Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible at Cannes 2025 Reviewed

Nicola Davide Angerame reviews the first part of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, focusing on Tom Cruise's career trajectory. The film is described as a 'missione memoria' (memory mission), recapping previous episodes while introducing a super AI called 'the Entity' that hates humans. Angerame contrasts Cruise's earlier dramatic roles (The Color of Money, Cocktail, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia) with his later action-star persona as Ethan Hunt and Jack Reacher, both tied to Christopher McQuarrie. The eighth installment is expected to bring the franchise's total box office to $5 billion. The review criticizes McQuarrie's style as rhetorical compared to Brian De Palma and John Woo's earlier entries, but praises the choreography of violence and Cruise's escapology. Angerame notes the film's nostalgic operation and likens Cruise to Houdini, escaping the overload of action. The piece ends questioning whether Cruise will return to acting or continue as a stuntman.