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Winnipeg Free Press
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Cruise control locked in for the long run
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, now playing at a multiplex near you, is the latest entry in a franchise that started way back in 1996. While these blockbuster flicks are ostensibly about the high-stakes missions of crack espionage operative Ethan Hunt, at the most profound and elemental level, the eight M:I movies are about Tom Cruise running. Of course, he also climbs, dives, parachutes, rides motorcycles, clings to airplane wings, pilots helicopters and jumps off cliffs, but the simplest, purest expression of Cruise's superstar persona, of his cinematic embodiment of relentless physical intensity, has to be those iconic, repeated, seemingly contractually obligated running sequences. You can find supercuts of 'Tom Cruise Running' on YouTube, the longest now clocking in at almost 19 minutes. There are videos devoted to charting the evolution of his running style from 1981's Taps (arms all anyhow, knees a bit slack) to his current preferred approach (compressed, precise, palms slicing the air like knives). There's a hardcore fan on Reddit who has listed, described and ranked 295 Tom Cruise Running scenes, from casual jogs to life-and-death sprints. There are online forums where runners and trainers and kinesiologists weigh in, analyzing his form. 'He's actually very inefficient and expends a lot of energy with his short choppy stride and tense upper body,' carps one observer, while others praises his 'high cadence,' 'core stability' and 'good knee lift.' There are deep statistical dives into how Cruise's running time correlates to critical response and ticket sales. Rotten Tomatoes recently got out the pedometer and crunched the numbers to determine that the more Tom Cruise runs in a movie, the higher its RT score and the bigger its box office take. There are some Tom Cruise Running buffs who like his duck-and-weave stuff — when he's dodging bullets, explosions, aliens, oncoming cars — viewing it as more expressive, more varied, more unpredictable. But purists tend to prefer the laser-like straight-line sprints, with the furious propulsion of the legs contrasting so effectively with the strange suspended stillness of the upper body. This is certainly the most characteristic and cinematic expression of the Cruise mystique — when he's running with hyper-focused force through some international locale, intense, unstoppable and alone, in an unalloyed distillation of physical will. Cruise gets one of these sequences — of course he does — in this latest M:I movie, racing through an eerily empty London street on his way to save the entire planet. And while we can talk about how Tom runs in 2025 — his form still looks terrific — maybe we should also talk about why. Often billed as 'The Last Movie Star,' the 62-year-old Cruise seems to be trying to outrun time. This notion is borne out by the data journalism. Rotten Tomatoes, reporting that Cruise has covered 'over 32,444 feet on screen throughout his 44 years,' adds that the older he gets, the more he runs. 'He covered almost the same amount of ground in 2006's Mission: Impossible III (3,212 feet) as he did in the entirety of the 1980s (12 movies, 3,299 feet run), and five of his top 10 running films were released after 2010 — the year he turned 48.' That tracks. As an actor, Cruise will never be known for intellectual introspection or layered emotional work. He's a star because of his physical, kinetic energy and charisma, his discipline and dedication, his loony insistence on doing his own daring, even dangerous stunts. Alberto Pezzali/The Associated Press Files Tom Cruise poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' in London. And because his brand is his body, Cruise has become, in recent years, even more intent on proving it's still functioning at peak levels. The Final Reckoning has triphibian action set-pieces, testing Cruise's speed, strength and endurance on land, air and water. On top of the running scenes, there's a biplane dogfight over a South African mountain range and a frigid, silent, dark diving scene in the Bering Strait. There's also an obligatory underwear fight sequence, just to strip things down to essentials. As Cruise runs more and more, his Ethan Hunt character has also changed, morphing from super-spy to superhero to — ultimately — a kind of demigod. In this latest instalment, Ethan Hunt is the only one who can save humankind. He suffers, dies and is resurrected for all of us. He is positioned as more than a man — he is a messianic figure, a manifestation of destiny, a force of nature. Monthly What you need to know now about gardening in Winnipeg. An email with advice, ideas and tips to keep your outdoor and indoor plants growing. The Final Reckoning, which spends so much time on callbacks, recaps and fan-service montages, also feels like an elegiac adieu to this almost three-decade-old franchise, which started when Cruise was 33. Actors respond to this kind of hinge-point in their careers in different ways. Sometimes they shift from leading-man roles to craggy character parts. Sometimes they subvert their onetime action-man legacies with comic spoofs or poignant counterpoints. I don't see Tom Cruise doing any of these things. And maybe that's the way it should be. When I consider his post Mission: Impossible filmography, I imagine him running, running, always running, toward a distant horizon line. Alison GillmorWriter Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto's York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Popular Tom Cruise Action Movie Set to Receive Long-Awaited Sequel
Tom Cruise is once again pushing the boundaries of cinema forward with his latest action extravaganza. Scaling to new heights and finding new ways to top themselves, the crew behind Mission: Impossible has once again captured lightening in a bottle with the eighth and final M:I film, Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning. As the shock waves continue to resonate around Cruise's latest venture, many are wondering what other adventures lie in store for the famed star of Top Gun, Jack Reacher and A Few Good Men. Surprisingly, that answer might actually be a continuation of a 1990 cult favorite film from Cruise's early years in the action genre. Released in the summer of 1990, Days of Thunder stars Cruise as a competitive NASCAR driver recovering from a serious racing accident. As he attempts to launch a comeback and compete against a conniving rival racer (Cary Elwes), Cruise's NASCAR star also contends with a newfound romance with a local neurosurgeon (played by Cruise's then-wife, Nicole Kidman). Penned by original Mission: Impossible writer Robert Towne and directed by Top Gun's Tony Scott, Days of Thunder earned largely mixed reviews at the time of its release, although many were quick to point out the strength of the movie's performances and pulse-pounding racing sequences. In the past few years, however, the film has gained more appreciative views from mainstream audiences. More recently, Cruise has confirmed that he's currently working on ideas for a potential sequel to Days of Thunder, alongside a planned third installment in the hit Top Gun series. 'Yeah, we're thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what's possible,' the 62-year-old Hollywood icon said. 'It took me 35 years to figure out Top Gun: Maverick, so all of these things we're working on, we're discussing Days of Thunder and Top Gun: Maverick." The Popular Tom Cruise Action Movie Set to Receive Long-Awaited Sequel first appeared on Parade on May 27, 2025
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After Forgetting Everything About Dead Reckoning, I Was So Grateful For One Thing In Mission: Impossible
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Beware, there are light spoilers in this story, nothing that should ruin the story of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, but I am going to talk about the first 20 minutes of the movie. The Mission: Impossible franchise drops its 'final' movie, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, this week, and it's one of the most anticipated releases on the 2025 movie schedule. It also comes with a long runtime - over two hours and forty minutes! I'll be honest, as fun as the M:I movies are, I wasn't thrilled to see it was going to take that kind of time commitment. The good news is that the movie doesn't feel long. It's paced well and there are a ton of great stunts and action scenes (as you'd expect from any film in the franchise), and the movie barrels along at a great clip. The first 20 minutes or so of the film are also very helpful, at least for people like me, who had forgotten everything about the previous installment – the first part of the two-part story to end the long-running Tom Cruise-led juggernaut, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, which came out in 2023. The Mission: Impossible brand started as a TV show in the 1960s, so it's only fitting that The Final Reckoning starts with a recap of not only the last movie, but all seven of the previous films in the franchise. It might not be the most elegant way to remind people like me who just completely forgot what went on, but I was very grateful for it. The thing about Mission: Impossible movies for me is that I tend to just let them wash over me. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about them, even in the moment. I see them as a great way to chomp on some buttery popcorn, have some laughs, and go for the thrill ride. So when pesky things like dialog, or, say, a plot, get in the way, I just dismiss them. Or, more to the point, I don't dwell on them. It's another reason I don't rank the Mission: Impossible movies, as they are all equally fun for me, if not thought-provoking. I've seen every Mission: Impossible movie in theaters, going all the way back to the first movie in 1996. There have been a lot of missions, a lot of characters, both good guys and bad, and a ton of awesome stunts. Last month, before the final installment came out, I decided I would use my Paramount+ subscription to rewatch all seven of the previous entries. I made it through the first one, and then other stuff got in the way. There were new movies to watch, TV shows to binge, life to live, work to do, so I never went back to them. Paramount Plus: from $7.99 a month/$79.99 a yearCatch up with the entire Mission: Impossible franchise with Paramount Plus. All seven of the previous movies are now available on the streaming service, but you get CBS TV shows and a whole bunch of other Paramount movies. Opt for its Essential plan or go ad-free and get double the catalog with Showtime through the Premium plan from $12.99 a month. Alternatively, get 12 months for the price of 10 with its annual Deal Before I saw Final Reckoning, I quickly scanned Wikipedia for a refresher, so when I sat down with my big bucket o' corn and settled in for a nearly 3-hour tour, I was ready. Then, the recap came, and I was actually excited. It's much better to be reminded on the big screen of all the amazing stunts over the years, and put faces to names again. It made the next 2-plus hours so much more enjoyable. So, if you're like me and you've forgotten some of the major plot points of either the last Mission: Impossible movie or all of them, don't worry. It's still really easy to enjoy the final mission with Ethan Hunt and company without doing any homework.
Euronews
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
Film of the Week: 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning'
Over the course of three decades, the Mission: Impossible franchise has given us some of the most consistently enjoyable cinematic thrills out there. Thanks in large part to Tom Cruise's devotion to sprinting and pushing the envelope when it comes to making impossible stunts possible, the series has managed to become a blockbuster singularity which has bucked the inevitable downslope trajectory most franchises succumb to. But it seems that even an anomaly as impressive as Mission: Impossible must face its reckoning. If 2023's Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One felt like the M:I franchise finally hitting its diminishing return phase, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is proof that the series has truly jumped the shark. We pick up where we left off in 2023. The parasitic AI known as The Entity is still at large and has infected global cyberspace. As we're repeatedly told: 'Whoever controls The Entity controls the truth.' Having failed to stop the gaping digital sphincter in Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team have 72 hours before it gains full control of the world's nuclear arsenal and wipes out humanity. Thankfully, Hunt has always been 'the best of men in the worst of times.' He is 'the chosen one' who can "deceive the Lord of Lies." Yes, these are direct quotes from this ludicrous new adventure, one whose scale and tone have more in common with the worst chapters of The Terminator and The Matrix films than it does with the franchise's espionage roots. Considering this supposed last instalment wraps up the storyline left hanging in the previous adventure, it's hardly surprising that the eighth M:I film shares its predecessor's bum notes – notably a jumbled script, laughably portentous dialogue, and one of the most forgettable villains (Esai Morales returning as Gabriel) in the franchise's run. Not content to simply ride out this already anticlimactic wave, The Final Reckoning adds a crushing sense of dourness hitherto absent from the series, as well as hefty exposition dumps that make the first hour of this 2h50 runtime an absolute slog to get through. And then there's the copious Ethan Hunt mythologising. Our hero is more end-of-times messiah than secret agent here, a grating development galvanized by endless po-faced talk of destiny. It's a shame that it should end this way, as the inherently promising AI antagonist had so much going for it. It taps into modern fears regarding the alarming proliferation of artificial intelligence and the correlation with the rise in disinformation. The execution may have been dumb in Dead Reckoning, but there was hope for some redemption – especially when Entity 'fanatics' are mentioned at the start of The Final Reckoning. The IMF team vs a cult devoted to a digital overlord? Sign us up. Sadly, The Final Reckoning doubles down and makes The Entity a doomsday soothsayer and a manipulator of stakes straight out of a Michael Bay movie. It's genuinely baffling how producer / star Tom Cruise and director / co-writer Christopher McQuarrie thought this would be a fitting swansong to the Hunt era. They proved beyond a doubt with Rogue Nation and series high note Fallout that they had finessed the winning formula; here, everything they built is thrown out the window in favour of a lunatic devotion to callbacks and self-congratulatory flashbacks. By harking back so frequently to past M:I instalments and cackhandedly retconing certain plot points (not quite to the same extent as 007's Spectre, but close enough), they create a clumsy Greatest Hits compilation that falls into the Marvel-shaped trap of attempting interconnectedness at any cost. Which begs the question: When will directors and studios realise that not everything has to be uselessly intertwined? Most of all, if you're going to rely on the relentlessly frustrating storytelling device of using clip montages, the current film better be as deliriously entertaining as the past adventures you're visually referring to. Otherwise, you're just reminding audiences of films they'd rather be watching instead. By the time this instalment's two major set-pieces arrive – a terrifically shot submarine sequence and our indefatigable superspy hanging off a biplane with the fate of the planet still in the balance – the sluggish pace has taken hold and no impressive showdown can make up for it. Worse, the finale lacks the courage to commit to a send-off befitting the film's title. Unlike The Final Reckoning, the James Bond franchise had the cojones to cap off the Daniel Craig tenure with a surprising twist. Love it or hate it, killing off 007 in No Time To Die was bold move. No such luck here, despite ample opportunity to end with an emotional splat / bang. It's with a heavy heart, especially considering the impressive run of tightly wound and thrilling adventures the M:I franchise has delivered, that this legacy-obsessed victory-lap feels like this series' Die Another Day. If the long-running franchise isn't dead yet, what's needed is a Casino Royale–shaped, ground-level spycraft reboot. For now though, Ethan Hunt is done running, punching, swimming, flying and cheating death at every turn. Should his retirement be permanent, it's a shame that the fuse fizzled out with The Final Reckoning, which ranks at the bottom of the eight-film run. Because for all the early-00's nonsense that characterised M:I-2, there was never a dull moment in John Woo's silly ballet of slo-mo doves soundtracked to Limp Bizkit. Tom Cruise deserved a stronger swansong. Instead, audiences get the first mission they should choose not to accept. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is out in cinemas now. Check out the video above for more thoughts on this final instalment of the series.
Metropolis Japan
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metropolis Japan
Mission: Impossible
Note: Tom Cruise fans may want to put this down now and move on to a more sympathetic this time of great political division, renewed threats of nuclear war and a general, social media-fueled breakdown in communication, we sometimes need a break. The summer blockbuster has traditionally offered a vital bit of escapism, a dash of fun, plenty of excitement and a chance to reset, as it this one. If anything, it amplifies our fears, even depicting, more than once, total global nuclear destruction. Of course, you say, it can't be all doom and gloom. There's always some well-timed comic relief in these things. Wrong again. I've said this before, so I won't belabor it, Tom Cruise is a mediocre actor, a Scientology shill. That said, taken from a standpoint of precisely choreographed and thrilling stunts, these Mission: Impossible movies have no equal. But this movie is nearly three hours long. So what you will see is 30 minutes, max, of unbelievable, exciting stunts and then two and a half hours of Cruise trying to act, along with flashes back toprevious M:I movies and forward to the looming Armageddon. Hey, no one goes to M:I movies for the acting. In addition, the already labyrinthine plot keeps getting more complex, requiring lots and lots of additional exposition between stunts. Explanation Incessant? If you should momentarily forget how important and self-sacrificing this mission is, it will remind you at least every 20 minutes. It's a long walk to get to the biplane scene on the posters. Maybe sneak in two hours late. Note: While the stunts are undeniably impressive, they're moving toward superhero territory. And since Cruise's chances of failure are nil (Who does he think he is? Vin Diesel?), that makes them kind of less exciting. There is, however, a scene where Tom fights in his underwear, so there's is the eighth M:I movie, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, they say it's the last, but if you believe that, I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona I'd like you to look at. I know a sequel setup when I see one. (169 min) Will be released in Japan May 23 2025. Watch on Amazon Prime Video. Curious about the prior M:I movie? Head to Don Morton's review of it here.
