Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning is a visibly aging Tom Cruise trying to resurrect a visibly aging White Empire and both of them finally ending it, Alhamdulillah. This plot has all the excitement of an old man trying to charge his phone for three hours, the villain is a boring Siri bubble, and most of the movie is sponsored content for the military industrial complex. American propaganda was always evil, but WTF, it at least used to be entertaining.

In Mission Impossible 8, there's some MacGuffin called the iPodkova that Cruise needs to plug into some USB stick and then he needs to download Siri into another USB stick or the world ends. That's literally all that's happening, with two naps and some fist fights in between. Cruise is physically too old for this shit and the stunts are reduced to him trying to stand up in water and board a plane without shitting himself. Honestly admirable at his age, but hardly entertaining.

The rest of the film is sponsored content from the US Department of Defense, pretending like their aircraft carriers have some use beyond killing children and getting chased out of the Red Sea by actual heroes. Final Reckoning is really a film out of place and out of time. It started filming before America started livestreaming genocide 24/7, and is supposed to eyewash the masses with IMAX somehow. It's literally an impossible mission. Like the original Mission Impossible, the message self-destructs right in front of you.

Tacky Nazis

Watching any American war movie today is like watching The Triumph Of The Will while Hitler was triumphing. America has been livestreaming genocide for over 600 days now, it's hard to munch your popcorn and cheer when you know they're starving people to death right now. This is straight Nazi shit, from an Empire worse than the Nazis. I say worse because the Nazis only lasted 12 years while America has been genociding, enslaving, and invading for centuries. This historical factitude was covered up by the sheer attitude of their films, but now the fog of post-war propaganda is lifting.

Who really believes that Americans are the good guys anymore? Who sincerely believes that America is trying to save the world, while they're incinerating children in front of us? The military industrial products that MI:8 is milking expired in October 2023, and they stink to high heaven now.

MI:8 is still doing the same plot, long after America has lost it. The same idea that only America can prevent nuclear armageddon, despite only America ever using nukes (twice), and on civilians. That history has been replaced by endless movies about everyone else being hypothetically worse when, historically, America is the worst. MI:8 is trying to tell the same tired old story while America is still dropping multiple Hiroshimas worth of ordnance on absolutely exhausted people Gaza ('Israel' is just DoorDash for American bombs). Does anyone believe that America is stopping armageddon? They are armageddon.

The paint has peeled off the propaganda machine and Americans are revealed as just tacky Nazis, led by obviously evil morons. The film has a scene where the US President is deciding whether to nuke everyone (including, randomly, ‘Cleveland’) and you have to imagine Donald Trump sitting there, making the whole scene laughable. Trump would push the button just because it's red, what are we even talking about? The idea that a US President is some trustworthy, respectable figure is pure science fiction.

Product Placement For Weapons Of Erasement

There is much product placement in this film that it would require a disclaimer as a social media post. Tom Cruise requisitions a US aircraft carrier (the George HW Bush), falls asleep in a V-22 Osprey, and boards a nuclear submarine (the USS Ohio). It has little to do with plot, these are advertising spots. The whole movie is, in fact, sponsored content from the military industrial complex. Which gets what it pays (in kind) for.

Whenever a film uses DoD weapons the DoD gets script approval, ie control. The same ghouls who approved MI:8 also approved carrier strikes on cancer hospitals in Yemen, Ospreys for sale only to 'Israel', and submarines for God-knows what. Who's buying this shit, and honestly what is this junk they're selling? These movies used to be about showing off the latest technology, but this is old stuff.

The USS George HW Bush (aircraft carrier) is nearly 20 years old and the toilets don't work. Aircraft carriers as a class just got chased out of the Red Sea (shout out Ansarallah). The V-22 Osprey is 35 years old and these tilt-rotor helicopters never worked well at all. The Osprey has been restricted since 2023 for killing its operators (shout out Abu Clutch Plate). The USS Ohio is 43 years old and is supposed to enter the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program by next year. What are the war hawks even hawking in this movie? This is old stock slung by an even older spokesman.

Tom Cruise is 62-years-old now and—like other US military programs—they have no replacement for him. They'll probably just AI Tom Cruise forever, because America hasn't had an original idea since the 80s. Cruise single-handedly resurrected US military recruiting after Vietnam with Top Gun and he's still the chickenhawk that clucks, from Top Gun 2 and now Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning. But like the US military—in a long retreat since Afghanistan—Tom Cruise is too old for this shit and it just looks like shit now.

Inaction Star

Mission Impossible used to be action-driven, by its action star. But now he physically cannot do it and it shows (Cruise was always an honest filmmaker). In MI:8 there's only one two big action scenes, him trying to stand up in a rolling submarine and him hanging off an old-timey plane. The diving scene makes no sense to the most basic PADI diver (like me) or even within the rules set by the movie. The plane scene is fine but he's just holding on for dear life, which I guess describes his action career.

Cruise described the challenge of the sub scene as “I would go in, kind of blind” and “plus the suit, when it’s wet, increases in weight by about 125 pounds.” So basically he couldn't see and he felt fat, c'mon grandpa, are we paying for this? I also feel fat and can't see. For the plane scene, the director said, “Cruise experienced extreme wind pressure and minimal oxygen” which just sounds like grandma running to the bathroom. As some point, as I tell my elders, you need to stop before you embarrass yourself, and this is definitely that Final Reckoning for Tom Cruise.

In lieu of action (and an action star) driving the plot you get hours of expository dialogue, which is about as fun as getting a suppository. The opening credits don't even start until half an hour, and the explaining doesn't stop after. Good movies show, they don't tell, but this movie has three separate MacGuffins (random object you need to find) and they're laboriously explained over and over. It's like going to endless meetings about the movie before getting to the movie itself. You could have started the movie at any point within the first hour and been equally confused. American propaganda used to be understandable without knowing English, but now it's impossible to understand even if you do. There's even some bonus expositional dialogue at the end saying ‘the world still needs you’ and no, God no, we really don't. I reckon this is final.

End Of An Era

Cruise is still trying to sell the myth of the American good guy, but as American pollsters say, “Young voters do not look at our politics and see any good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad people.” How is Tom Cruise supposed to sell the lie, when the truth today is so blinding? If you check your phone during the movie you can see America bombing starving children right now. Is anyone buying the lie anymore? Unfortunately me, because we bought tickets, but I'm not buying the show.

Tom Cruise really had an impossible mission in MI:8. He had to rescue America's reputation, but the actual heroes of Hamas blew that up before Cruise could get the film out. Now the film is out of place and out of time, like Cruise himself. A fading star for a fading empire. How can the big screen compete with the million screams we've been hearing for years, of all the people crushed by the Death Star Tom Cruise is advertising? The message self-destructs.

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