As I was telling a friend the other day, the whole movie could have just been Tom Cruise pulling off life-threatening stunts that literally no one asked him to do and I'd still rate it 4 or 5 stars. The Final Reckoning takes upon itself the heavy burden of a franchise Conclusion™, but unfortunately, it fumbles the timing. Instead of striking while the iron’s still hot, it simmers in a pot of exposition soup. The first and second acts drag with yawn-inducing setups and mild-mannered callbacks and yet it is in the final stage when stakes start to truly feel impossible and the heart beats intensify – – •• People lean over—myself included, my head reeling from seeing a 62-year old man hanging off a biplane, being flipped over and over. Cruise is hella Cruisin'—defying death, logic, and the aging process—and for that alone, I kind of choose to forgive the first hour.