I held my breath watching Tom Cruise dangle from a yellow biplane in the new Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning trailer. But then I remembered—didn't the last film leave me cold?
Paramount Pictures just dropped the official trailer and poster for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, set to hit theaters on May 23, 2025. They're screaming “finale” louder than a foghorn at a silent retreat, but I'm not buying it. This franchise is like a cat with nine lives—every time you think it's done, it lands on its feet with another death-defying stunt. So, let's unpack this trailer, dig into the hype, and figure out if this is really the end—or just another Hollywood bait-and-switch.
The trailer is a two-minute adrenaline shot. Cruise, as Ethan Hunt, is back to his usual antics—hanging off planes, running through explosions, and staring down villains with that squinting intensity only he can pull off. The poster, with its biplane stunt front and center, screams vintage Mission: Impossible: high stakes, practical effects, and Cruise risking his life for our entertainment. But here's the rub—the last film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, didn't exactly set the world on fire.
Box office numbers tell the story. Dead Reckoning Part One grossed $567 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, which sounds impressive until you compare it to Fallout (2018), which pulled in $791 million. That's a 28% drop. Critics were lukewarm too—Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 96% score, but fans on the same platform rated it a more modest 79%. The consensus? It was bloated, overcomplicated, and lacked the emotional punch of earlier entries. So when Paramount pushes the “final film” narrative for The Final Reckoning, it feels less like a grand conclusion and more like a desperate plea: “Please care again!”
Let's rewind. The Mission: Impossible franchise has been a rollercoaster since 1996, evolving from a spy thriller with rubber masks to a stunt-driven juggernaut under director Christopher McQuarrie, who's helmed every entry since 2015's Rogue Nation. McQuarrie and Cruise are a dream team—think peanut butter and jelly, but with more explosions. Their partnership gave us Fallout, often hailed as the series' peak, with its jaw-dropping HALO jump and helicopter chase. But the last two films faced a gauntlet of production woes.
Dead Reckoning Part One and The Final Reckoning were shot back-to-back, a process that started in early 2020. Then COVID hit. The production became, as Paramount put it, the “COVID canary in the coal mine”—one of the first major Hollywood projects to shut down. Filming stalled again during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, stretching the timeline and inflating the budget. Reports from Variety pegged Dead Reckoning Part One's budget at $291 million, making it one of the most expensive films ever made. It needed to gross $600 million just to break even, and it barely scraped by.
Now, The Final Reckoning is leaning hard into its “last hurrah” branding. The trailer's tagline—“Our lives are the sum of our choices”—feels like a meta nod to Cruise's career. At 62, he's still doing his own stunts, a fact that's both inspiring and mildly terrifying. But the franchise has a history of faking its own death. Remember when Ghost Protocol was supposed to be the end? Or Fallout? Hollywood loves a “finale” until the box office numbers roll in—then it's sequel city.
So, is Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning really the end? I'm skeptical. This franchise is like a hydra—cut off one head, and two more grow back, each with a bigger explosion. But if this is truly the finale, it has a lot to prove after Dead Reckoning Part One's stumble. The trailer looks promising, with McQuarrie and Cruise doubling down on what they do best: practical stunts, high stakes, and a cast that's stacked—Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and new faces like Nick Offerman and Hannah Waddingham.
Here's teh uncomfortable truth: if this film doesn't stick the landing, it might tarnish the whole franchise's legacy. Will you be in theaters on May 23, 2025, to see if Ethan Hunt finally hangs up his spy gear—or will you wait for the inevitable “not-so-final” sequel? Drop your thoughts below.
