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Warning: SPOILERS for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning are ahead!
The Mission: Impossible film series is over; Tom Cruise confirmed as much just days before the eighth installment, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, was released onto the 2025 movies schedule. In terms of ranking these movies, I place The Final Reckoning somewhere in the middle, because while I didn’t find it nearly as exceptional as the likes of Rogue Nation and Fallout, it was still a fun watch. It’s definitely worth streaming with a Paramount+ subscription later this year if you’re not able to make time for it at the movie theater now.
However, The Final Reckoning gets one major ding from me in terms of how it failed to resolve a mystery from 2023’s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning. The final two Mission: Impossible movies are the most closely connected in this film series, which was to be expected given that The Final Reckoning was originally called Dead Reckoning Part 2. And yet, this last hurrah fails to tell audiences the full story of what happened between Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and Esai Morales’ Gabriel, and I’m not pleased about it.
The Final Reckoning Never Delves Into Specifics Behind Ethan And Gabriel’s Feud
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning finally answered a question that had been on fans’ minds since the film series began in 1996: how did Ethan Hunt join the Impossible Mission Force (IMF)? In 1989, Ethan’s girlfriend Marie was killed by Gabriel, and two years later, he was arrested by Eugene Kittridge in Spain due to being framed for her murder. Ethan was given a choice between being sent to prison or join the IMF. It’s the same kind of deal that was offered to Hayley Atwell’s Grace as Dead Reckoning was winding down, and she also chose to accept it.
I didn’t mind that Dead Reckoning didn’t delve into the specifics about what led to Gabriel killing Marie. There was enough already going on in that movie, and I figured The Final Reckoning would pull back the proverbial curtain on that event. Sure, the main reason people are checking out Mission: Impossible 8 is to see more of Tom Cruise’s wild stunts and witness Ethan Hunt defeating The Entity, but the hardcore fans were surely eager to learn the full story behind Ethan becoming an IMF agent.
But we never get that. Gabriel was still causing trouble in Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, albeit on his own ever since The Entity abandoned him because he failed to retrieve the key to the malevolent A.I.’s source code. Gabriel even gets a fitting demise in the movie, because just when he thinks he’s going to escape Ethan and parachute to safety, he cracks his head on the plane rudder, dying instantly. Yet at no point are we ever clued in about why Gabriel felt the need to kill Marie to hurt Ethan.
I’m Annoyed That The Final Reckoning Didn’t Dedicate Any Time To This Mystery
I walked out of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning with a lot of questions on my mind. How did Ethan and Gabriel meet? What were these two doing in 1989? What sequence of events led to Gabriel deciding it was necessary to kill Marie? Who even was Marie? What was Gabriel doing in the following 30 years leading up to his alliance with The Entity?
All these questions go unanswered, and it annoys me. Yes, I realize not every aspect of a character’s past needs to explained to the audience, but it’s strange that Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning didn’t carve out any time to shed light on Ethan and Gabriel’s feud, even if it was just through a few lines of dialogue. To those who watched the final two Mission: Impossible movies, Gabriel is just some guy who had beef with Ethan Hunt in the late ‘80s and decided to pick it back up three decades later.
The Final Reckoning clocks in at 170 minutes, just 10 minutes shy of three hours. You’re telling me there was no way to squeeze in any of this backstory? Hell, we even finally learned what the Rabbit’s Foot from Mission: Impossible III was (though that did leave a huge loose thread in the process). I was overall entertained by the events that unfolded in the eighth and final Mission: Impossible movie, but I can’t help but feel misled that a mystery that was dangled in front of us two years ago was never followed up on.
Sharing These Details Would Have Made Gabriel A More Compelling Villain
Frankly, doing so would have made Gabriel a more interesting adversary. To clarify, I don’t think Gabriel is a terrible villain, it’s just that he doesn’t come anywhere close to holding a candle next to the likes of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Owen Davian and Sean Harris’ Solomon Lane. I could also just still be bitter about Gabriel killing Ilsa Faust in Dead Reckoning, though I understand why Rebecca Ferguson’s perfectly fine with not being in the franchise anymore.
Regardless, I would have been more invested in Gabriel’s activities across the last two Mission: Impossible movies if I’d known more about his past. Informing audiences about what drove him to take one of Ethan Hunt’s loved ones away from him would have made his conflict with Tom Cruise’s character more interesting. I’m also curious about how specifically Gabriel became The Entity’s liaison beyond simply wanting to obtain power. I mean, sure, that’s enough to explain a lot of terrible actions that people commit, but why not go the extra mile with this baddie?
Alas, that ship has sailed in more ways than one. So although I’ll always be disappointed that Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning never bothered to put this mystery to bed, whenever the time comes for a rewatch, I’ll just focus on the movie’s positive elements, like the (mostly) perfect submarine sequence, Tom Cruise’s extreme wing-walking plane stunt, and even the non-stunt-filled scene that was Nick Offerman’s favorite.