Review of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) by Joshybean — 19 Jul 2023

I watched this film a little bit ago and I have been thinking about it more and more. I am an extreme mission impossible fan and I am deeply disappointed. I want to preface this by saying that this is not a bad film.

This movie was funny, it has a great score, and my goodness it is gorgeous. But there were so many things in this movie that just felt off to me and many of them I can not fully explain why. The writing and dialogue in this movie at times just felt a bit off to me.

I just rewatched Fallout (mission impossible 6) and wow does that movies dialogue far exceed anything in this movie. In Fallout it feels snappy but in this movie it feels almost like a parody of it self.

Every scene in fallout transitions so nicely from one action sequence to another only interjecting to press the story along when needed. And wow the action sequences in this film come nowhere near the last few films.

There is nothing that puts you at the edge of your seat in this film, not a single moment. The train sequence was cool but it goes on for way too long, the cliff jump is cool but it lasts for like two seconds and it does not feel like it has any stakes.

Driving through Rome was funny but it was not tense in the slightest. And my GOODNESS was there so much pickpocketing. Look at the Halo jump scene from Fallout, the music blaring in your ears and speeding up as you get closer to the ground, hunts frantic screams, the warning beforehand not to pull the parachute late otherwise you'll explode followed by Hunt pulling it at THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND, the guiding system screaming in his ears to pull up, the constantly updating and ever decreasing elevation and THAT SHOT when he flips Walker over and it REVEALS HOW CLOSE THE GROUND IS.

This all combines to become an amazingly tense sequence. There is nothing like this in the new film, no moments that made me feel like the Halo jump did. I may need to give it a rewatch, read some other reviews and maybe I will see the light but at the moment I just do not understand what people are watching.

I am hoping that part two will justify what happened here in part one. Also Gabriel is just not scary nor threatening and the fight scenes are not that good. Oh I love Hayley Atwell though I thought she was wonderful.

There are so many more things I want to write about but all in all its not a bad movie just a very disappointing one. Many people seem to be loving it. I just wish I was one of them.