Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Tells a Better Ultron Story Than the MCU

Despite the Mission: Impossible movies being all about Ethan Hunt finding himself in ridiculous situations, the franchise tends to keep its villains relatively grounded. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Owen Davian is just an arms dealer looking to land a huge score, while Henry Cavill’s August Walker is a CIA agent who turns out to be part of a nasty group of terrorists. Hunt’s adversaries really don’t get complicated until Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, when he faces off against Gabriel and his AI master, the Entity. Their plans are so big that they carry over into Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which sees the Entity make a play to take control of all of cyberspace.

The Entity’s trump card is its ability to access nuclear codes, putting the idea of total annihilation on the table. It doesn’t stop there, though, placing agents in major positions all over the world, ensuring that anyone and everyone bends to its whim. The Entity is a cerebral threat that runs circles around another AI villain, the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Ultron.

The Entity Takes Its Time in the Mission: Impossible Franchise

The Entity has a pretty complicated backstory, being the Rabbit’s Foot that Hunt steals for Davian in Mission: Impossible III before the United States government develops it into a cyber weapon. Wanting to get one over on the Russians, the US uses the Entity to disable the cloaking technology of a submarine called the Sevastopol. However, the mission goes awry, with the Entity gaining a mind of its own, sinking the ship, and spending the next several years developing a plan to take control. Gabriel finds himself on the Entity’s radar at some point before Dead Reckoning Part One and sets his sights on Ethan Hunt, wanting to grab the keys that access the weapon’s source code before the IMF agent does.

Hunt thwarts Gabriel’s plan, but he’s not ready to take on the Entity just yet. He goes into hiding for several months, which is when the events of The Final Reckoning start. The world is living in fear because the Entity already has nuclear codes in its back pocket and a cult full of followers willing to do anything to be part of the AI’s new world order. Hunt and Co. have to go completely off the grid to fight back, and they still suffer losses when Gabriel pinpoints their hideout and kills Luther. The Entity pushes Hunt to his breaking point, and even though the spy ultimately wins by trapping the AI in a special device, the world is forever changed, which is something Ultron couldn’t achieve during his tenure in the MCU.

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Ultron Fails to Make a Lasting Impact in the MCU

Ultron’s origins aren’t all that different from the Entity’s. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner discover a code within the Mind Stone that they believe can be the key to creating a peacekeeping AI. After some tinkering, they leave Ultron to his own devices, which is when he discovers the internet and decides that humanity isn’t worth protecting. He defies his masters and starts to create problems all over the world, including taking control of nuclear codes.

Without wasting a second, Ultron decides to take his talents to Sokovia and outfits its capital with boosters that turn it into a floating island. The idea is to use the city as a meteor of sorts to send the Earth back to the Stone Age, allowing Ultron to rebuild the world in his vision. Of course, he doesn’t get the job done because Earth’s Mightiest Heroes come together once again to save the day. Ultron’s more or less forgotten after that, with his only legacy being Helmut Zemo, who goes after the Avengers because he blames them for the events of Sokovia.

The Entity doesn’t let emotion affect decisions like Ultron does, being meticulous and ensuring that Hunt must do everything perfectly to win. It also plays the long game by starting a cult that can push its agenda without it even having to act. The MCU felt like it had to introduce Ultron early on because he’s such an iconic Avengers villain, but if the powers that be waited for The Final Reckoning to come out, they would have had the blueprint for a much better AI threat.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in theaters now.

Did you enjoy the Entity as a villain in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning? Do you think the movie told a better Ultron story? Let us know in the comments below!