Mission: Impossible – McGuffin Overload!
May 29, 2025
By NZB3
So, we now have the completion of the new 2-part Mission Impossible film. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) has been followed up with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025.) What a drag it was.
Much like The Force Awakens (2015) we were let down by Dead Reckoning. But also in this case it seemed not beyond redemption provided that the next film followed up and paid it off in a way that made sense of it. Situated in the right context those films could be saved. We held our breath. Star Wars wasn’t- It was ruined by its sequel by magic Mary Sue healing powers and a Black Pill Luke Skywalker among other things.
Final Reckoning could have worked out really well if we’d had a few key elements. I was looking for Hayley Atwell to be there for a reason other than to look pretty and bat her big eyelashes. I was looking for Simon Pegg to level-up while being comedic and technically brilliant. I needed a good reason for the 3D key. I was looking for the exotic mystery Mustache-Twirling Villain to be paid off and explained. I was looking for radical and timely examination about the AI threatening the world and our human response.
None of those things were delivered.
Final Reckoning was a ridiculous story with light-weight characters. Ethan Hunt should change his first name to McGuffin. These films used to be built on character. The McGuffin simply provided a test vehicle.
For example, M2 was already exciting before Anthony Hopkins shot a weariable McGuffin at Tom’s cliff climb. The IMF team and Hunt personally are constantly being pushed to an “impossible” edge of danger to overcome. Technically, physically, morally, fraternally, loyalty. That’s what the audience I’m in shows up for.
Well these last two had that but it was massively overshadowed by McGuffin contrivances. And, it was all about Hunt at that. The IMF team stuff was replaced by virtue signalling about diversity bosses (aircraft carrier, president, sub, chopper pilots and co-pilot,….all chicks and one token black dude! We get it! You’re Politically Correct!)
Usually Tom has to have a big talk about duty and responsibility with Jeremy Renner or Alec Baldwin rather than an audience with Hannah Waddingham’s haircut.
McGuffin was never the foundation until this film in particular. It’s a parody. As such, it worked best for the Mustache-Twirling Villain the bad guy had become because he owned it. Everyone else was taking things seriously. Poor old Simon Pegg and Luthor didn’t even get to meet and were both occupied by what seems to have been the identical plot device! Both were allocated ticking nuclear bombs to deal with and appeared to be exactly the same prop! Mustache-Twirler evidently got the second one for half price at the Nuke Shop. Stopping one nuke used to be enough for a whole James Bond movie but now they’re just the equivalent to getting your shirt caught in your zip.
This movie put McGuffins ahead of character.
And some people actually like that? I guess they never really were a ‘true’ fan if I can put it that way if that’s what they were in it for. Before the Tom Cruise films I’d seen the TV show (80s not 60s) so was primed to see it as an IMF Team. That’s why it was, as it was supposed to be, a jolt in the first film when Jim Phelps turned bad and the team were killed. Even then I didn’t see that this was, and always had been, The Tom Cruise Show. With Final Reckoning they finally proved it.
The main theme about AI taking over “cyberspace” was never paid off at all. No exploration, no real threat really either. Some vague idea that AI is going to get us and Tom’s going to fix it.
And what did he fix? At the end of struggle they achieve the opposite result that we applauded Snake Plissken for ensuring! In Escape from L.A. (1996) there’s a big red button to shut down all our modern technology being used as a threat. Our protagonist, Plissken, rescues it from the bad guys then ends the threat by pushing it. He brings down all the quibbling and corrupt Big Brother along with the terrorist threat. That was the exciting and radical twist and we loved it.
Same situation for Mission Impossible. We’re going to lose Cyberspace plus some re-writes about geothermal nuclear war or something (blah blah high stakes.) The US President is even going to blow up the world to stop it and, worse (for the American) she’s going to blow up a US city to cover her crime! Unless Tom Cruise can give her another option. Just like the president in Escape From L.A. the black girl boss in Dead Reckoning is desperate to stop our modern electronic infrastructure from being taken away. Whereas our black-clad hero of Kurt Russell shut it all down, Tom did a 180 on that preserved it like a good dog.
Imagine how powerful Mission Impossible could have been as a film if it had run with the 1996 plot. It had all the makings. The elements were clearly set up in Dead Reckoning to have done this had they the vision and conviction to do so. Corrupt idiots were trying to grab the power and stomping on innocent people to get at it. Tom Cruise could have stunned the world in 2025 by slapping us back to dial-up internet times; Back to Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men, Days of Thunder, Coctail, Top Gun, Risky Business.
That would have been your classic IMF team debate! Simon Pegg saying “But Luthor died for this..” and facing his skill set being made redundant…Hayley Atwell and Rebecca Fergusson being voices for a low-tech conscience pitching the idea that Skynet must die…
The Mission Impossible series could have gone out with a shock more prominent and relevant than the Thanos Snap from Avengers: Endgame (2019.) It would have framed the debate and people would be watching this film for generations just to study it. But, no. McGuffin Fest.
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