Impossible — The Final Reckoning Ending, Explained

So did Ethan Hunt destroy the web and the worldwide economic system or what?
Picture: Paramount Footage

Spoilers forward for the plot and ending of Mission: Not possible — The Remaining Reckoning

After ten Mission: Not possible motion pictures, it shouldn’t be a spoiler to disclose that Ethan Hunt saves the day. Within the latest film within the franchise, Mission: Not possible — The Remaining Reckoning, Tom Cruise’s death-defying hero finishes what he began in 2023’s Lifeless Reckoning, the place a malicious, borderline all-powerful synthetic intelligence often known as The Entity took over our on-line world — and by extension, actuality. After buying the important thing (actually) to stopping it within the final movie, Ethan is now crossing the globe to get to the A.I.’s supply, hoping to cease it and its human allies from taking management of all of the world’s missiles and unleashing a nuclear apocalypse. Fortunately, as soon as the job is finished, all the pieces appears fairly hunky dory, as if there had by no means been any reckonings in any respect.

That’s a bit of complicated as a result of on many events all through the film, we’re advised that by destroying The Entity, Ethan will primarily take down the web and break the worldwide economic system. Granted, that’s a greater end result than nuclear annihilation, however it will nonetheless be fairly dangerous. So what offers?

In Lifeless Reckoning, all of the governments of the world are looking for two one-of-a-kind, high-tech cruciform keys that can unlock The Entity’s supply code and provides them management over it. The A.I. has wormed itself into each degree of our on-line world and may primarily determine what’s true and bend the world to its whims. The U.S. authorities is amongst those that need to be accountable for the final word weapon. Which is why Ethan goes rogue, defying his authorities’s orders to convey the keys again to them. He believes no person ought to have this energy.

The Remaining Reckoning provides a brand new wrinkle. As Angela Bassett’s President Sloane explains, The Entity is so absolutely entrenched in our on-line world by now that destroying it will additionally take down the net. The president appears very involved about this chance — although it’s not like the net is at present working effectively, to the purpose the place the very best ranges of the federal government have gone analog as a result of nothing on-line may be trusted anymore. Later within the movie, Hayley Atwell’s Grace, a mercenary pickpocket-turned-ally of Ethan, means that Ethan ought to think about being the one to manage The Entity as an alternative of simply destroying it, as a result of he could possibly be trusted to undo the harm it did.

At concerning the midpoint of The Remaining Reckoning, Ethan convinces President Sloane to present him approval to go about his nigh-impossible mission to destroy The Entity. Within the meantime, she’s busy debating whether or not it will be value it to launch a pre-emptive strike on all of the nuclear capitals of the world earlier than the U.S. loses management of its missiles to the factitious intelligence, in an effort to mitigate the potential influence of The Entity’s plan for complete annihilation ought to it succeed. (She additionally agrees to focus on an American metropolis to stop a response from the opposite nations she attacked. That is the plot of Sidney Lumet’s gripping 1964 Chilly Warfare thriller Fail Protected, besides The Remaining Reckoning doesn’t have the heart to call which American metropolis the president could be sacrificing.)

Fortunately, no nukes fly by any means. Ethan dangers his life in a mid-air scramble with Gabriel (Esai Morales), a terrorist who works with The Entity, to acquire the poison tablet, a virus that Luther (Ving Rhames) created to contaminate the A.I. He plugs it into the podkova, a particular drive containing The Entity’s supply code that Ethan obtained from the wreck of a Russian sub that was destroyed within the final movie. As soon as he’s achieved that, and earlier than The Entity can launch the nukes, Grace makes use of her pickpocket reflexes to tug a 5D drive that The Entity uploaded itself into. (Due to the trickery of the poison tablet’s code, the A.I. mistakenly believed the drive was a safe bunker of servers.) The Entity is trapped, locked away from the web. Every part goes darkish because the world seemingly loses energy…

…After which it boots again up shortly afterwards. Every part appears nice! Planes aren’t falling from the sky (aside from Ethan and Gabriel’s), it doesn’t look like a Y2K-esque disaster, and the ultimate scene the place Ethan’s crew meets again up in London some undetermined period of time later means that society continues to perform, seemingly as regular.

If there’s any fallout from Ethan trapping The Entity, no person mentions it. In all honesty, it actually looks as if the film is hoping viewers forgot about what President Sloane mentioned destroying The Entity would do to the world. Ethan simply held onto a airplane in mid-air, beat the dangerous man, and defeated a god-like synthetic intelligence averting the fiery nuclear dying of all humanity. Who needs to consider penalties like the worldwide economic system tanking? Ethan saved the day!

Can we attempt to elucidate what occurred? Certain. Possibly President Sloane didn’t know that Luther’s poison tablet to defeat The Entity labored in such a manner that it averted any fallout. Maybe she was simply incorrect in her assumption that stopping The Entity would tank the web within the first place. Possibly the web did get wrecked and our on-line world is in shambles, however we’re simply not seeing it. Might or not it’s {that a} post-digital world is a greater place, truly? Nature is therapeutic, and all that? There’s additionally the likelihood that Ethan is definitely going to manage The Entity to repair all the pieces; Grace offers him the glowing thumb-drive containing the A.I. in London. However Ethan had rejected that concept. Additionally, this reunion in London takes place lengthy sufficient after the climax for Benji (Simon Pegg) to have absolutely recovered from a gnarly gunshot wound. Ethan didn’t have his arms on The Entity till now, Grace did, so any harm to the web would’ve already been achieved effectively earlier than this.

All of those explanations really feel weak. The seemingly actuality is that The Remaining Reckoning simply wasn’t invested in exploring this narrative thread. There’s lots about The Entity that Mission: Not possible doesn’t absolutely deal with. We’re advised in the beginning of the film that the complete world exists in a post-truth actuality, ally nations have change into enemies and enemies have change into aggressors, and there’s an A.I.-worshiping dying cult cheering on The Entity. That is verging on sci-fi dystopian stuff, but in the end The Entity is only a buzzword-y MacGuffin that Ethan must put in a field towards all odds. Is anybody actually shocked The Remaining Reckoning wouldn’t increase on the technological, financial, geopolitical, and social ramifications of the web happening within the remaining minutes of cinema’s supposed farewell to Ethan Hunt? That’s not what Mission: Not possible is about. It’s about Tom Cruise hanging on to a biplane because it barrel rolls a whole lot of toes over a beautiful South African vista. And, to be truthful, it does certainly rule when he does that. In case you have an issue, complain about it on the web. It nonetheless works simply nice, apparently.