Popcorn Junkies Movie Reviews

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a 2025 American action spy film directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen. The sequel to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), it is the eighth and final installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. It stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, alongside an ensemble cast including Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Czerny, and Angela Bassett. In the film, Hunt and his Impossible Mission Force team unite to prevent the Entity, a rogue AI, from unleashing global destruction against humanity.In January 2019, Cruise announced that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films would be shot back-to-back with McQuarrie co-writing and directing both films. Plans for the eighth film later changed in February 2021. Returning and new cast members were announced soon after, including Lorne Balfe, who composed the score for two other films in the series: Balfe was later replaced by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey. Principal photography began in March 2022 but was halted in July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Production resumed in March 2024 and concluded that November, with filming locations including England, Malta, South Africa and Norway. The film, originally titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, dropped its subtitle in October 2023, and the new subtitle was announced in November 2024. With an estimated budget of $300–400 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.The Final Reckoning had its world premiere in Tokyo on May 5, 2025, was screened out of competition at the 78th Cannes Film Festival on May 14, and was theatrically released in the United States on May 23, by Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics and has grossed $222.3 million worldwide, becoming the eighth highest-grossing film of 2025, in addition to having the largest opening weekend in the franchise.

Final Destination Bloodlines is a 2025 American supernatural horror film directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, based on a story developed by them and Jon Watts. It is the sixth installment in the Final Destination film series following Final Destination 5 (2011). The film stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana as a college student who inherits visions of a previous premonition of a deadly structural collapse that supposedly occurred in 1968 from her dying grandmother and is warned that Death is coming for her family. Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, and Tony Todd appear in supporting roles. The film is dedicated in memory of Todd, who died in November 2024.After the commercial success of Final Destination 5, a new film entered development, described as a "re-imagining" of the franchise. In March 2020, series producer Craig Perry said the film would be set "in the world of first responders" and in October that year, series creator Jeffrey Reddick confirmed it was the sixth film in the franchise. In January 2022, the film was planned to be released on the streaming service HBO Max, with Lipovsky and Stein as directors and Busick joining Taylor as co-writer for the film. However, in March 2024, Warner Bros. Pictures announced that the film would instead receive a theatrical release. Filming took place in Vancouver from March to May 2024, following delays due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.Final Destination Bloodlines was released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on May 16, 2025. It received positive reviews from critics, becoming the best-reviewed film in the franchise. It has grossed $102 million worldwide.

The Surfer is a 2024 English-language psychological thriller film directed by Lorcan Finnegan, written by Thomas Martin, and starring Nicolas Cage. It follows a man who plans to surf at an idyllic beach with his son but becomes thwarted and tormented by the locals.The Surfer had its world premiere in the Midnight Screenings section at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2024. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 2 May 2025, before releasing in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 9 May, and then in Australia on 15 May, where it will later be released on Australian streaming service Stan on 15 June.

"Bête Noire" is the second episode in the seventh series of the British science fiction anthology television series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Toby Haynes, it premiered on Netflix on 10 April 2025, with the rest of series seven.The episode centers on Maria, a culinary researcher whose reality begins to subtly change after an old classmate begins work at her office. It received generally positive reviews from critics.

Thunderbolts* is a 2025 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the team Thunderbolts. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Jake Schreier from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, and stars an ensemble cast featuring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In the film, a group of antiheroes are caught in a deadly trap and forced to work together on a dangerous mission.Marvel Studios first teased the formation of a Thunderbolts team within the MCU in 2021. The film was revealed to be in development in June 2022, when Schreier and Pearson were attached. The main cast was revealed in September, with additional casting through early 2023. Lee Sung Jin joined to rewrite the script by March 2023, one of several creatives who returned to work with Schreier from the Netflix series Beef (2023–present). Production was delayed due to the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes, causing some cast changes in early 2024. Calo joined by then for further rewrites. Filming took place from February to June 2024 at Trilith Studios and Atlanta Metro Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, and also on location in Utah and Kuala Lumpur.Thunderbolts* premiered on April 22, 2025, at the Empire Leicester Square in London, England, and is scheduled to be released in the United States on May 2, as the final film of Phase Five of the MCU. The film received positive reviews from critics.