24 May 2025
Twenty minutes after the credits rolled on Tom Cruise’s 170-minute ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ at the BFI IMAX, my heart was still racing out of my chest…. it really is that good. This is a 
heart stopping, nerve shredding edge-of-your-seat action fix – better than a 007 in fact. And it was introduced by Tom himself, standing on top of the very cinema in the middle of central London in an impressive stunt filmed last week. For the 8th film in the hugely enjoyable Mission: Impossible series, Cruise’s hero agent Ethan Hunt take on a challenge of biblical proportions, pitted against an AI program called “the Entity”, which has a human servant, Gabriel (Esai Morales), nicknamed “the dark messiah”. As the latest of Hunt’s female saidekicks, pickpocket Grace, played by a permanently startled Hayley Atwell, proves herself handy in a fight scene of which there are many (including Cruise in just his tight black undies). Near the end there is a cliff-edge sequence of invention and giddy Spielbergian delight. And along the way there are lots of nods to people and events in an the previous Mission films for uber fans (of which I am one). It is hard to credit that Mr Cruise is actually 62 years old and he does the majority of the jaw-dropping physical stunts himself. Insane!! He truly is the great ever Hollywood action hero. I’m genuinely sad to say goodbye to Ethan Hunt and the IMF team because going to see these films has always felt like an event over a simple trip to the cinema. My advice? Race to see it as soon as possible in IMAX!
