Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Some brilliantly overblown action sequences in a generally problematic film for me. MI may look deadly serious, fateful, whatever, but I'm afraid we're already on the level of the Fast and Furious franchise in terms of plot intelligence. The whole AI stampede is utterly ludicrously contrived, the plot still has to be explained verbatim by one of the characters to get the viewer to at least frame it, but it doesn't help much. If we forget about the craftsmanship and just think about the plot itself... I don't believe it makes sense to anyone. For example the dialogue exchange at the Venetian party, WTF? We spend over two and a half hours looking for a key, next thing we know we're diving towards a submarine for over two and a half hours, then Cruise shoves the key up the AI's ass and it goes nuts or something. 83 percent and 620th best movie, My God. (23/10/2023)

Hunt vs Hall 9000 round one. Basically a tie between the sheer technical brilliance and perfection of each action sequence with a dated and clunky script that is perhaps supposed to be a homage to the old (Roger Moore) Bond films or something. The golden rule is, stick to what you know and what you're good at, and Christopher McQuarrie overestimated himself this time and showed that he doesn't understand computers at all, otherwise he wouldn't have written such a piece of garbage. I'm not saying it doesn't work for the average person, it's just that for IT people it will be like scraping your fingernails on a blackboard in places. He can still salvage a few things in a sequel, but no one can take away his English-speaking Russian submariners and theatrical speeches about deleting oneself in cyberspace. He can still move and offer an interesting twist, but it's as if he's started to care about the Tom crap instead of the story. Otherwise, everything we're used to works. The actresses are fine. Hayley Atwell clicked with Cruise whether she's stuck on him in Rome or when they're talking on the train. Beautiful locations and beautiful shots. Tom is starting to look old though. One more episode and then it would be nice to kick off the Extreme Old Man series. (17/07/2023)

HE’S RUNNING AGAIN, at a nice heroic pace, knees right up (yeah, right Tom, we know you're an eternal youngster, you don't have to keep reassuring us so blatantly). The film itself is a succession of good action sequences, glued onto a stupid skeleton that seems to have fallen out of a spy movie from the 60s, the ones that were so beautifully parodied later. I found the concept of the Entity utterly ridiculous. (12/10/2023)

The collaboration of the McQuarrie-Cruise duo is a well-established brand promising a modern take on old-school action in an edgy, thrilling and adrenaline-fuelled setting, and that is absolutely true this time as well. Many things could be praised, but the best way to describe it is that even though we've seen chases through ancient buildings in a small car or action in an out-of-control train countless times, the way it is paced, plotted and delivered here is both breathtaking and riveting in a way that will make you sweat your shirt off from the sheer dodging and clenching of fists. A genre film that defines (though does not redefine) the genre to the core. Too bad about the apparent lack of closure and the bland villain. Hats off and pure enthusiastic curiosity about where they want to take it in the finale. (08/07/2023)

The best Brosnan movie of the 1990s inadvertently released in 2023. If I leave aside the slightly WTF technophobic foundation and the chaotic motivations and donkey bridges arising from it, this is a king-sized portion of superbly constructed and charismatic action in which the climax aboard a train is the dominant feature. This is probably what Nolan’s take on Bond would look like. That’s good enough for me. I'm looking forward to part two, aka The Hunt for Red October. (13/07/2023)