It’s Easter weekend, and Watch With Us is sick of fluffy bunnies and pastel colors.
Instead, we want colorful action flicks and dark horror films, and Prime Video is the best streamer to deliver those goods.
At the top of our weekend movie binge-list is Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the reportedly climactic chapter in the spy saga.
Michael Keaton fans should check out his underrated ghost picture, White Noise, while those missing Aretha Franklin should watch her excellent biopic, Respect.
‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’ (2025)
All good things come to an end — even Mission: Impossible movies. The Final Reckoning is supposedly Tom Cruise’s farewell to the hit franchise, although the movie made enough money to spark whispers of yet another entry.
Picking up soon after Dead Reckoning, Ethan (Cruise) is still chasing down The Entity, a rogue AI program that’s threatening the world by targeting various nuclear sites. The key to defeating The Entity lies with the villainous Gabriel (Esai Morales), but he’d rather die than give Ethan what he wants. Supported by an IMF team that includes thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) and old pal Luther (Ving Rhames), Ethan has only days to find and disable The Entity before it’s too late.
The Final Reckoning doesn’t reach the heights of top-tier installments like Ghost Protocol or Rogue Nation, but it’s still a fun thrill ride that’s far livelier than the flawed Mission: Impossible III. (And the less said about M: I 2, the better.) Rhames, Atwell and Pom Klementieff as the reformed villain Paris make for an eclectic and energetic world-saving team, while the sixtysomething Cruise still runs, kicks, punches and dives with the best of them. He truly is a human Energizer Bunny, and let’s hope he never runs out of juice.
The Final Reckoning is streaming on Prime Video.
‘White Noise’ (2005)
When Jonathan’s (Michael Keaton) wife, Anna (Chandra West), mysteriously disappears, he’s contacted by a stranger who informs him that she’s dead. When her body is found weeks later, Jonathan tracks down the stranger and discovers the existence of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena), which allows someone to contact the dead via technology. Jonathan struggles to communicate with his dead wife and inadvertently stirs malevolent spirits that are up to no good. Jonathan just wants to say goodbye to his wife, but he may say farewell to his own life before he can talk to her.
White Noise is silly nonsense, even if you believe in the afterlife. But it commits to its far-out premise, and Keaton somehow manages to sell Jonathan’s tragic circumstance. He’s a man so blind with grief that he can’t see the danger that’s right in front of him.
White Noise is streaming on Prime Video.
‘Respect’ (2021)
When Aretha Franklin passed away in 2018, everyone agreed that the world had lost a once-in-a-lifetime talent. But legends aren’t just born, they’re made — and have to be noticed by the right people to make it big. And that’s what Respect, a 2021 biopic starring Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson as the iconic soul singer, focuses on throughout its generous but necessary 145-minute runtime.
Growing up in post-WWII Detroit, Franklin didn’t have an easy life — her mother died when she was just a girl, and she herself became a parent to two children when she was still a teenager. But she had a voice that no one could deny, and she doggedly pursued her dreams of becoming a chart-topping singer despite numerous setbacks. Even when she releases numerous albums, she still lacks a hit breakthrough song — until she decides to rerecord Otis Redding’s minor hit single, “Respect.” And the rest, as they say, is history.
Prime Video remains the best value among streaming services today. Where else can you stream the latest blockbuster movies, like Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning with Tom Cruise, as well as original films like Crime 101, starring Chris Hemsworth and Halle Berry? It’s not all movies, though. Prime Video has some pretty spectacular shows […]
The musical biography genre is one of the most rigid, and Respect doesn’t reinvent the wheel. But what it does do is give insight into a musician few know much about. There are very few singers who can match the power of Franklin’s voice, but Hudson is one of them, and she does the Queen of Soul proud with her faithful interpretations of Franklin’s signature tunes. It’s a performance that’s lively but still respectful, and it’s worth watching Respect just to see Hudson nail those impossible-to-reach high notes.