“Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning,” a Paramount Pictures release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “bloody images, action, brief language, and sequences of strong violence.” Running time: 179 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

But has he dared to take on a truly harrowing assignment and put the "Mission: Impossible" movies in order from worst to best? Not so much. Nobody's better as his own stuntman than Cruise, and he's back doing things that would have mere mortals in a fetal position in "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" (in theaters May 23).

Henry Czerny, who first appeared as CIA director Eugene Kittridge in 1996, returns to "Mission: Impossible" and says revisiting the character has been "brilliant."