Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

Saw it last week. I thought it was fantastic. Not as clever as some of the previous ones but as a sheer rollercoaster experience that doesn't let up it is A+. The time absolutely flew in cinema. The recruitment angle they introduced was a neat insight never shown before. Gabriel and the AI entity are a fantastic, horrifying combo. The AI is cold and calculating and Gabriel is the perfect human avatar for that. One thing that grated on me was the line early on indicating it had become "sentient". No none of that please. Why couldn't it just have been AI that had a directive from a human (an AI prompt gone wrong) and it is executing that to an extreme. It shouldn't want anything or have motives. I hope they ditch the sentience bit in the sequel. Otherwise though it was put to scary use in it's ability to predict outcomes.

I think I've been scared of AI since 2001 a space odyssey 😅

My wife was reading something online that the next one is the final one with Tom Cruise. I guess he is starting to age out of these kind of roles and I don't know if I'd like to see him still doing the silly running at 66 or 70. Anyone got any insight to what happens the franchise after part 2?

^ yup, could be a Daniel Craig moment maybe in Part 2. Interesting!! Thanks

Yes there definitely should have been more scenes of the Entity doing things to actively interfere with the IMF like alert the police to locations, etc.

It does need a human thought but also should get an explanation that it sought the best adversary for Ethan. If it is to be his last mission then it needed to be an enemy that affected his life in a big way, even if it was something we didn’t know about previously.

And I really Luthor going into hiding doesn’t mean he is absent for most of the next film. I want to see where he is and what he is doing,

Lane is a great villain but I don’t think that the Entity’s goal will be the same new world order that he and Walker had. Plus using him again so soon isn’t interesting.

A new character that reveals information we or Luthor didn’t previously know about Ethan is better.

I thought we’d get some more background in Part 1 and I’m surprised they are leaving it all for Part 2. They also have to explain where he has been for the last few decades as Ethan thought he was dead (I think - but I’m sure he at least said it wasn’t possible that he really saw him) and why he so dangerous yet Luthor hasn’t heard of him. Whatever it is that he believes in is why the Entity chose him. I assume that Gabriel asked the Entity to involve Ethan so that he could settle personal matters hence why the AI choose to involve Elsa.

Did Elsa say she had heard of him before or was all she knew in the electronic communication?

The guy who was supposed to be guarding the NOC list at Langley and that Beart gave the ****.

If Part 2 is the end for Crusie, I wonder if the plan might be for Atwell to lead a new team?

If not and the next is simply the last them maybe a new ongoing Paramount+ series (more the original series/first film - more about deception than action since there is no way they could match the movies). And

Four to six episodes each season to tell the story. Each season changing some cast members

Has he been mentioned in the previous films or have you done a spoiler for Part 2 ?

It is a spoiler if I didn’t know the cast list :P

No harm though - it isn’t anything major.

Still Luthor better have major screen time - the fact that he has gone into hiding already tells us that he will be the one who figures how to kill the AI (unless the plan is for the heroes to lose!!) - but he better not be just showing up near the end.

Bit of a mixed bag for me.

The film basically looked like a sequence of actions scenes stuck together with almost no plot or a nonsensical Mac Guffin plot. The tone was all over the place, sometimes serious, other times camp over the top comedy.

There were alot of weird scenes, shots, and editing possibly as a result of Covid filming rules. The chase scene in Rome was like a parody of previous films, the 2 goons constantly chasing Cruise was also irritating. Too many boring and overly long chase scenes.

How many times has Hunt been accused of going rogue now ? Has this man not proved his loyalties at this stage. The plot felt stale and the dialogue felt wooden.

Vanessas Kirbys character is a really annoying character, that scene in the nightclub where they were all just sitting around and growling like dogs at each other, please. Kittridges acting was over the top, really hammy, Elwes was also unconvincing.

The whole Entity threat and the Key, poorly explained alot of mumbo jumbo, not much substance.

The script is really really weak.

By far the dumbest film of the series, I didnt care that much for Grace, she was ok, it reminded me a bit of Knight and Day with the silliness of Cruise and Grace.

6.5 out of 10.

They'll likely give it a re-release ahead of / with Part 2 to try get a few more quid out of it. I can easily see many fans doing a double bill. It was really was a shame it has stalled the way it has because of timing. Reviews and fan reactions have all been stellar, and it clearly should have been a hit as standard. I doubt anyone could put it down to fatigue with the franchise or anything like that. They'd have done well to have brought it forward a little, or push it out to August as they saw the momentum of Barbennheimer growing.

They were just doing the same thing as in Hunt for Red October, likely as a little homage given the setting. Establishing that it's Russian with subtitles, then switching over to English and dropping the subtitles.

They did some little camera move to cement the switch too - not the same one as in HfRO, but something similar.

So now passed 450m dollars worldwide...291m dollar budget, not great usual rule of thumb is 2.5 times budget to break even so 720(ish), gonna likely lose a lot of money. Release date obviously didn't help, Oppenheimer gobbling up audience (and IMAX screens) barbie packing them in.

Don't quite understand how this dropped off so badly, are people's minds blanked once the media marketing focus goes to other movies, surely if people wanted to see this, there were still enough screens to go see it, it got lots of 'its fun go see it in the cinema' recommendations...

also, beyond simple time slots. I know myself I wouldn't bother going to see it in the Cinema if it is in a smaller screen - may as well watch it at home.

To make matters worse, Paramount have thrown TMNT in on top of this box office too - they've buried their two titles with bad release dates. COuld have moved both into late August/September and had the Box Office to themselves. Bizarre.

I wonder if the demand over time has lessened as the general public become more aware that it really is just half a movie too. People who'd have gone to a standalone may just catch this one on streaming, and go to the cinema for part 2.

For sure, that's a massive factor, but on top of that I don't think it helps that it's half a movie. When you're making the decision of what to go see, and have those 3 options, MI feels easier to let go for streaming and catch the second half in cinema. For instance I don't think MI: Fallout would have faded quite so easily under the same circumstances.