Tom Cruise

John Woo’s M:I-2

  • Title: Mission: Impossible II
  • IMDb: link

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the first sequel to 1996’s Mission: Impossible. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt on a new mission to stop a spy who has gone bad (Dougray Scott) from getting his hands on a genetically-enhanced bio-weapon and loosing it on the world. Ving Rhames also returns to reprise his role as Luther with the rest of the small team being filled out by the forgettable John Polson and the memorable Thandie Newton as a thief, and former lover of the baddie, who Ethan recruits for the job.

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Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

  • Title: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
  • IMDb: link

Delayed a year due to the 2023 strike which halted production for months, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two finally makes it into theaters under the new title Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning with a bloated runtime of 170- minutes filled with moments and marketing reinforcing the idea this could be Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) final mission (despite Cruise repeatedly saying he isn’t done with the franchise) in hopes of garnering interest in a film whose production costs skyrocketed making it one of the most expensive movies ever made. 

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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

  • Title: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
  • IMDb: link

Creating a six-hour action movie and splitting it into two parts is unbelievably self-indulgent. Thankfully, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is worth it (although we’ll have to  reserve full judgement until next year’s release of Part Two). The seventh entry into the franchise once again finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team out in the cold on their own on a race to a prize with the safety of the entire world at stake. This time the enemy is both an AI capable of crippling the world with disinformation and its disciple, a spy with a past tied to Hunt’s life before he ever joined the IMF.

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Top Gun: Maverick

  • Title: Top Gun: Maverick
  • IMDb: link

From the opening credits, Top Gun: Maverick lays heavy into the nostalgia by recreating the opening of Top Gun. Not much has changed since we last saw Maverick (Tom Cruise), the film is deliberately vague about what year the movie takes place and exactly how much time has passed. Pete Mitchell is still the maverick who flies by the seat of his pants even if that has left him at yet another crossroads of his decorated, but rocky, career.

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Top Gun

  • Title: Top Gun
  • IMDb: link

If you weren’t alive in 1986 it’s hard to explain how big Top Gun was. Now, nearly four decades later, a sequel is about to hit theaters so it’s time for Throwback Tuesday to look back at the movie which introduced us to the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program and United States Naval Aviator Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in a role that would solidify Tom Cruise as a movie star. Cruise so loved the film, he found a way to star in nearly the same story four years later with Days of Thunder.

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