Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) reviews

The Fuzzy Mushroom take on Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

By Fuzzy Mushroom · Updated 14 November 2026 · The Pros 76 · The Punters 75 · Spore Score 75 · How we write our takes

Why The Pros and The Punters agree

The Final Reckoning splits nobody. The Pros give it 76, The Punters 75, and the Spore Score is 75, a crystal clear result with a gap of just 1 points. Both camps broadly agree on the same thing: the stunts are extraordinary, and the plot around them is a lot to get through.

What it is

The eighth Mission: Impossible film is the direct follow-up to Dead Reckoning, again directed by Christopher McQuarrie with Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. Hunt and his team race to stop the Entity, a rogue artificial intelligence that has worked its way into the world's defence systems, while Gabriel, played by Esai Morales, is still hunting them. Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg return, and the film reaches back across the whole series for callbacks.

What it does well

The two headline set pieces, a long sequence inside a sunken submarine and a fight clinging to vintage biplanes in the air, are among the best action filmmaking of recent years, and you can feel that they were done for real. Cruise's commitment is the selling point, and McQuarrie stages the action clearly so you always know where everyone is.

Where it falls short

It is very long, and much of the first hour is exposition about the Entity, with characters explaining the stakes to each other again and again. Fans of the lighter, gadget-heavy heists of earlier films may find this one heavy and solemn by comparison.

Who it is for

Anyone who has followed the series, and action fans who want to see stunts on a big screen. Watching Dead Reckoning first helps, as this is very much part two.

The Fuzzy Mushroom verdict

Worth a watch, with a Spore Score of 75. Overstuffed and talky between the big moments, but those moments are spectacular, and critics and audiences rate it almost identically.