Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

The Black Oil

Alas, Dead Reckoning Part One didn't really work for me at times and frankly, isn't a patch on Fallout in its execution. I was smiling once the opening credits kicked in and I liked it on an emotional level, mostly. It sets up the next one well, but it is certainly missing an ingredient or two - I can't put my finger on what. The hyper-marketing of the stunts took away some of the enjoyment.

Shank Williams

Actually the main Gabriel bad guy reminded me of Eric roberts in Michael Flatleys blackbird as did an awful lot of the clunky dialogue- just boring as opposed to funny in blackbird.

enjoyed blackbird more overall

gmisk

Saw this morning overall really enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was that tight plot wise (a few holes to say the least), dialogue a bit meh, action was terrific (up there with the last wick film but on a different scale for good and bad), whole train section especially, car chases, surprising highlights for me were a lot of the female cast tbh, despite not always being given tonnes to do! Hayley Atwell (she oozes charisma and her and Cruise excellent chemistry), Vanessa Kirby really good fun, Pom Klementieff excellent too. Henry Czerny reliably snarly! The guy playing Gabriel was a bit bland.

Looking forward to part 2. But not quite getting the insane hype it's maybe a 7.5/10 for me.

Spoiler Warning

Shame they killed off the Faust character (at least it seems..but who knows!) but I suppose that is a pretty regular thing in mission impossible films...Cruise ages...his opposite woman get killed off and replaced by younger models.

Could "the entity" not just end things at any stage lol...for a start f#ck the Simon Pegg character over a cliff in his self driving car.

dodzy

Enjoyed it, but not a patch on Ghost Protocol or Fallout IMO. But IMAX, sweet jesus, simply unreal.

speedboatchase

Another $300m flop. Numbers in US are not looking good.

Full_Circle_81

Sadly this was one of the weakest MI movies for me, with probably only 2 lower in my overall ranking.

Hayley Atwell was a great addition to the cast and practically leapt off the screen from the moment she appeared. Its a little sad that its taken Hollywood 12 whole years since she first appeared as Peggy in Captain America to give her another (semi) leading role in a big movie. Her scenes with Cruise were a definite highlight of the film.

It was also great to see Pom Klementieff having such a ball with all her scenes, a totally bonkers breath of fresh air. I always enjoyed her in Guardians, but thought she did a fantastic job here too, getting a character across with just hugely animated expressions and a potent physicality.

And while we've seen countless chase scenes before (even within the MI franchise itself), I thought the extended Rome set-piece was excellent, elevated by Cruise deftly playing up the whole comedic side of the on-screen chaos.

However......this is the one where the plot just jumped the shark for me. It was certain clever (and timely) to incorporate AI into the narrative, but to have

Spoiler Warning

the main villain of the piece basically be Skynet

was just pushing it too far into the realm of sci-fi for me. I also thought a lot of the dialogue this time around was particularly cringe-worthy, with awkward exposition scenes (the backstory of Atwells Grace spring to mind) and extended monologues that almost felt laughable. This movie was sorely missing the wry delivery of lines from the likes of Baldwin and Renner in previous movies in order to offset the sometimes po-faced dialogue they are given (even though I know Czerny, Elwes and the always excellent Whigham are more than capable of delivering on this front).

And as much as I love Rebecca Ferguson, I'd have preferred that they didn't bring her back, given her role was so slight. It felt like she had two lines of dialogue at most.

I'm also surprised to hear people complementing the score. I am not a fan of Balfe at all and felt that the music took a nosedive since he came on board (especially after Joe Kraemer knocked it out of the park in Rogue Nation, but I'd take Giacchino back in a heartbeat as well).

santana75

Just back from this and all I can say is Wow. What a film. It explodes out of the blocks and does not let up for even a second. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and for film to become crap(like so many have of late)but it never lost any pace. If anything it built and built to a magnificent crescendo. I haven't enjoyed a movie this much since......well since Top Gun maverick, this time last year. And with "Oppemheimer" out next next it seems as though Tom cruise and Chris Nolan are saving the art of film making. I saw Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny a couple of weeks back and I walked of that movie deflated, it was awful but this is the polar opposite. Its genuinely thrilling, the subject matter could've been somewhat ridiculous, but Cruise and Mcquarrie have pulled something special out of the bag. My only concern now is that there is no way the second part can he as good as this.

Mrs Shuttleworth

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120856505#Comment_120856505

Just back from seeing this in the ISense. Incredible execution and very entertaining but the usual "MacGuffin" everyone is chasing. Weirdly reminded me of the Roger Moore / Pierce Brosnan Bonds. Thought Simon Pegg was particularly assured in this one. Loved the grander AI theme. I suspect Part Two will be more stately and Kubrickian in nature.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120855224#Comment_120855224

Doing alright really... has the highest 5-day of any MI movie so far. Looking like it'll probably clear 200m globally by the end of the weekend. And with positive reviews and word of mouth, it'll likely have decent legs over the next few weeks.

The big-budget also comes with the caveat that some of that budget will be offset between the two films, since there's a lot of overlap in production. For a 2-film shared production project like this, to get the full picture we really need the combined budget, and box-office. The extra complication in that of course is that production of the last bits (they've been shooting it since March 2022) has stopped on Part 2 with the strikes, so we just have to see how that effects things down the line.

pixelburp

Yeah, while not shot in one go, both Dead Reckonings have been a joint production - and, presumably joint budget.

And while there has been a lot of comments about it not being as good as Fallout, the word of mouth is still generally positive. Good not being the enemy of perfect n all that.

eggy81

Saw it yesterday. Fell asleep momentarily a couple of times in the middle before it reached the train scene. Visually impressive film but my god some of the dialogue and acting in it is sh!te.

Very loose plot wise too. The 2 cops just looked ridiculous throughout the movie and made zero sense.

Overall it was disappointing imho.

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120855224#Comment_120855224

The predictions I saw looked pretty good?

Hey also America ain't the world, I'd say internationally people will lap it up.

Box office wise maybe coming out so close to barbie (okay different demo generally) and Oppenheimer (some overlap) not the best idea

JoeA3

Saw it lastnight and I was a bit underwhelmed tbh. I’d rank it as one of the weaker entries in the series.

The action sequences were very impressive for sure but there was bit of same-ness about them… we’ve seen car chases and train-top fight scenes before, both in this series and in recent Bond’s. My wife sitting next to me was bored, particularly in the drawn out middle section.

I felt that I didn’t care much for many of the characters, the interaction between Ethan and his team wasn’t as fun as previous films and I felt it lacked a good charismatic bad guy that some of the other entries have had.

That said, as a stand-alone movie in its own right it is very good. Just not to the standard of the previous couple of entries. Actually MI:3 is still my favourite of the lot.

Full_Circle_81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120857387#Comment_120857387

I'm kind of surprised to see so many people say that 3 is (still) their favourite. Back when it came out I remember absolutely loving it, and being a huge fan of Alias at that point, I was thrilled what JJ did with it and even excited to hear he was directing the next big Trek movie. I've since completely soured on him and his very obvious bag of tricks, so I'm sort of afraid to back to MI3 now in case the stink of JJ takes from my enjoyment of the movie......

JoeA3

For me, #3 was great as it brought back the concept of the “team” working together (after the abysmal #2 where Cruise was mostly running around solo… in slow motion). There was great interaction and dialog between Cruise and his sidekicks, it was Simon Pegg’s first appearance in the series and his dialog was fresh and amusing. Laurence Fishbourne was also very good as the IMF boss. Seymour Hoffmann absolutely stole the show though as the antagonist. He made an excellent villain.

pixelburp

I rewatched 3 recently enough and as great as Hoffman was as the villain, the film looked like a TV pilot from the era - the action overcompensated with more shakey cam than I remember.

Full_Circle_81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120857827#Comment_120857827

I guess it was his first movie, so should cut him a little slack for that. Funny thing is, I distinctly remember watching an interview of Cruise at the time the movie came out (may even have been on MTV) when he was doing the publicity rounds, and he was SO complimentary towards JJ, saying how happy he was with him (and his abundant energy/enthusiasm) and that he was going to be doing big things in the future!

flasher0030

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120857775#Comment_120857775

Loved MI3 - the rabbits foot, and the electrocution scene at the end. Haven't seen #7 yet. But #3 is the one that stands out for me from the entire series. It is probably due to having such low expectations after #2, and then being pleasantly surprised that that it was more than a decent movie. #2 was horrible. From what I remember of it, it just seemed like a Tom Cruise marketing vehicle - slow-mo of Tom's action movies, the long floppy hair, I know there are many many unbelievable moments in MI movies, but at least they try to make them as believable as possible. That scene near the end where he kicks up the gun out of the sand, and shoots the bad guy. Absolutely horrible. I watched it there out of curiosity to see was I being a bit harsh. It's actually worse than I had remembered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lu4jwOo3no

JoeA3

Yep! I absolutely hated MI:2. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the whole series, totally jars with the other 6 imo.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120858054#Comment_120858054

Perhaps but Abrams technique hasn't changed either. Lens flare, shake the camera, edit it like a trailer.

Though the charms of this series is there are few entries that aren't people's favourites either. Maybe John Woo's I suppose, it tends to sit the bottom of many rankings.

Sudden Valley

The train set piece seemed very reminiscent ofanother movie. I think it was Wanted 2008 a movie with Angelina Jolie but could have been something else. Really bugging me. Otherwise a good if not average movie in the mi franchise

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120858328#Comment_120858328

Jurassic Park: The Lost World? There was a near identical sequence with a trailer hanging off a cliff, the characters trying to climb as shít fell down on top of them.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120858352#Comment_120858352

That was it thanks

Mitch Connor

I loved it.

Each of the set pieces was brilliantly done but I did half expect do torretto to turn up at some point!

One thing that got me though.... Didn't they have senate hearings in rogue nation? Isn't the intelligence community well aware if Imf? Director of intelligence had no clue.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120857827#Comment_120857827

I caught part of it recently. The bridge attack is a great sequence, I didn’t notice too much shakey cam.

Dead Reckoning. Is the Emperor wearing no clothes?

SPOILER WARNING 

I dont know where the spoiler tags are on Boards.ie - please enlighten me.

SPOILER WARNING

6 outa 10

Its bloated and padded like The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions from 20 years ago and they share some thematic similarities as well in theme ironically. Not to mention making you pay twice to see it.

Its generic and we’ve seen it all before unfortunately. This cant be helped with the massive budget. Its all safe and low hanging fruit to appeal to the masses. The emperor is wearing no clothes here in my opinion like Succession which ran a season too long.

The opening sequence was an encapsulation or the borrowing of a 3rd act sequence from The Hunt for Red October in 1990 sans AI.

The Rome car chase was borrowed from the red mini chase in The Bourne Identity 2002 and the motor cycle chase in Tomorrow Never Dies 1997 where they are hand cuffed together.

Too many characters and a poor villain which is a cinematic crime. Too many characters leads to extra screen time and a dilution of time spent on the characters we are meant to get to know and root for.

Exposition is too much and boring. Boring is a cinematic crime. The exposition should be more visually communicated and simple like an asteroid.

Some of the camera work isn’t great or the editing. The dutch angles and low camera angles are grating and take you out of the story as its noticeable. The camera angles draw attention to themselves and take you out of the story momentarily. Just shoot it straight. Mount the film simply and the audience won’t even know there is a camera there. Just because you can move a camera doesn't mean you should. Its clear to me from a filmmaking point of view that Covid had a massive impact on the craft of film production thus the editing and writing but this not an excuse; get on with it.

Most importantly of all I don’t care for anyone in the film. The violence is Marvel movie-esque - no real world consequences compared to a Bourne movie for comparison. There are loads of ways to communicate violence thru sound effects and editing. Cinema is the power of suggestion after all. 3 yellow barrels says hold my beer Ethan Hunt.

They needed to kill off a major character at the end of act one like The Bourne Supremacy 2004 to give great emotional weight and momentum to the subplot. The emotional rails on which the story train runs on.

Venice knife fights were poor in execution. This is really one 3 hour movie padded out to 4.5/5 hours. Like the Matrix Sequels.

The intercutting of the knife fights with the alleyway fight was a clear covid handicap in my opinion. Thats was not what was intended.

Grace getting away all the time becomes tiresome and I didn’t care your her use of the word "pervert" to turn the crowd of men against Ethan in Rome. That undermines real victims and shows how common and acceptable it is to use dis or mis information to achieve your goals in our gender/cultural wars of 2023. I’d would have dropped that altogether in a family movie. Women accusing men of something they didn’t do and everyone beLIEving them without proof is a subject for an entire film not a throw away scene in a blockbuster popcorn action movie.

The motor cycle jump was over used in MSM to bludgeon us into submission of this mission. Used far too much and under whelming in the final product.

Regardless the Mission series are vastly superior to Craig’s 5 meandering woke Bonds hands down and I’d argue that those films created a hunger or void which MI satiated and became wildly successful in. Thank you mr. Bond.

Luther is one of those likeable characters in the franchise - old wise mother.

Mission Impossible: The Fate of Glass (is to brake) is a better title.

The last 44 minutes…

Indy had a train sequence and so does this - Indy motor cycle so has this.

Like the euro tunnel sequence in 1996 and de palma's original its all to convoluted and too populated.

Jumping forward and back in editing is also jarring and interferes with narrative momentum which should only move forward and accelerate.

“You made the right choice?” - Matrix (the key is delivered on the train.)

EHunt train entrance was up there with Jack Sparrow in the original.

Generic train roof fight. Ducking under fixed structures. Nothing new.

Same as Indy 5 train tunnel duck. At least do a Speed 1994 on it please?

Fast & furious now at the end like the Dam exploding but its a bridge for the train? Are these films made in a factory?

Pick pocket trope is a total bore and scutter for such super villains. This is generic entertainment for the masses.

Its just a rollercoaster ride. Forgetable fluff. Candy floss.

The last 10 minutes top stuff - The Italian job on cocaine.

This is my opinion only. Thanks for reading.

pjcb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120850487#Comment_120850487

also, his run was very smooth compared to the rock texture.

Apothic_Red

The big motor cycle jump scene baffled me. We'd all seen the videos with the ramp setup & Cruise doing jump after jump. The finished film had a rocky CGI overlay on the ramp that took you straight out of the scene. This made the whole sequence look like green screen which totally defeated the live action element. The Making Of was more impressive than what we ended up with.

Sleepy

Watched it Saturday, they should have kept quiet about the jump, having seen it so much in the marketing really dropped it's impact.

I felt a large part of my enjoyment of the first half of the movie was the fact I've been in both Rome and Venice this year so was able to play "spot the places I've been" in those scenes.

Enjoyable popcorn fluff but thoroughly enjoyable.

Mrs Shuttleworth

I've watched all of them in the last ten days and the first for me still is the standout. De Palma brought style, class and humour that the rest just don't quite reach but I still enjoyed. Except for M:I2 of course which is diabolical.