The existential threat of Artificial Intelligence, starting with its incursions into privacy and security, is all too real, as is the notion of a cyber force manipulating the truth. But renegade AI programs make incredibly boring supervillains, and the scariest part is that we’re bound to see a bunch more movies about them. It’s a relief when uber-cool assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff) — now on Ethan’s team and eager to ice Gabriel, her former employer — grabs a machine gun and starts mowing down Russians in the Arctic Circle. Reviews of the latest movies so you’ll know whether you should spend your money seeing a film in a theater or wait until it hits cable.
In the months since Ethan evaded capture in Austria at the end of the last movie, the Entity has expanded its power, building a fanatical cult, sparking global violence and inching toward the annihilation of humankind. The film boasts an impressive 85% Rotten Tomatoes score, meaning it’s well worth a spot on our best Netflix movies round-up, even if the decision to stream it has been met with criticism. The Podkova needs to be activated at a precise split second to stop the Entity from launching the nuclear warheads of eight nations and claiming billions of lives. Activation also requires an additional component stolen by Gabriel from Ethan’s trusty hacker sidekick Luther, played by Ving Rhames, the only actor besides Cruise who has been with the series since the start.
Emilia Perez took home plenty of awards, despite its controversial handling of its subject matter. Perhaps a straight-to-streaming option was not the best move for this, as there’s a risk Netflix will simply fail to market it properly, and it’s not going to get a long theatrical run. I’m worried Nouvelle Vague will end up buried among a seemingly endless library, while the streaming giant promotes other titles instead. But I wish someone had explained what exactly these killer cultists expect to get out of serving the Entity. Every time someone says something idiotic like, “The Entity, it wants you to hate me! ” or “Madam President, we’re in the Entity’s reality now,” Final Reckoning lurches further into self-seriousness, which doesn’t sit well on a plot as maddeningly convoluted and, well, silly as this one.
Nouvelle Vague
(Updated May 2025) We rank every movie of Tom Cruise’s career from worst to best by Metascore. We reveal the 15 best-reviewed movies starring Paul Rudd (ranked by Metascore).
Maybe its not-entirely-successful attempt at tying a neat and all-encompassing bow is the Final Reckoning for the franchise and the path it laid out across 8 movies. From a real world perspective, maybe a messy and self-serious capstone to an otherwise iconic franchise is exactly what they deserve and it’s a perfect subtitle. Lucy is a long-time movie and television lover who is an approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning
A lot of how I feel about this movie, though, comes down to that subtitle. The Final Reckoning can’t be officially final with the way it ends, and I don’t think there are any of us who believe Tom Cruise is done risking his life for our entertainment. Maybe they completely missed the mark on the “Final” part of the equation, and it’s not a representative title at all.
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It’s good to see Ron Saxon back as William Donloe, the CIA analyst baffled by Ethan’s entry into the supposedly impenetrable black vault in the first movie. Likewise Bassett (her second time playing a U.S. president this year, after Netflix’s Zero Day) and Henry Czerny as Kittridge, the ex-IMF chief now heading the CIA. But all the tense meetings at Virginia Emergency Command are staffed by over-qualified actors given too little to do — Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Holt McCallany. Ethan’s bantering rapport with his close collaborators Luther and Benji (Simon Pegg) is always pleasurable, though it’s limited here by how much time Ethan spends globe-hopping solo. Atwell is a welcome presence again, even if her character has lost some of the mischievous charm she had as a thief, becoming more serious and less fun since joining Ethan’s IMF crew and having to learn new skills on the job, like defusing bombs. Then there’s the unfortunate matter of “The Entity.” Introduced in Dead Reckoning, that sentient AI menace is capable of infiltrating the financial institutions, law enforcement and nuclear facilities of the world’s most powerful nations, unleashing chaos.
The tongue-in-cheek wit of the franchise at its best is largely absent. Which films at the 78th Cannes Film Festival impressed critics, and which titles disappointed? We recap the just-included festival with a list of award winners plus review summaries for dozens of films making their world premieres in Cannes. Based on the movie’s success, there’s a chance it could be in the next Oscar race, and it’s not unheard of for a Netflix movie to win big.
My biggest takeaway from the eighth and very evidently not final film starring Cruise as natura quiz fate’s chosen lucky boy is that it’s extremely sober. The Final Reckoning veers into melodrama whenever there is story to be told. The cast, which is an assembling of familiar franchise faces and newcomer cameos, whisper-talk their way through soap-opera levels of tension. Nearly every scrap of dialogue is invested in no less than the end of all life on the planet. If you play a drinking game pegged to every time someone gravely intones the words “the Entity,” be warned you’ll probably be hammered within the first hour.
(Updated April 2025) We rank every Marvel Comics film–including films from outside the MCU–from worst to best by Metascore. I would definitely like to see Nouvelle Vague get some time in theaters, but I’m worried it won’t be there as long as it deserves to be. Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.
Gaining control of the Entity is a multipart undertaking, the first step achieved in Dead Reckoning when Ethan took possession of the bejeweled “cruciform” key. The crucial next step is retrieving the source codes from a gadget called the Podkova, which was lost when the Sevastopol, a Russian submarine, vanished on its maiden voyage at the start of Dead Reckoning, thanks to some Entity treachery. Only Ethan knows how to locate it, which is why Gabriel wants him kept alive and President Sloane puts her faith in him, against the advice of her defense and intelligence chiefs. The script works hard to mythologize Ethan as a tragic hero, who can save the world but must go forever unacknowledged, always acting “for the greater good,” but more than once at the cost of someone he loves. Cruise plays all this with corrosive interiority alongside his characteristic physical stamina. But as compelling as his performance is, the movie feels dour and heavy for long stretches at a time.
Here’s our take on a wide variety of theatrically released movies, from big budget potential blockbusters to independent films and hidden gems. Each review includes running times, release dates, and MPAA ratings. I know I keep swerving away from The Final Reckoning and back into the rest of the franchise but, for better and worse, this is a part eight that’s very aware that it’s a part eight. You can’t call a movie The Final Reckoning without delivering some degree of, well, finality, and oh boy does this one try.
But I’ve been talking a lot about the things I didn’t like – it’s important to note that there are some things The Final Reckoning very much did right. The action is predictably excellent, with the highlight being Ethan’s infiltration of the Sevastopol, the MacGuffin of a submarine that sank at the start of Dead Reckoning. It is incredibly tense and intricate and claustrophobic and all the other nail-biting things you want from a thriller. More than that, there’s clearly a huge chunk of the reported $400 million budget on screen, and Christopher McQuarrie is getting all the nautical miles he can out of it. The set is equal parts Avatar and the hallway fight from Inception. But despite the expected pluses of slick visual polish, muscular camerawork by Fraser Taggart and a dynamic score by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey, The Final Reckoning ends up being a bit on the dull side.