It’s all come to this. Nearly 30 years after Tom Cruise’s first film as a bonafide action star, the “Mission: Impossible” franchise will come to a close with this May’s “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” Cruise’s tenure as Ethan Hunt, the hyper-focused spy who leads the series, has seen many ups and downs since his debut in 1996. Our mission, which we chose to accept, was to catalog those peaks and valleys across our shared fondness for the series.

When beginning the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, you are forced to stare in the face of director Brian De Palma. Because De Palma is a master of genre thrillers who possesses a sly Hitchcockian wit (“Blow Out,””Sisters”), it’s a nearly impossible mission to take a plot with a plethora of plot twists and latex masks seriously. Luckily, you don’t need to understand why a high-security CIA room cannot detect a disc being copied (the one thing it needs to protect), or how on God’s green Earth a helicopter is capable of squeezing into a tunnel, leading to Cruise hurling himself from a bullet train onto it. De Palma isn’t asking you to think; he’s asking you to feel. The thrills come not from clarity but from chaos — espionage as high art, where the twists and physics take a backseat to cinematic bravado. Trying to make sense of it all is like trying to fact-check your dreams.

The bottom line on “Mission: Impossible” is that Tom Cruise looks awesome at all times. He holds our attention as he does what I call “Cruise-tivities” — doing them so quickly and with so much style that we are compelled enough to hold any further questions we may have on the logistics of what is unfolding. When the movie is over, it turns out there isn’t anything else to do except trust in Tom Cruise because he was only just getting started.

As the series proved successful at the box office with its first outing, there was a question of where to go next. The answer came in the form of a fluttering flock of doves, from which emerged the iconic Hong Kong action director John Woo.

Let me keep it simple for you jack: this movie is not very good. Woo attempts, admirably yet fatally, to turn Ethan Hunt into a James Bond-type spy/manwhore, injecting some romantic chemistry into the mostly sleek but sterile format that had been established in De Palma’s swing at the franchise.

The problem is that Tom Cruise is not sexy in the sense that he is a man. He is sexy in the sense that he embodies androgyny. His haircut here makes him look like a lesbian (he literally starts the movie by rock climbing) and he’s not really debonair like Bond. He’s sweaty, lithe, dexterous— Cruise moves like a woman. Thadiwe Newton tries her best as the love interest, but it just never clicks. Cruise isn’t attractive in the way the movie is pushing him to be, outside of Woo’s shockingly sparse but effective action scenes. In trying to be sexy, the film just ends up being dull.

All us devout “Mission: Impossible” fans are familiar with the greatest struggle of the fandom: proving to normal people these movies are, indeed, high-class pieces of cinematic art. To me, no entry seems as thematically rich as “Mission: Impossible 3.” What are those themes, you ask? I couldn’t tell you.

While each of the other movies are known for their action sequences, the third is remembered best for its terrifying villain (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and gripping love interest (Michelle Mongahan). Both of them, though, have little going on outside their relationship with Cruise. The entire cast is not particularly three-dimensional, but that does not stop them from being engaging. The network of relationships fuels the plot with tension to create what is arguably the best paced movie in the franchise. The storytelling is what shines, not the story. Though, of course, that interrogation scene still haunts me.

This is increasingly what I see as the series’s strength. I will no longer argue that the franchise is a character-driven masterpiece; instead, it’s the pinnacle of plot-driven awesomeness that plays by its own rules. “Mission: Impossible 3” helps me realize that we are allowed to like this series for the best possible reason: it’s just fun.

Ethan Hunt finally emerges from James Bond’s shadow in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.” It’s movie magic, a twelve-course meal delivered by director Brad Bird, the mastermind behind “Ratatouille” and “The Incredibles.”

Bird’s animation background revitalized this franchise with energy, fluidity, and vibrance; he thinks outside the box of live-action filmmaking and delivers something totally new. That’s why it’s my favorite installment — not for its story (which is poorly explained), nor its characters (someone get a woman in this writers’ room, please), but because it reaches a level never seen in the first three movies. Hunt escapes a Russian prison, breaks into the Kremlin, scales the tallest building in the world like Spider-Man and runs right into a dust storm. In short, it’s awesome.

Beach fistfights and Vatican infiltrations of “Mission’s” past are child’s play in comparison. This installment doesn’t need to rely on slow-motion gimmicks or preconceived expectations of the franchise. “Ghost Protocol” speaks for itself, taking full advantage of Tom Cruise’s “yes, and” attitude and setting the precedent for the level of insanity we’ve come to love this series for. It only gets more insane from here.

As opposed to the previous installments, “Rogue Nation” is the most humorous film out of the franchise. The film includes many of the usual stunts, plot twists and well-choreographed action sequences, but what makes this movie stand out is that it’s the only one of the franchise that, at its core, is a buddy comedy.

Most of the film follows Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt (as usual) and Simon Pegg’s Benji as they look for the main antagonist, Solomon Lane. Most buddy comedies are used to understand both leads and their relationship together. By placing Benji with Ethan center stage, not only do we get Simon Pegg’s comedy with Tom Cruise’s straight man persona, we get to see what Benji brings to the team.

The comedy between them enhances the action in the film. During the car chase sequence Benji’s comedic reactions add relatability to being put in these situations, stating words that the audience would say. Both Cruise and Pegg put on terrific performances where you learn about Benji’s skills and what he means to Ethan, and how they need each other in this particular mission. If you’re looking for a “Mission” film with a little more comedy, I’d highly recommend “Rogue Nation.”

With more pieces in play than ever before, “Fallout” is as white-knuckled as “Mission: Impossible” gets. It’s also by far the twistiest, at times feeling like it’s trying to throw you off the ride entirely, and what a ride it is. The film hits the ground running with a major and effective misdirection, then appears to show its hand early with a big twist. What follows is nothing less than a perfectly choreographed series of rugpulls in all directions that leave you shell shocked and cackling with pure manic delight.

“Fallout” is a sensory feast, with a sweeping score by Howard Shore that gives further impact to what are undoubtedly the weightiest visuals in the whole series. The electric shot composition accentuates and frames each moment perfectly and, on principle, refuses to shy away from the action. “Fallout” steps that up too, with a “John-Wick”-esque bathroom fight and two of the best chases in the entire series. The stunts are death-defying, even by Tom Cruise’s standards. It is a movie so exceptional that it makes the previous entry look like little more than the opener for this, the main event. “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” very much wants to set the world on fire.

Maybe I’m biased — beyond recency and being the first “Mission” film I saw in a theater, this is the one I’ve watched the most — but this is my favorite. “Dead Reckoning” is definitely looser, if not outright sloppier than Christopher McQuarrie’s previous two entries in the franchise, but it’s just as endlessly entertaining. For a film directly reckoning with the threat of artificial intelligence in our current world, the blemishes this does have, like wonky CGI or crazy camera placements/angles, feel intentionally idiosyncratic: something that only a human could make. Even the simple, recurring usages of pickpocketing and sleight of hand here are brilliant in their direct physicality and practicality.

The ensemble cast is just wonderful to watch, with Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff and Shea Wigham making great new additions on every side of the film’s narrative. But perhaps more than any other “Mission” film, the film is as blatant and egomaniacal of a self-insert for Tom Cruise as ever. Frankly, it’s glorious. After all, who else would be the only person too insane for the essentially omnipotent AI villain here to predict or pin down if not Ethan Hunt?

There aren’t too many series that reach eight installments across thirty years, especially ones that sell themselves on one-upping the previous adventure. “The Final Reckoning” doesn’t have the unspeakable heights and action set pieces as its predecessors, but it serves as a worthwhile bookend to this gigantic franchise. The final film saltures its story with elements from every “Mission” that came before it, ending on a cohesive and satisfying note.

Tom Cruise still proves himself a filmmaking legend, capable of Herculean stunts at 62 years old. Fan favorite characters serve as cornerstones for this film’s powerful idea of man over machine, a wink and a nod toward the synthetic turning point Hollywood continues to find itself in. The only way to succeed when the odds are stacked against us is to rely on what makes us people on the inside. Camaraderie, free will and the drive to do… the impossible.

The hardest task a franchise faces is landing the plane in a satisfying way. And while “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” has its problems, I’d happily throw it on any day over a soulless cash-grab remake. These movies continue to do the impossible, and I’m here for it every time. Mission: Accomplished.