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Mission: Impossible--The Final Reckoning (2025)  As the second-half of an epic, two-part finale that began with 2023’s Dead Reckoning (which you’ll need to see first to understand this one), Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning picks up with Ethan Hunt’s pursuit of a source code in a secret case that can only be unlocked by a dual set of keys, to bring down a malevolent AI program known as the Entity. And to silence the source’s “cult” followers and prevent a nuclear Holocaust (again). The three-day deadline that ensues involves Ethan and his team tracking down a submarine in the below-freezing Arctic (specifically the Bering Sea in the Northern Pacific) and a vault in South Africa, all while contemplating what is on their hands (past or present) and what isn’t.  One of the reasons each installment of Mission: Impossible  worked as a standalone chapter (mostly) was that subtle references were made to previous missions while focusing primarily on the respective narra...

(Courtesy  https://images.app.goo.gl/Zp2EepFSBF49pYP8A )  Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation (2015)  By the time the Mission: Impossible film series got to a fifth installment, two things became central. The first is that the franchise became as well-known not so much for Tom Cruise’s star power, but more so for his daring and dangerous stunt work. The 2015 follow-up, Rogue Nation , opens in spectacular, death-defying fashion with Ethan Hunt literally hanging outside an A400M aircraft as it takes off. Without a doubt, this is arguably the craziest stunt that Cruise has ever done in his career. (“One of these days,” Hunt is told, “you are going to take it too far.”)  But it’s not the only sequence that physically tests Ethan and his team this time around, as they track down the head of a merciless organization known as the Syndicate (a regular adversary in the original 1960s TV series) that knows and rivals the secrets of the Impossible Mission Force. (Returning playe...

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron  (2002)  Having made two hand-drawn features and two CGI comedies by the turn of the century, the next animated project from DreamWorks was their most ambitious and experimental up to that point. Seamlessly combining traditional 2D and digital 3D effects (a marriage that co-producer Jeffrey Katzenberg called “tra-digital”), the most remarkable and radical thing about  Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron  (the story of a wild mustang on a harrowing journey across the Old West in the 1800s) is that its animal characters don’t even speak.  Guided by Matt Damon’s narration, a profound and emotional score by Hans Zimmer, and tear-jerking songs by singer Bryan Adams (the tracks “Here I Am” and “I Will Always Return” make me a blubbering mess every time I hear them), the detailed animation, body language, and facial expressions of the horses in this film are thoroughly impressive. (Audio of real horses were used instead of voice actors.) T...

(Courtesy  https://filmartgallery.com/products/mission-impossible-1 )  Mission: Impossible (1996, dir. Brian De Palma)  By the mid-1990s, the action film genre had literally reached new, explosive heights. Michael Bay had directed two hit movies by then. Independence Day would become one of the biggest summer blockbusters of all-time. Stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis would still do their thing, more or less. (Remember the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain?) And then there was Tom Cruise. Already an established screen presence since the early-1980s (thanks, partly, to Top Gun ), the actor’s career went further into the stratosphere with this feature-length adaptation of Bruce Geller’s ever-popular spy series from the 1960s.  Directed by cinematic provocateur Brian De Palma and featuring a score by Danny Elfman that updates Lalo Schifrin’s iconic theme music (not to mention an awesome, more modern variation as well), the episodic...

Antz  (1998)  For their first computer animated feature film, DreamWorks began a partnership with visual effects company Pacific Data Images (or, PDI) to create a comedy about community and independence, told from the perspective of tiny insects.  Antz  centers on a neurotic worker ant named Z (voiced by Woody Allen), who lives in a monotonous colony where everyone is either a dirt-digger, a soldier, or a royal palace member. Tired of his assigned routine, Z has an existential crisis and wants to find a better world than the one he’s living in. Meanwhile, the sassy Princess Bala (voiced by Sharon Stone) tires of her royal status, while the ant army General Mandible (voiced by Gene Hackman), whom she’s engaged to, has secret plans of his own—to start a new society by wiping out the current one.  The action gets rolling after Z and Bala meet at a bar and he is so smitten with her, thinking he’s found a better reason to live, that he switches places with his soldie...