Review of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) by Bmaster4616 — 12 Jul 2023

Damn, I'm a scrooge with this movie (not my intent). In this franchise, I've liked 1,3,4,6 and unfortunately this was one of the bad ones. The biggest gripe I have is that it's just goofy. It feels like the plot to a bad superhero movie or the plot to a spinoff ff film.

The villains, yes villains without spoiling anything, were not only lackluster but goofy to then point where I questioned if I was in a MI movie and not an Austin powers one. The main motivations of one of the bad guys isn't clear as he works for the other one.

He has tech in the film, especially involving a casket, where I laughed a little when I saw it. Looked like something out of a B level superhero film. The direction they went with the main top level bad guy is a direction I just don't like.

It makes the stakes feel higher but they honestly never do anything that special with it. This concept has been done before and way better in those other fimms. To a point, where I thought for sure they would going to utilize it way better and way more menacing but everytime they dropped the ball.

Even though I don't like the direction they're going I can see the potential it can bring but hopefully they do a better job with it in the next one. Now, let's talk about the charcters. Ethan Hunt feels like he's regressed in the film and not in a natural way.

I know he's running up against the biggest threat but this film feels like he's not even running his own movie anymore. Cruise is still good in the film but the film feels like just one big chase sequence stretched out for no reason.

Plenty of times Ethan could have been killed and would have been beneficial for the top bad guy to do so and could probably get him killed but they never do. Hunt just feels like a dude along for the ride going from place to place while being spoon fed information.

The second character I had the biggest problem with is a newcomer and how they introduce her to the team. Without spoiling anything, she basically makes Hunt look like a fool the whole movie and makes Hunt look like a side charcter in his own movie.

She's without a doubt the most annoying charcter in the film with tropes molded to create her charcter. She's a walking cliche for most of the film and gets out of scenarios she shouldn't. They even say she's not a spy the whole movie but can invade the spies at every turn.

It's both a joke and sad that she is in the film (especially because the outcome of her charcter does something to another better charcter). Luckily the rest of the charcters on the main team are great here.

The only other charcters that kind of suck are the two high generals. Felt like cliche trope "spy authority figures". The main villains aren't good but the actor does a fine enough job. No actor does a bad job for what they are given.

Now to the most disappointing aspect being the stunts. The marketing for this film had "most dangerous" stunts but just never felt thay way. A lot of them are cool but are blown out of the water in comparison to the water scene from rogue Nation and almost all of the stunts from fallout.

If they really were that dangerous, that's awesome, but it didn't translate to the screen. Felt a lot more bad green screen stunts more than the ones we got in rhe past two films. Not one stunt in this one was cooler than those other two films and that's a let down.

Also, the action sequences didn't hit as hard as the bathroom scene in fallout or even the knife fight scene in RN. A lot of bad shaky cam and a lot of cuts. The story doesn't help here either. It's literally one big scavenger hunt with a side plot of also being one big chase sequence.

Everyone knows where everyone is and everyone is there at the same time every signal scene. The main mcguffin isn't even explained to us in this film so we have no idea why the team is going after it.

We just know if the villain gets it "it will be bad". Also, the reason the mcguffin gets into the real world is unknown and the motivation of why the mcguffin gets into the real world is a weird decision by the top bad guy.

Seems like they hurt themselves by doing what they did in the beginning of the film. Overall, if this was a little disappointing I wouldn't have disliked at much but this is a really huge step back compared to the last movie which I loved.

Every aspect of fallout is better and there's little hype I have for the next one if this is the direction they seem to want to go to. I need to see rogue Nation again, maybe this movie will make me appreciate that movie more.