consumer-netherlands

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - When the Messiah Wears Ray-Bans and Runs in Circles for 2 Hours and 50 Minutes

Congratulations to the marketing department: they've managed to sell 2 hours and 50 minutes of bloated, self-indulgent action fluff as an "epic conclusion." In reality, The Final Reckoning is neither final nor much of a reckoning - unless you count the slow existential crisis you'll have halfway through.

Tom Cruise - sorry, Ethan Hunt - returns to once again shoulder the unbearable burden of saving the planet, reality, and presumably the very concept of cinema itself. At this point, he's less of a secret agent and more of a high-speed prophet sent to deliver humanity from some vaguely defined digital apocalypse, all while wearing aviators and looking heroically exhausted.

The plot? If you've seen literally any action film in the past decade, congratulations - you've already predicted every single twist, betrayal, and dramatic stare-down in this one. The script seems engineered by an AI trained solely on action movie clichés and Mission: Impossible trailers.

Dialogue is mechanical. Stakes are synthetic. The suspense is so forced, it should come with a health warning. And yet, scene after scene plays out like a montage from Cruise's highlight reel, as if the actual purpose of the film is to showcase how many ways one man can sprint while the world explodes behind him.

Let's talk about the runtime - 2 hours and 50 minutes of what feels like an ego project stretched across a green screen and soaked in overproduced sound design. You don't watch this film - you endure it. By the third act, I was emotionally numb and checking my watch with the same urgency Ethan Hunt usually reserves for defusing nuclear bombs.

The Final Reckoning isn't a spy thriller. It's a cinematic monument to Tom Cruise's refusal to age, let go, or pass the torch. Less Mission: Impossible, more Messiah: Inevitably.

2/10 - only because IMDb doesn't let me rate it "2 hours and 50 minutes of my life I want back."

I haven't been this emotionally uninvested since I accidentally watched a screensaver for two hours thinking it was a minimalist art film.

Materialists is a film that bravely asks the question: "What if nothing really happens, and everyone just looks vaguely annoyed for 110 minutes?"

Céline Song, fresh off a beautifully quiet debut, now boldly directs us into a vacuum - not the metaphorical kind that explores existentialism, but the literal kind that sucks in plot, stakes, and momentum with admirable consistency.

Dakota Johnson pouts with the energy of someone trying to remember if they left the stove on.

Chris Evans is present, mostly in the way decorative furniture is present: technically there, but not particularly involved.

Pedro Pascal, a man of range and charisma, is here too - though mostly as a reminder that talent can't survive an atmospheric pressure drop this steep.

The film is named Materialists, which I assume is meant to be ironic. Because you will absolutely leave the theater feeling emotionally bankrupt. The script floats from scene to scene like a paper boat on still water - gently, aimlessly, and eventually sinking from sheer inertia.

Dialogue? It exists. Much like ambient noise in a dentist's office: technically audible, but best ignored for your sanity. Plot? Only if you count the slow erosion of your will to keep watching. Tension? As taut as a broken shoelace.

It's not that the movie is bad in the traditional sense - no, that would have at least made it memorable. Instead, it's aggressively inert. A cinematic equivalent of a shrug, performed at glacial speed, with all the emotional resonance of a beige wallpaper sample.

To sum up: Materialists is the perfect film for people who find sleep too stimulating. It's a bold experiment in whether a film can be so understated it ceases to exist halfway through and nobody notices.

Avoid unless your idea of a good time is staring into a gorgeously shot, soulless void.

1/10 - only because IMDb won't let me give it the score it truly deserves: a soft sigh and a long walk away.

I went into The Surfer hoping for a raw, introspective psychological drama, teased by a tense, visually compelling trailer. What I got instead was a slow-burning, empty exercise in atmospheric indulgence that left me not with awe or insight - but with regret.

Yes, Nicolas Cage commits - as he always does - and the cinematography occasionally flirts with something sublime. But that's where the merit ends. This film is all surface, no substance - a pretentious mirage of profundity. It meanders through barren philosophical terrain without ever planting anything meaningful. The script hints at existential themes, but never explores them. Instead, we're trapped in an increasingly repetitive spiral of meaningless encounters and monologues that feign depth but deliver only tedium.

Worst of all, The Surfer is emotionally hollow. You're not drawn into the protagonist's world - you're stranded there, watching a man unravel for reasons that feel contrived and underdeveloped. The pacing is glacial, not for the sake of contemplation, but seemingly to pad out a narrative that simply isn't there. By the time the credits roll, there's no catharsis, no revelation - just a lingering sense that your time was stolen under false pretenses.

The trailer is misleading, suggesting a taut psychological confrontation. In truth, the film unfolds like a student's first attempt at arthouse cinema - aesthetic for the sake of aesthetic, lacking coherence, lacking heart. I left the theater not stirred or reflective, but disillusioned and annoyed that such a promising premise was wasted so thoroughly.

In short: The Surfer is all waves and no tide. It poses as something deep, but never dares to dive in.