It’s the finale of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the fourth film in the series, and superspy Ethan Hunt’s window to save the world is down to seconds. The bad guy du jour is no longer a threat (he just perished from a high jump off an automated multi-story parking lot) and Ethan (Tom Cruise) must slam the cancel button on a computerized nuclear launch briefcase to stop San Francisco being consumed in a mushroom cloud. Feeling cocky, he says “Mission accomplished!” before he hits the button — an uncharacteristic moment of hubris that’s immediately punished, as the cancellation does not work.

Panicked, he hits it again and again, while his team connects the right switches to provide him with a signal. With a second to spare, the cancellation button works, and a bruised-and-battered Ethan has once again stuck the landing, even if he waited really late to persuade us that hope wasn’t lost. This is basically the experience of watching The Final Reckoning; the longest, choppiest, and most frustrating chapter in the eight-film, 30-year series that, only when pressed, delivers the slick, propulsive thrills deserving of the franchise.

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In Hurry Up Tomorrow, The Weeknd is saying goodbye. For years, the artist otherwise known as Abel Tesfaye has been grappling with the limits of his R&B persona who, after breaking out with sultry, surreal mixtapes in 2009, has become this generation’s closest approximation to Michael Jackson or Prince. He’s been producing nonstop music under his alias ever since, leaning on an obsessive work ethic, non-stop momentum, and a precarious cocktail of substances and alcohol to keep the wheel turning. But in 2022, halfway through his first stadium tour, Tesfaye lost his voice, triggering the kind of mental break that forces one to reevaluate their priorities.

Tesfaye’s latest artistic effort dramatizes this harrowing memory, and the existential crisis that followed, to the key of a psychological thriller. Co-written with Waves director Trey Edward Shults, Hurry Up Tomorrow is a companion piece to his album of the same name, released earlier this year — an album he claims will be the last body of work he produces under “the Weeknd.” The loss of his voice felt like a sign to give up his persona. “My body was telling me to sit down,” Tesfaye told The New York Times. “It was telling me, ‘you have nothing else to say.’”

It takes a big man to admit he might have finally burned through his cache of goodwill. If only that self-awareness could have imbued Hurry Up Tomorrow with a sense of urgency, or the unique point of view it needed to make this farewell tour worth it.