Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
Mission: Impossible–The Final Reckoningis the end of an era, as Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) races to save the world from being plunged into nuclear war. It also features plenty of callbacks, both subtle and overt, to the rest of theMission: Impossiblefilms. One of these callbacksfinally answers a nearly 20-year-old mystery:What exactly is the Rabbit’s Foot?The Rabbit’s Foot was first introduced inMission: Impossible IIIas a mysterious weapon of mass destruction, with the official trailer forMission: Impossible – The Final Reckoninghinting that itwould play some role in Ethan’s final mission. It turns out that the Rabbit’s footdoesplay a role inThe Final Reckoning, andit’s bigger than anyone could have expected.
‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ Reveals the Rabbit’s Foot Gave Birth to the Entity
InMission: Impossible III, Ethan intercepts the Rabbit’s Foot before it can be sold to arms dealer Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Davian promptly kidnaps Ethan’s wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) andforces Ethan to retrieve the Rabbit’s Foot from a lab in Shanghai. No one knows exactly what the Rabbit’s Foot is inMission: Impossible III, but Ethan’s future teammate and tech expert Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) more or less says that it’s a harbinger of destruction:
You see, it was inevitable that a compound would be created which he referred to as the ‘Anti-God.’ It was like an accelerated mutator or sort of, you know, like an unstoppable force of destructive power that would just lay waste to everything — to buildings and parks and streets and children and ice cream parlors, you know? So whenever I see, like, a rogue organization willing to spend this amount of money on a mystery tech, I always assume … it’s the Anti-God.
Benji’s words prove to be prophetic, asMission: Impossible – The Final Reckoningreveals thatthe Rabbit’s Foot contains the source code that wouldgive birth to the Entity—the malevolent artificial intelligence that is threatening the world. When Ethan retrieved the Rabbit’s Foot in Shanghai, he inadvertently released its source code, letting it evolve to a point where it’s hijacked the world’s nuclear arsenals. As Gabriel (Esai Morales) gleefully tells him,Ethan is partly responsible for bringing the world to the brink of destruction. But thanks to the help of his team and his tendency to pull off death-defying stunts, Ethan is able to capture and imprison the Entity — effectively taking it offline — by the end ofThe Final Reckoning.
‘Mission: Impossible III’ Continues To Be One of The Most Important ‘Mission: Impossible’ Films
The Rabbit’s Foot playing such an important role inMission: Impossible – The Final Reckoningonly underlines the importance ofMission: Impossible IIIto the franchise. Not only did it set up the major threat in bothMission: Impossible – Dead ReckoningandThe Final Reckoning, butit also highlights how far Ethan is willing to go to protect his loved ones. He steals a bio-weapon to save his wife’s life, and he even goes behind enemy lines to save the life of his friend and fellow agent Lindsay (Keri Russell). It’s a trend that futureMission: Impossiblemovies continue to return to, especiallyMission: Impossible – Fallout,which brings back Julia in a key role. WithoutMission: Impossible III, we also wouldn’t have Benji — who’s gone on to play a major role in everyMission: Impossiblemovie since. ButMission: Impossible IIIalso shows that Ethan’s actions can come back to haunt him, since his kidnapping of Davian is what prompted the arms dealer to take Julia as a hostage, setting off the chain of events that leads to the Entity’s birth. InThe Final Reckoning, Ethan must reckon with that decision directly.
Utilizing the Rabbit’s Foot as the source of the Entity is also a clever way to link together two separate films in theMission: Impossibleseries. It also avoids the trap that the James Bond franchise fell into. Whereas 2015’sSpectrestretched our suspension of disbelief by connecting every previous villain inDaniel Craig’s James Bond films, the wayThe Final Reckoningutilizes the Rabbit’s Foot actually makes sense and sets the stakes sky-high for Ethan. Out of all the callbacks thatMission: Impossible – The Final Reckoningmakes in its runtime, the Rabbit’s Foot is definitely the most surprising … and the most impactful.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
