Star Wars: Rogue One, is a genuine surprise.

The movie boasts a stellar cast, with Forest Whitaker, Felicity Jones and Mads Mikkelsen to name just a few. Sure, the trailers looked good and the recent buzz from The Force Awakens had everyone feeling good about the prequel, but I didn’t believe that Rogue One could live up to anyone’s expectations.

A film that seemed to be based almost solely on nostalgia doesn’t have the right to turn out this well.

Rogue One is entertaining as hell and sets the groundwork for a new type of Star Wars film. While the movie suffers from a slightly cluttered first act, it quickly recovers and presents us with a heartfelt and emotional story that makes use of it’s deeply resonant characters. Every single one has a story to tell, including Tarkin who as most of you know, was recreated through CGI. The visual effects are stunning and the third act fully utilizes them to create an action fueled ending that I’m sure very Star Wars fan will appreciate.

Yes, Rogue One is a movie released to milk the franchise yet again, but I couldn’t care less.

They’re not gonna stop making these, are they? I’m not complaining, just a thought.

It’s been more than 20 years since the release of the first Mission: Impossible in 1996, with Fallout being the 6th installment in this globe-trotting, action franchise. Tom Cruise stars once again as super-spy Ethan Hunt, who’s forced to pick up the pieces after a mission goes terribly wrong. The returning cast includes Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Alec Baldwin and Michelle Monaghan, while new additions include Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett and Vanessa Kirby.

I was a little skeptical of this one, as it was doing something different to the rest of the franchise. The thing that it was doing differently, oddly enough, is remaining the same. For the first time in the franchise’s 2 decade long history, Fallout featured a returning director, returning villain and a returning team with the notable absence of Jeremy Renner, who was busy with Avengers.

Each entry leading up to Fallout has existed as a blank template for the various directors to project their individual styles onto. Meanwhile, Fallout provided a unique opportunity for director Christopher McQuarrie to build upon the characters that were explored and/or introduced in 2015’s excellent Rogue Nation. While McQuarrie never fully capitalizes on the chance, he nevertheless delivers a thrilling and high octane followup to Rogue Nation that moves along at such a brisk pace that the convolution of the plot never quite manages to sink in.

Fans of the series can rest assured that Fallout embraces more of the death defying stunts and action set pieces that Mission: Impossible is famous for. Cruise is in top form here, as he leaps from buildings, rides motorcycles and flies helicopters through valleys in white knuckling chase sequences. The movie even features a stellar one take aerial sequence that had everyone in the theatre floored.