Why ‘Final Reckoning’ Should Have Killed Off Ethan Hunt 

The ending of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, marketed as the final installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, left some viewers unsatisfied.

Instead of wrapping up the series neatly, Final Reckoning ends with Ethan Hunt melting into a crowd with the Entity — the evil AI MacGuffin he and his gang spent two movies chasing — in his pocket. No closure. Just open-endedness and disappointment.

Tom Cruise and Director Christopher McQuarrie have made many sound storytelling choices recently, but maybe they opted for a trendy, post-modern ending in Final Reckoning. Or maybe there is more to the story.

A Quick Plot Synopsis

Final Reckoning begins with Ethan Hunt hiding from the U.S. government with the key to the source code for the Entity in his possession. The Entity has seized control of the nuclear arsenals of several world powers. President Erika Sloane is considering a pre-emptive nuclear strike before she loses control of the U.S. arsenal but agrees to give Hunt a few days to find the Entity’s source code and destroy it.

The Entity, apparently, wants to annihilate mankind in a global nuclear war while it hides out in a bunker in South Africa to survive. Its motivation? The movie never makes that clear.

For 170 minutes, Hunt and his team play mind games with the Entity and Gabriel, the villain from Dead Reckoning, while dodging the CIA. They successfully retrieve the source code, trap the Entity in a physical drive, and infect it with a virus that allows them to control it.

Timed nuclear bombs and flashback montages abound. The diving and bi-plane stunt sequences live up to the franchise’s legacy. The film, with the exception of the last ten minutes, is enjoyable. There is, however, a disappointing lack of masks.

Ethan Hunt’s New Character Arc

For the last several films, the writers have made it clear that Hunt’s entire value system is built on prioritizing the lives of his team more than his mission. A well-written finale should have demonstrated this commitment in the extreme.

The writers missed an opportunity to wrap up this character arc neatly in Hunt’s freefall and parachute malfunction at the end of the film. They could have let him die with his boots on while saving his friends and the rest of the world one last time — a fitting way to conclude the franchise where the story ended, not when the money ran out.

Or Hunt could have completed his objective with his team intact, destroyed the Entity as he originally planned, and walked away alive from his last impossible mission — a sort of ride into the sunset from one of action’s greatest heroes.

Instead, Hunt lived and allowed the Entity to live as well.

In the hero’s journey, this kind of death and resurrection moment belongs near the three-quarter mark of the story. The hero faces literal or symbolic death, only to emerge triumphantly after internalizing the truth of the story’s theme. The hero then goes on to defeat the villain in the final battle, aided by the power of this truth. The point of a good story’s climax is to demonstrate the truth of theme through the hero’s victory. If Hunt’s truth is that people come before the mission, he has already proved that he knows this. His character arc is static and does not require a death-and-resurrection.

The movie instead pivots to two other themes that have appeared throughout the series: Our lives are the sum of the choices we make, and Ethan Hunt is the only man who can save the world from the ever-escalating threats presented in the movies.

Action Hero Turned Superhero

During a quiet moment in the latter half of the movie, Grace — a member of Hunt’s team — asks Hunt why he doesn’t just use the Entity to fix everything. He insists that he can’t. It’s too dangerous. Grace says that he is the only person who can be trusted with the power of the Entity.

Following his parachute near-miss, a monologue from Luther calls Hunt “the chosen one” and reminds him that his life is the sum of his choices. Hunt decides to pocket the Entity.

The chosen one trope, typical of the science fiction and fantasy genres, has no place in an action series. In one small turn of phrase, Hunt ceased to be an action hero and became a messiah.

Since Rogue Nation and the introduction of the Syndicate, Mission: Impossible movies have been a mix of reality-defying stunts and religious themes. Both Solomon Lane and the Entity have doomsday cults attached to them, and the Syndicate evolves into a group calling themselves “the Apostles.”

Since Mission: Impossible III, Hunt has been exalted as the only person who can keep the world safe from the powers of darkness. He always makes the right choice. He always finds a way to do the impossible. Though he has died several times, he always revives.

Maybe this is why the stakes felt low in this movie. If the hero is the chosen one, nothing but supernatural or otherworldly forces can threaten him. Hunt ceased to be a man — albeit insanely skilled and lucky — and became a god.

Another Mission: Impossible?

There are two possible conclusions: either Final Reckoning is a bloated, unsatisfying end to an otherwise phenomenal action series, or it’s not the end of the series at all. The choice to include a death-and-resurrection to the truth that Ethan Hunt is the chosen one could indicate that his character arc is not complete. There could be more to the story.

McQuarrie teased in 2023 that Final Reckoning was not the final movie, and the cast recently echoed this. Considering the open ending of Final Reckoning, another installment might be in their best interest.

Jacqueline Annis-Levings is a correspondent for the Federalist. She is a rising junior at Patrick Henry College, where she is majoring in English.