Major Spoilers for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning are below.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning continues to deliver on the intense action audiences have come to love, but is it really the final mission? The Final Reckoning is the eighth Mission: Impossible film, continuing the franchise that kicked off in 1996, with Tom Cruise leading the cast for each outing as super spy Ethan Hunt. Each mission sees the Impossible Mission Force (often disavowed) team taking on global threats, like thwarting the release of a deadly virus in Mission: Impossible 2, or even more personal stakes, like Mission: Impossible III, which saw Ethan's wife in danger.

While Ethan's team had a changing roster of members, the franchise had several mainstays, like Ving Rhames' Luther and Simon Pegg's Benji. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning brings them back alongside Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, and Angela Bassett. Director Christopher McQuarrie, who has directed the last three installments, is back to wrap the series up, with the movies' supersized runtime (2 hours and 49 minutes) promising the longest mission yet.

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Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Review: A Triumphant, Joyous, Action-Packed Sendoff

The Final Reckoning is Mission: Impossible at its absolute best: fast-paced, thrilling, funny, and heartfelt.

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By Colin Leggett

After eight films, nearly 30 years, and dozens of mind-blowing, death-defying stunts, the franchise is finally said to come to a close with Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, which sends Ethan and his team on one last mission.

Where Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Left Off

ethan hunt and gabriel fight on top of a train

The Final Reckoning picks up after the cliffhanger ending featured in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. In Dead Reckoning, Ethan and his team take on Gabriel (Morales), who is aiding the AI villain The Entity. In the film's final moments, Ethan battles Gabriel atop a moving train, and Ethan steals the key from him. While he doesn't yet know what the key opens, a potentially dying Paris (Klementieff) tells Ethan. The key opens the source code for The Entity, which is trapped on a sunken submarine seen earlier in the movie.

Dead Reckoning sees Gabriel escape alive and well but defeated, as Ethan and his team have the key and a potential way to fight The Entity. However, it also puts Ethan in a dangerous position, as he now holds the key to a power any world government would kill to possess. Ethan goes into hiding, with his team splintering, and Grace (Atwell) joins Kittridge and the IMF.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Picks Up Weeks After Dead Reckoning

Ethan holding a key in Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning finds Ethan still lying low, holding the key he stole from Gabriel in Dead Reckoning Part One. However, he receives a call to action in the form of a self-destructing VHS tape that kicks things off with a look back at the franchise in a montage of clips through the narration. The world is on the brink of nuclear disaster, as The Entity has begun seizing control of the world's nuclear arsenal. The Entity has also gone about creating a subversive cult-like following that helps to spread its message in a bid to wipe out the human race.

Ethan again assembles a team, which is no easy task, given that he is still ousted and hunted by the United States. However, with the help of Benji (Pegg), he gathers Paris, Grace, and Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis). With the help of Luther, who is aiding them from an underground medical facility, the team tracks down The Entity (or at least where Ethan can interact with it). After "speaking" with The Entity, Ethan knows he has to stop it, but the stakes are complicated.

Gabriel, who threatened Grace's life, wants the key to The Entity's source code so that he can control it, taking the power for himself after being cut loose due to his failure in Dead Reckoning. The world's nuclear superpowers are losing control of their arsenal as The Entity takes over, setting the stage for an apocalyptic event, which it wants Ethan's help to accomplish. However, just as Ethan is putting his plan together and sending his team for coordinates, he must rush to Luther, who Gabriel trapped with a bomb. Luther shows one final act of heroism, having a heartfelt goodbye with Ethan, who is unable to save him and must run to escape the bomb.

Through no easy effort, Ethan convinces the U.S. President (Bassett) to aid in his mission. This mission sees him commandeer an aircraft carrier and a submarine, which he uses to make his way to the sunken Russian submarine first seen in Dead Reckoning. While he's doing that, his team heads to a polar sonar station, aided by William Donloe, the CIA analyst Ethan stole the NOC list from in Mission: Impossible. Through immense action, his team gets the coordinates, allowing Ethan to find the sub and The Entity's source code. They then rendezvous at the coordinates, where Ethan is pulled from icy Arctic waters and revived.

How Does Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning End?

With the source code in hand, Ethan and his team need Luther's final gift, the pill, which will kill the source code. To get the pill, they must go to Africa, meeting with Gabriel in an extensive cave system that hides a massive data center, which The Entity hopes to house itself in, surviving the apocalypse. Gabriel wants the source code for himself, holding the pill hostage, with a large nuclear device set to explode. To complicate things further, Kittridge and the IMF show up, thinking they know best.

When chaos ensues, the team splits up to get the job done. Ethan takes the source code and goes after Gabriel, who still has the pill, leading to a death-defying plane chase full of stunts. Grace, Benji, and Paris enter the data center to capture The Entity when Ethan finally connects the pill to the source code, and Donloe, his wife, and Degas work on defusing the bomb. Through a series of thrilling action sequences, Ethan changes planes, fighting with Gabriel while "wing walking," before ultimately having to parachute to safety, plugging the pill into the source code as he falls, allowing Grace to capture The Entity.

Having succeeded in stopping The Entity, Ethan and his team give the world governments control of their nuclear arsenal and divert Doomsday. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning sets the biggest stakes of the franchise, sees some of its most epic action, and brings things to a close with another mission successfully completed in the nick of time. Ethan and his team meet and exchange glances in a public square, letting Ethan know they are all fine. Grace also gives Ethan the drive containing The Entity, as she trusts him.

The final moments see Ethan going back into hiding as his team departs, entrusting him to keep The Entity safe or destroy it. Either way, it does feel like a definitive end for Ethan, as his character can safely be written out if the franchise continues. Whether it's another sequel down the line or a reboot, Mission: Impossible is a proven brand audiences are likely to see again, meaning Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is a fitting end, for now.

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