The eighth and concluding chapter of the "Mission: Impossible" film series hits theaters across the country today. Tom Cruise reprises his iconic role as Ethan Hunt, and after nearly three hours of Final Reckoning, the mixed feelings it leaves behind raise questions about whether this final stamp meets expectations.
"The things we do... the things we do," Tom Cruise says with a wide grin, reflecting on three decades of impossible missions. The legendary agent Ethan Hunt has made Cruise’s name synonymous with achieving the impossible, but in his last and final mission, the challenge is not only to meet high expectations but to surpass them.
The plot picks up directly from where the previous film (Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning) left off, with Ethan Hunt and his scattered team, Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Grace (Hayley Atwell), facing their greatest threat yet: "The Entity," a malevolent artificial intelligence capable of wiping out humanity.
A key note: those who haven’t seen the previous film may find themselves confused, especially in the first half-hour. The storyline demands familiarity with prior events, posing a challenge for viewers who haven’t closely followed the series.
The team is pursued by agents Briggs and Degas (Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis), confronts Gabriel (Esai Morales), and is aided by former foe Paris (Pom Klementieff). Their goal is to secure the only weapon capable of defeating The Entity, a weapon located beneath the polar ice in the Bering Sea, within the wreckage of the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol.
