked movie franchise, we have Jackass' more well-put-together cousin, Mission Impossible. Boy howdy, do I love to watch boys go. They take all five seven of Tom Cruise and get him closer to heaven than Icarus ever did. And God willing, Tom Cruise, the president of movies, will never come down. And neither will the secretary of war of movies, Johnny Knoxville. Amen. Released in 2023, we have Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, part one. I find it really funny that this movie released the same year as Fast X, because both promised to be the first in a two-part epic franchise finale, and both films underperformed against a wildly expensive budget. Audiences do not like part ones. But unlike Fast X, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning is a certified b-b-b-banger. The movie opens up with a setup for the sequel, as the Sevastopol, a state-of-the-art stealth submarine, is tricked by its A.I. system into firing a missile into itself, leaving the A.I.'s source code at the bottom of the ocean. A decade later, the A.I. is now known as the Entity, and has become all-powerful, with the only thing able to control it being two halves of a cruciform key, which must be paired with the source code. Ethan is tasked to track down Ilsefoss, who has one half of the key and is now a wanted criminal. But Ethan goes rogue, helping Ilse to fake her own death because he believes the Entity is too dangerous for anyone to control, and he wants to destroy it. This movie is made up of so many great moments, it's hard to talk about it. Ethan infiltrates the office of Eugene Kittredge, returning from the first film, having been promoted to the head of the CIA. Ethan's gone rogue before, and now Kittredge gets to watch Ethan leave, wearing his face. Look at that man do his best Tom Cruise. Little eyebrow raise. The scene in the Abu Dhabi airport introduces the players so well. Ethan, Benji, and Luther are tracking down the other key half when it's stolen by a thief, Grace, played by Haley Atwell. She skillfully, slinkily slips away from Ethan as he's distracted by the government agents on his tail and Gabriel, a man from Ethan's past played by Isai Morales. Aligned with the Entity, Gabriel disappears from their camera feeds like a ghost. Meanwhile, Benji quietly tries to take care of a bomb meant to go on Ethan's plane, but it's quickly figured out to be a fake, and they've realized they've been set up. Ethan runs away with Tom Cruise being beautifully photographed in his habitat, running on top of the Abu Dhabi airport. You gotta get Tom running up there. What's the point of going anywhere if you don't shoot Tom Cruise running there? Coming to the end of the series, I do find it fun that they tie Gabriel into Ethan's past. Many moons ago, he killed Ethan's lover, an event which would directly lead Ethan into joining the IMF. The Entity has chosen Gabriel to manipulate Ethan, who falls for it hook, line, and sinker, immediately pushing his friends to abandon him. This movie features one of my favorite renditions of my favorite trope. Ethan handcuffs himself to the slippery Grace to keep her close. So Ethan has to drive, and they're handcuffed to his left, creating this awkwardly intimate driving situation in an ill-behaved Mini Cooper which becomes a character of its own. It's also funny that both Fast X and Mission Impossible did a car chase scene down the Spanish steppes in Rome. Grace gets away again, but the whole gang tracks her down to a party in Venice, where Vanessa Kirby returns again as the White Widow, having hired Grace to facilitate a sail to Gabriel to protect herself from the Entity, leading to a chase through the dark and twisting alleyways of Venice. The Entity takes over their comms, imitating Benji and sending Ethan in the opposite direction of his friends. Under the command of the Entity, Gabriel nearly kills Grace, but Ilsa comes in to save her, dying in the confrontation with Gabriel. Honestly, Ilsa Faust is such a good character that I don't think I would have been happy with them killing her off in any way. They make it hurt so bad. She tells Ethan she's never been to Venice, and you can tell they enjoy the romance of the city of being there together. But that's not the life they chose to live. She's killed by the goofy, mustache-twirling villain Gabriel. He's the kind of supervillain they deserve for their final bow out. I like Gabriel better than Solomon Lane because he's supposed to be a bastard Ethan truly hates. The Entity also wants Ethan to kill Gabriel, because Gabriel's the only person who knows the location of the source code. Pom Clementif plays Gabriel's assassin Paris with this fun ferocity, and the Entity is definitely one of the more fun MacGuffins in the series, making many of their regular tech-based strategies unreliable, making their best weapon their trust in each other. The final sequence of the film features another train which Ethan has to get on while it's moving, leading to a late-stage stunt that instantly became one of the most memorable in the series. The production built a full-size ramp off of a cliff for crews to ride off of on his motorcycle before transitioning into a landing. Holy ----. They couldn't film him landing on the train, but I love his entrance into the scene so ******* much I don't care. Grace is about to be shot before Ethan, like the Kool-Aid man, busts through the side of the train car, knocking the shooter clean out the window on the other side. Hell yeah. Satisfyingly, as Gabriel leaves with the key, Ethan is able to pickpocket him, learning a little from Grace, and leading to the final action sequence being an extended train crash, as Ethan and Grace work together to save everyone and themselves. Production built an operating train as a set, and a bridge to blow up for a spectacular crash, resulting in this nail-biting sequence as Grace and Ethan desperately try not to go down with it. This film is a spectacle and a half, which is only further complemented by the existence of Part 2, which is set up perfectly. Ethan spares Paris' life, and she chooses to trust him, giving him the location of the source code, which she knows, the Syvester Pool, previewing the final act's crazy marquee stunt sequence. So finally, still in theaters, as of recording this video, we have 2025's Mission Impossible, the final Reckoning, instead of the dead Reckoning Part 2. I have to admit, this is the first Mission Impossible I ever saw on the big screen, and I think it's an excellent one to start with. I came in at the perfect time. Continuing from the last film, Ethan Hunt must get to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve the only thing that can destroy the entity before it weaponizes the world's nuclear arsenals to destroy humanity. As a final entry in the series, I find it so fun that things get taken directly to the top. The world is at stake, and the President of the United States, played by Angela Bassett, must directly ask Ethan to save it. And although I do think it's very silly, I also think it's appropriate as a finale that this film tries to tie in so many loose ends and characters from previous films. The agent, played by Shea Whigham, is revealed to be Jim Phelps Jr., who shakes hands with Ethan towards the end of the film, sort of as an acknowledgement of how they treated the Jim Phelps character in the first film. Then, William Donahue, the CIA agent at the center of the first film's famous heist scene returns, having been put on assignment near an outpost in Alaska for the last several decades, in what is honestly a crazy callback, even the rabbit's foot from Mission Impossible 3 returns being revealed to be a liquid code version of the entity. But this is definitely a retcon of sorts because all of the clues in that film lead you to believe that the rabbit's foot is a biological weapon, but I don't care, it's fun as a callback. Maybe the entity is a cyborg, who cares? The opening of the movie also feels kind of odd as they reuse a lot of old footage as flashbacks, particularly focusing on all of Tom Cruise's stunt work. But I think anybody who says that this film is nostalgia baiting or relying on knowledge from past films too much, are severely overstating the issue, or maybe over-assuming that they are missing details because they have not themselves seen the past entries. It's one of the weaker openings in the franchise, but about a half hour in, the Mission Impossible theme hits, and from there, it's another great entry. Luther being killed in this movie is certainly done to pull at our heartstrings, and it works, but I'm like angry about it. I love Luther. Yes, he's put in a trap where he has to disarm a bomb and to save a city, but it's gonna kill him once he does it. So he tells Ethan to run away, stating a harsh truth that people in their line of work don't retire. Yet his loyalty and care for Ethan makes it an easy sacrifice, and his final message to Ethan at the end of the film really cements the fact that he became the heart of the series. And in tradition, after his final message to Ethan plays, it explodes. Ethan has to catch a ride from another submarine to make it to the Sylvester Pool, leading to an extended role for Severance's Tramiel Tillman, who absolutely just crushes every single line delivery he has in this film, being very excited yet cautious from Ethan's presence, yet choosing to trust him with just a simple message from a superior officer, continuing that theme from the last movie. You must be Captain Bledsoe. And you must be out of your mind. The entity itself plays less of an antagonizing role, providing a single ticking time bomb as it gains access to nuclear arsenals one by one. Paris and Grace join the team this time around permanently, with Pom Clemente stealing the show. That is, when Katie O'Brien isn't stealing the show. The Final Reckoning also makes the first joke about Tom Cruise's height in the franchise. He wears Katie O'Brien's scuba suit because it's a perfect fit. Disembarking the submarine to dive to the Sylvester Pool is one of the craziest sequences, set pieces, the series has ever constructed. Ethan's journey shifts the weight of the massive submarine, transforming the landscape before our eyes. They literally put Tom Cruise on a helicopter and had him climb down onto a biplane midair. And in the trailer, he's on the yellow plane, but in the movie, he starts out on the red one. It's gonna be a good sequence. Watching this in IMAX, my heart was actually pounding, and it wasn't all the buttered popcorn. And I won't spoil it here, but Gabriel's death made me cheer. Like it reminds me of Jennifer Coolidge's final moments in White Lotus. As a final entry, this movie serves as a bow out to the audience rather than a definitive story ending, which is fitting because until the last couple entries, the series has always relied on isolated stories, albeit with a few easter eggs here and there. But as an individual film, even though it's a part two, The Final Reckoning has some major accomplishments as a piece of entertainment in its own right. I highly recommend seeing it in theaters. It is even more enjoyable if you've watched the other Mission Impossible movies recently. I can't deny that. Having seen the franchise and The Final Reckoning come out in real time, it's no wonder why they made eight of these. Literally everybody I know is talking about the past 30 years of Ethan Stuntz. Ethan Hunt has saved the world from an evil AI, but does that mean that Tom Cruise has saved cinema from the evils of AI? And now that Tom Cruise has faced his final reckoning, who will save cinema six months from now when it needs saving again? Final thank you to our hipster gold members on screen right now. You can support us directly by going to hipstertrash.com and as always, see ya.