May 23, 2025

Spoiler-Free Review: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Spoiler-Free Review: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

"Our lives are the sum of our choices." Jeff and Garret head to the IMAX to offer up a quick, SPOILER-FREE review of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning to let you know whether you should see it, stream it, or skip it!

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You get more out of life when you go out

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to a movie. I know. On with the show.

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For the Film By Podcast, I'm Jeff.

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Johnson and I'm Gary Gibson, and we're taking you back

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to the box office for a quick spoiler free review

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of Tom Cruise's latest endeavor.

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This is a terrible idea.

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Godspeed, mister. Your team is going to betrayed all your secrets.

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Compromise.

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Sorry about the decor, the richest book, solid wow.

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Some draps, few fro pillows.

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When that clock runs out in seventy two hours, that

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will be your responsibility always right to the Mission Impossible,

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GRADG thirteen.

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We are just coming back pretty late night went we

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caught a sneak preview Imax showing for Mission Impossible, the

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Final Reckoning. Garrett, you gotta see this on the biggest

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screen possible.

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Right, You're absolutely right. This is one of those movies

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that makes a movie going experience. So it's something you

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have to just be there, just be in that setting,

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that atmosphere, the popcorn, the drinks, the chairs, you get

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your surround in there in the Imax theaters. I mean,

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there's no other way to experience a film like this.

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I've got to be honest, it's.

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Not even a film, It's it's an event. I mean,

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Tom Cruise has been making these movies events at this point,

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right it truly, Yeah, it's it's about three hours long.

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We will We'll go ahead and say that's that's no spoiler,

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So get comfortable first off, But I gotta tell you

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a lot of Tom Cruise running a lot of a

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lot of callbacks to the earlier movies.

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You know, we will stay spoiler free.

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But the fact that things that happened in the first movie,

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things that happened in the third movie are relevant to

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this story.

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How'd you feel about that?

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Was it?

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Are you like?

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Are you liking the how the the interconnectivity to all

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of them?

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I definitely am. And it actually makes this more of

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a universe finally. It's something that gives you that little

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bit of meat and potatoes. It starts building that exact storyline,

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and it's giving you a lot of linear construction over

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time now and it doesn't feel like they're all just

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their individual films. It feels like it's a telling of

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a story now, And I'm all for that.

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Yeah, I'm watching I'm watching the movie unfold at the beginning,

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I'm like, whoa wait, I remember that.

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Oh that was that was not what we thought it was.

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There's one moment, maybe a little little retconning, if you will,

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but I was okay with it from a callback from

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a you.

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Know, the third movie as it were, I was like,

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you know what, that works for me. I'm totally cool

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with it. How about what did you think?

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I think the callback that you're talking about is something

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that is just a little unique, and I kind of

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enjoy the fact that they threw that in. It's because

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it's one of those things at the point in time

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you don't know what it is. It's like, oh, like,

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hold on, are they ever going to explain exactly what's

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going on here? And then here in the Final Reckoning,

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we've actually get the full storyline behind it, and I

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think it just delivers in such a way if you've

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gone back and watch these movies recently to where you're

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gonna be oh, holy shit, Okay, here we go.

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Speaking of holy shit, we get we get some nice

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flashbacks to some of the other movies dating back to

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nineteen ninety six. Is Original Mission impossible? It's clear that

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Tom Cruise refuses to age, and we see that. I

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know we'll talk about the action here in a minute,

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but the man is like a mortal. He's looking incredible, dude.

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Yeah.

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Absolutely. There's a scene in this movie where he's preparing

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and he's running on the treadmill and he's got the

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agree either on and everything, and I've got to I'm

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not sure his age. Right off the top of my head,

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i'd say for someone six three. I was about to

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say fifty six. I was way off my guy when

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he was running on the treadmill, he is absolutely shredded

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because he's running in his gives and this dude is

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like physical perfection. And at age sixty three, my goodness,

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that is great.

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Yeah, at sixty three, he's ready for the NFL combine easily. Yeah,

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we got we got a lot of familiar faces.

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The whole gang's back.

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Some people I don't want to mention just because it's

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it was a fun, fun surprise to see certain people.

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But I gotta tell you's es SiGe Morales playing the

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main bad guy a little underdused.

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I would one hundred percent agree because when I saw him,

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I was instantly excited. And the reason being is because

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Easigh Morales played my favorite comic book character of all time,

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death Stroke and the Titans Live action series, and I've

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got to say he is the person that brought that

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character the most justice. He's got that rugged, cold just

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feeling to him, and I felt like he executed that

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role perfectly. And when I saw him on screen is

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Gabriel in this I was like, Oh shit, We're about

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to get like a top tier like villain that we're

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going to have for however many films, spinoffs, whatever it

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may be. I'm excited when I first see him ill.

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I mean, obviously he was introduced in Mission Impossible Dead

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Reckoning Part one, which is now just Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning.

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We didn't see him at all.

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In the trailers and the teasers leading up for this one,

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which kind of concerned me, But and now I kind

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of get it. It's like, you know, he's only in

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what he's at like five minutes of screen time. It

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feels like I just wish, as Maria Simon ellis, you know.

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Yeah, I feel like for him to be the essential

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main protagonist in this film. I feel like you absolutely

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have to have him in this film for longer than

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the about seven eight And it's the screen time we

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get with.

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Him, and I don't even I can't even know.

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I can't even say that he is the main antagonist

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because you know this this movie is Tom Cruise versus AI,

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which is strange. You know, this movie's you know, it

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took a couple of years for this one to come out.

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But I mean, when you think about what's going on

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in Hollywood right now with all the AI stuff, like

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this is very much Tom Cruise fights AI, and and

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you know, the AI it's self, the entity that he's

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that he's facing. I'm not talking about the nineteen eighty

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two terrifying rape, the ghost that Barbara Hershey went up against.

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But it's like it's kind of like Master Control from Tron. Yeah,

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I am I out of line without I feel fighting

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Master Control right. All the same it is fun, it

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is fast.

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I don't think there's a bad performance in this movie.

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Something that I truly enjoyed was the chemistry between Benji

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and Paris.

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In this film.

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Yeah, that is just one of those, you know, smaller

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things that they don't necessarily make a big deal, but

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it's something that I was definitely interested in. I mean,

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Clement Tief, I'm probably absolutely butchering her name, but.

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She will That's how I would have said it.

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She's absolutely amazing in it. Of course, Simon, Peggy have

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to love the guy. He's one of those dudes that's

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of course humble beginning Sewn of the Dead and now

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here we are with the Star Track movies and the

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Mission Impossible movies. This guy is just a delight to

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all way see. And I felt like those two characters

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in this film really delivered.

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Benji definitely one of my favorite IMF team members. Like

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I said, they're all here, we don't I don't want to,

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you know, I don't know what I can't remember what

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the trailers have shown, so I don't want to. I

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don't want to talk too much on anybody, but we

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know Benji's there. Let's talk about this movie, though, Garrett.

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If you're a fan of Raiders of the Lost Arc,

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if you're a fan of nineties era James Bond, if

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you're a fan of the Poseidon Adventure, this is your movie, dude,

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Like this, like, take all three of those concepts, wrap

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them up, throw a whole lot of Tom Cruise at it.

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That's what The Final Reckoning is all about.

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It's honestly what they delivered to is And there's a

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scene in the actually more than a scene. It's you know,

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towards the end of the film, but it looks like

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they all shopped at Raiders of the Lost Art gift shop.

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I will say that, Yeah, I brought my attention last night,

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and I couldn't quit thinking about it.

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Well as I'm sitting there loving the film. But you know,

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sometimes like the little nitpicks hit you, and I mean,

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this is a globe trotting adventure. We know that every

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mission impossible movie is gonna take you all over the

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all over the map, and I just think, hey, are

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we you know, oh, we're gonna be We're going to

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a desert setting.

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So let's is everyone ready? No, we're not ready.

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We're in our our black you know night op stuff,

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or we're in our fatigues. It's time to you know,

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hit hit the gap in South Africa and.

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Is everyone in khaki? Okay, let's proceed. I don't know,

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it's fun.

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You know, Tom Cruise looks fantastic in his Indiana Jones attire.

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I'll say, yes, he does.

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How about how about how you know these stunts?

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I know, they just they they hint at some of

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the stuff we see him do in this movie on

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the trailer.

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Oh yeah, just from the trailer standpoint, the old school

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like biplanes where they're like flying through the gulch and

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above the river beds and stuff of that nature. It's

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simply bread of taking. And we get to see so

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much of that side of Tom Cruise in this film.

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And of course the amazing running from the best runner

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in the game is presented in this film. I think

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there's three or four great running scenes.

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And yeah, am I imagining it? Or the older he gets,

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the faster he runs.

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See, And that's what I was wondering last night when

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we were watching it. Is he somehow moving faster? Is

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he doing something with his arms to make it? It

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ramatized this a little bit.

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It's those knife hans, it's the knife hands that he does.

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Tom Cruise has the greatest run in cinema of all time.

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No one runs better than Tom Cruise, No, not at all.

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Well, speak a running.

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I'm gonna go ahead and say let's talk see it,

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stream it, skip it. I say, run as fast as

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Tom Cruise to the box office. This is in theaters

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this weekend. Mission impossible the Final Reckoning? Is it the

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final reckoning?

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Garrett? You think, I don't know if he's done.

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I don't know how you could end it like it

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was definitely a great note to end it on. But

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it's one of those things where I don't know. Maybe

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I'm greedy, but I kind of wanted more.

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I'm greedy.

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I know he's sixty three, but he's you know, you said,

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you know, he doesn't look sixty three. Maybe he looks

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forty three at this point. Yeah, I'll take ten more

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of these. I say, see it, see it in imax,

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see it this weekend.

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Garrett, Are you with me on that?

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I say, run out as well. Go see it in imax.

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Get the best experience from this movie that you can.

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And then once it hits streaming, I'd go ahead and

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just buy you a copy of it. Go ahead and

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stream it a few times. It's that good. I mean,

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it's there's no complaints on.

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My end with this.

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Hey, and a shout out to Regal Cinemas for one

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of the coolest collectible popcorn.

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Buckets to date. And if you if you see it,

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you know what I'm talking about. The glass nuclear device

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that clothes blue. It's super cool. Okay, we gotta get

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our hands on one of those.

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Just make sure if you're going to Regal cinemas to

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go ahead and get one of these, make sure you

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get it before your film starts, and don't try and

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wait until after. It's a key point here.

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They'll be gone, they will be gone.

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Yeah, all right, well, I think that's gonna do it

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for us, Garrett, as always, thank you for heading to

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the box office.

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To me, I'm sure we'll be back in a week.

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Or two with another one.

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Got a few good movies coming out, you know, Dangerous Animals,

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a couple like that coming out. Just a fun few

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exciting things, so I'm excited for him.

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All right, I'll see you next time, Garrett. I'll buy

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the tickets if you buy the popcorn.

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Absolutely grat