This article contains spoilers for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.WithMission: Impossible — The Final Reckoningpresumed to be the last hurrah forTom Cruiseand directorChristopher McQuarriefor this long-running action franchise, it must have been expected that the movie would pay some amount of homage to the entire 30-year franchise. And that is the case in the final product, evident from the film’s very opening sequence as various rogue activities by Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) are shared byAngela Bassett’s President Erika Sloane (the former CIA director last seen inMission: Impossible — Fallout). Some of the nods and homages to past movies are obvious, even flagrant, but some are quite subtle.Most of them try to make at least a minor connection between Hunt’s current mission and earlier events, dating back to the 1996 movie.
Even with the AI cyber-menace dubbed “The Entity” taking control of the world’s nuclear armaments, the President and her cabinet still think that Hunt will just make things worse. In an inquest to determine whether Hunt can be trusted to stop the Entity, we start getting some idea that events from previous movies haven’t helped Hunt with his case. McQuarrie and Cruise have spent much of the past two movies bringing back significant elements from the very first movie, and that tradition continues intoMission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.
‘Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning’ Is Full of Nods to the Franchise’s Earlier Movies
With the 2023 installment,Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning,McQuarrie had already begun harking back to the first movie by bringing backHenry Czerny’s Eugene Kittridge, the director of the IMF, who hadn’t been seen in the franchise since that first movie. It was also implied thatEsai Morales' Gabriel, the assassin who acts as the main human liaison for the Entity inDead Reckoning, had a connection to Ethan Hunt’s past.That connection is taken to a point where some might think they remember Morales from an earlier Mission: Impossible, when, in fact, he never appeared in any previous movie in the series.The Final Reckoningadds to this by making a direct connection betweenShea Whigham’s U.S. Intelligence Agent Jasper Briggs andJon Voight’s Jim Phelps, Hunt’s mentor and the IMF leader who died in the originalMission: Impossible. (Phelps was alsoa main character in the original ’60s show, played byPeter Graves.) You see, there’s a reason why Briggs hates Hunt so much, andthat’s because we learn he is Phelps' son, and he still blames his father’s death on Hunt.
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Your mission, should you choose to accept it…
A subtler nod to the earlier movie is a piece of paper with the date “August 24, 2025” written on it, which is handed to Hunt by the President for him to show toHannah Waddingham’s Admiral Neeley. Neeley runs the aircraft carrier that Hunt needs in order to locate the sunken Russian nuclear sub Sevastopol, which sank at the beginning ofDead Reckoning, freeing the Entity. Not a lot of detail is given about how that date is significant for Neeley and the President, butthe astute observer will quickly figure out that it’s also the date on which the very firstMission: Impossiblemovie was released.
A Familiar Face From an Iconic Mission: Impossible Scene Returns in ‘The Final Reckoning’
Having spent most ofDead Reckoningfinding the cruciform key, Hunt is given 72 hours to locate the Sevastopol to stop the Entity from destroying Earth by causing World War III. While Hunt is trying to figure out the physical means of getting to the sub,Simon Pegg’s Benji and his IMF team need to find the sub’s exact location in the vast depths of the Bering Sea. This involves going to a remote island location where high-powered sonar is being used to track undersea anomalies and occurrences, which, in theory, would include the Sevastopol explosion.
Once they arrive on that island, Benji’s team runs intoRolf Saxon’s CIA Analyst William Dunloe,who happened to be at Langley when Hunt broke into the Black Vault to steal a list of CIA operativesin the firstMission: Impossible. Dunloe’s role in that movie was minuscule, essentially stepping out of the Vault as Hunt rappels down in one of the most iconic images from the entire franchise. Hunt’s break-in got Dunloe demoted, and he’s spent the last three decades on that island with his Inuit wife Tapeesa (Lucy Tulugarjuk). At first, this duo’s role might not seem that significant to the movie, butDunloe and his wife are essentially recruited onto Benji’s IMF team, traveling to South Africa to aid in their final confrontation with the Entity.
There are a ton of Easter eggs and connections to priorMission: Impossiblefilmsto absorb and take in while watchingThe Final Reckoning. Some of them have more of an impact than others, andsome early reviewshave criticized McQuarrie and co-writerErik Jendresenfor making too many direct connections to earlier movies.For those assumingThe Final Reckoningwill indeed be Cruise and McQuarrie’s last hurrahwith the adventures of Ethan Hunt and the IMF,The Final Reckoningoffers a much-needed homage to the series' three decades of action and intrigue.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoningis in theaters now.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
