“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” Launches Tom Cruise Into the Super Bowl

If this is Tom Cruise’s last mission as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, he chose an auspicious time to unleash a furious new look—in the midst of the Philadelphia Eagles prime time demolition of the reigning champs in the Kansas City Chiefs during the Super Bowl. The game wasn’t close, but Ethan’s hunt (pun intended) to secure a rogue AI and save the world is balanced on a knife’s edge.

The fresh look at Cruise’s 8th mission in the decades-old franchise, which began with 1996’s Mission: Impossible and has become arguably the greatest showcase for practical stunts in the history of cinema, holds little back. Cruise and Co. have been teasing each installment’s defining stunt for nearly a decade at this point, from Cruise hanging off the side of an Airbus A400m in Rogue Nation to his record-breaking HALO skydive and his mastery of helicopter piloting in Fallout. 

So what’s the lunatic stunt that Cruise, director Christopher McQuarrie, and longtime stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood have cooked up this time? All we know thus far is it involves Cruise once again hanging on for dear life to an aircraft, this time, an upside-down propeller plane.

Cruise is joined by longtime IMF partners Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell and Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, his two closest compatriots. The cast also includes Hayley Atwell as Grace, Esai Morales as the bad guy Gabriel, Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge, Pom Klementieff as Paris, Vanessa Kirby as the White Widow, and Hannah Waddingham, Nick Offerman, Katy O’Brian and Tramell Tillman.

So is this Cruise’s actual final mission? He hasn’t been completely convincing either way, telling Empire “You gotta see the movie,” when asked if it was his last go-round as the unkillable agent. “It’s a hard thing for me to discuss at the moment because it really is something that you have to experience.”

Dead Reckoning left us with a very dramatic cliffhanger, with Ethan and his team doing battle against The Entity, a rogue AI that is threatening global security. The key to the AI was a literal key, one that could control or destroy the Entity, which Ethan and his team finally secured by the end of the film. Yet, Dead Reckoning ended with a reveal of a sunken submarine loaded with secrets, the AI’s original resting place, teasing audiences that Ethan’s fight to control the Entity and secure the planet was only just the beginning.

Check out the new Big Game spot below. Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning arrives May 23, 2025.

Featured image: Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt and Simon Pegg plays Benji Dunn in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.