Ben Peterson’s review published on Letterboxd:
A crackerjack symphony of perfection. Almost 3 hours of just simply "being on." Just a few short years ago in a much simpler world, the “premise,” if you will, of the new Mission: Impossible movie would’ve felt kind of silly or something you couldn't take serious. Now, in 2023, it feels like the most prescient & worthiest adversary imaginable for Ethan Hunt - but more importantly for Tom Cruise himself.
-The transitions from set piece to set piece to spy talk and inner turmoils are so organic that it's beyond creative, it's the work of masters all around.
-There's a span of about 2 or maybe 3 minutes that's probably the most romantic, affectionate thing I've seen in a movie this year. Rebecca Ferguson and Tom Cruise, and Faust and Hunt, have a real solid connection through character and unspoken acting. It's incredible.
-The way this builds, every scene important, every scene there's at least 4 things going on and what it crescendos towards is the absolute height of what a movie, whether it be action, horror, drama, whatever, can do. They tear down and reinvent the mission, the purpose, and the means of how they accomplish whatever it is they're doing from previous films so smartly that you don't realize it until a few minutes later, which makes the movie ALWAYS A STEP AHEAD of the viewer, and that's hard to do. AI could never write this movie. GREAT films made by great artists who care, do that. This is one. And another one for the consistently great franchise.
