Mission : Impossible - Dead Reckoning, partie 1

Woeful script, weak story, shoddy pacing and lengthy exposition reveals how badly COVID hit this production. How the franchise can go from the near perfect cinematic heights of 'Fallout' to this, is so disappointing. Hayley Atwell shines, but even Cruise fails to rescue it. Simon Pegg with no funny lines.. how is that possible? I mean, by action movie standards it's ahead of most, but this isn't any action franchise therefore the disappointment hits hard. I think McQ and Cruise need to rewatch Fallout before they finish up on Part 2. One other thing, having read the bulk of reviews, there are some seriously overrated journalists out there, quite a lot of them by the looks of it. Real cinema fans want rate this one above a 6 or 7, I'd understand if it were lower too.

Just saw this one in a theatre, and boy... what an adrenaline rush it is. The latest Mission Impossible features some of the most incredible stunts ever put to camera. The story is absolutely exhilarating and continues to bring new life to a veteran movie franchise. The sheer scale of this movie is epic, and with every twist and turn of the movie, you cannot help but marvel at the incredible sets used to bring this movie to life. Such a movie begs to be seen on the biggest screen possible where you can truly feel the grandeur of the film. Tom Cruise has once again delivered one of the best movies of the year, and I cannot recommend that you see it enough!

While this movie maintains the stunning action sequences and stunt work, the rest of the movie is severely lacking. Despite the development of the characters from previous movies, they feel very thin and hollow in MI 7. The pacing of the film and writing are quite peculiar. It almost feels hacked together in a messy way. The previous movie managed to create compelling characters, with moments that clearly defined them and made them standout from one another. In this iteration, they feel like rote action movie characters without distinguishing characteristics. The previous movie also managed a sense of whimsy through the writing and cinematography that was completely absent from MI 7. This general tone and pacing was perhaps my favorite aspect of MI 6, so for it to be missing this time around felt like a huge step backwards for me.

Overall, the movie just felt a bit bizarre. Almost like an AI wrote it or something. I seriously hope the next one tries to get closer to the tone of MI 6.

The arms race of big-budget action movies is on full display in this Tom Cruise production (yes, he gets a possessive credit for the movie in the opening credits, which don't show up on screen until 28 minutes into the overlong film). I found the derring-do scenes exciting to watch but was not thrilled by the pointlessness in toto.

Of course, an action movie requires action, though even here there are several intrinsically dull and static scenes of the actors carefully and deliberately reciting the dialogue exposition establishing the basic details of an AI-themed end of the world (unless Cruise can save the day) scenario. Especially with the feature climaxing on a train, I would vastly prefer a less pretentious, suspense/thriller with more small-scale issues, as in the classic "The Narrow Margin" by Richard Fleischer or its remake by Peter Hyams.

I had trouble recognizing Hayley Atwell, the dexterous leading lady, who I had admired in more full-figured (even her face is different) form in "The Duchess" and "Agent Carter". The more emotional scenes between friends and dire enemies are the highlight, as all of Tom's running, flying, biking and fighting are merely a given. Outdoing everyone else's stunts and one's own time after time is a pointless exercise.

The lavish Italian party segment only reminded me of a better (and more visceral) sequence from one of the John Wick movies, and the hokey final perils on the falling train cars was merely the same kind of showing off that made the recent "Uncharted" film so silly.

Around 1970 (after "Easy Rider' was such a hit) movie budgets were capped and the resulting films were all the better for it. If the comic-strip movies were reduced to Saturday matinee level and scale, and the ridiculous spending in the hundreds of millions ceased, I think overall storytelling and quality films could make a comeback.

4 considerations for those with high expectations and who want to avoid severe disappointment:

1 THE NEW ACTORS LACK CHARISMA

I NEED a vicious bad guy, to really pull me into the thrill of the moviie, but none of that! There isnt even one bad guy in particular, because there are now numerous supposedly "bad" guys / girls and they all FAIL to impress me.

Haley Atwell is not my cup of tea either. She unfortunately does get a lot of screentime.

2 IT LASTS TOO LONG

There is WAY too much superfluous (explanatory) talk that really slows down this movie. It lasts WAY too long because of it ( 2hours and 43 minutes). Half an hour could have been easily cut out of it!

I started looking at my watch, halfway through...and I got BORED. There I said it. I say it again, I got blipping bored. That's the last thing I want to experience during an action movie!

3 THE STUNTS DONT LOOK REAL

There is such a heavy layer of ADDED CGI effects, that the REAL stunts actually stop looking real at all. The real stunts look WAY more impressive in the behind the scenes footage, than they do in the actual movie.

4 THE JOKES FALL FLAT

Simon Pegg looks like a really old man now and he somehow has lost his usual wit and charm, which were a delight in the earlier MI movies. Without a witty Simon Pegg, GONE are the jokes as well. I didnt laugh out loud once. I smirked a few times...

This MI movie is definitely one of the worst editions, if not the very worst, because it BORED the heck out of me. THAT has never happened to me before watching a MI movie!

Despite this disappointing conclusion I still wanna thank you for reading my 2001 th review on Imdb.