Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning

So...I searched and searched but couldn't find a forum thread to discuss this movie, or franchise as a whole, or Tom Cruise movies. Since it's going to be a two-parter, it might as well have its own thread.

I went to see it last Sunday, and it was a very good moment. Not perfect because I felt like there was only one big "Woooow" sequence for me (the train, and it wasn't as perfect as the corridor screen one, even if it was grand) while a couple action scenes were confusing (the desert and the tight street fight...and because the plot reminded me a lot of Person of Interest.

But it was a great actioner, the acting was solid, the story is well-made...I assume it's going to succeed (it's got some very positive reviews too).

It also featured a lot of great female characters for a movie that's supposed to be about a team of three dudes.

Edited by Bexlerfu on Jul 18th 2023 at 1:00:29 PM

Honestly, Atwell is the heart of the movie. Between her, Ferguson, Kirby (who does some great stuff with playing two roles) and Klementieff (Who was clearly having a blast playing a dark action girl type, complete with plaid skirt and big ol' Docs) this movie has excellent female representation and features lots of gorgeous people performing thrilling stunts without ever feeling male gaze-y or exploitive.

Which is not to say the men don't get to be awesome too. I really enjoyed the chemistry between the two agents chasing Ethan, it was very classic good cop, bad cop.

The third act is really good and I was glad to see Hayley Atwell nailing a big leading role, but the first act is a bit on the messy side and they really mishandled Ilsa, IMO.

Regardless of whether or not you believe her death was real, she only gets maybe a dozen lines throughout the movie and barely rises above the level of scenery. If they'd killed Luther for real at the beginning of Fallout, or Benji at the end of Rogue Nation, it would've still felt a lot more earned and far less awkward than what we got here.

I think that was probably down to scheduling conflicts, honestly.

Ferguson is headlining a show on Apple TV at the moment called Silo (which is fantastic television and she is amazing in it), so I imagine she simply wasnt very available.

I saw Silo! I do agree that scheduling issues, COVID restrictions and McQ's writing habits probably conspired to give us what we got, but that doesn't really make it any more satisfying. They did have Rebecca for a couple of major location shoots, so there's definitely space to give Ilsa an actual plot presence, through dialogue if nothing else.

McQ talked a lot in the past about Ilsa's importance to the movies, and also went out of his way to un-fridge Julia in Fallout and treat her story with care and respect. Seeing this movie all but fridging Ilsa to make way for Grace felt like an abrupt 180º — it's honestly the most let down I've felt by a movie's writing in a while, even though I liked the core premise and found many parts excellent.

Gabriel also feels like a step down from the previous two antagonists. I find his whole machine cultist thing quite interesting, but that concept needs a suitably bug-eyed nutty energy to make it land, and neither his actions in the story nor Esai Morales' delivery quite sold it to me. He could've done with a bit more of Solomon Lane's raw fanatic aura, and I hope they do more interesting things with him in the second part.

Unrelated note. But why do paramount suck at release dates. This is the third film in a row Thats gotten screwed over by a bad placement (following dungeons and transformers)

As it's getting hammered by Barbie, Oppenheimer and...the sound of freedom. Like holy hell a 90 percent box office drop from Sunday to Monday is insane.

Like I get the later as I think no one thought sound of freedom would do that we'll. But why didn't they expect the other two to do so well.

Quick review for my part:

I'll note real quick I don't think I've seen every mission impossible (though I think I've seen them all since at least Ghost Protocal) and might also be misremembering things. But anyways-

• The concept of a rogue AI, I'm not overly fond of for a few reasons:
  • It's a bit too science-fiction-y. Now, in fairness, the line between "Soft Techno-Thriller" and "Science Fiction" is rather fuzzy, but I think they overstepped slightly.

  • They're almost always a Generic Doomsday Villain of sorts. Even the more compelling ones. The Entity does not seem to be an exception to this.

• Gabriel, though, he was a nice villain and was a good way to give the AI a physical agent without introducing androids or anything like that. Having said that I have no idea why he wants to serve The Entity.

• One thing that works about The Entity though is that it can hack into digital systems, which the Mission Impossible guys often rely on.

• I kind of liked the fake-out with the nuke. I didn't see it coming per se, but I did initially roll my eyes at the scenario when taking it at face-value. You can't just buy a nuke at Wal-Mart, and there's no reason you need a nuke to create that emergency. It turning out to be fake made a lot more sense.

In a recent long interview with Variety, Paramount CEO Brain Robbins talks about some production woes regarding this latest sequel, and how it'll effect Part Two:

The release of “Dead Reckoning Part One” marks the end of a turbulent production and a crisis that Robbins inherited on his first day on the job. The studio was at an impasse with Cruise and Mc Quarrie about the sequel’s runaway budget, which ultimately ballooned to nearly $300 million due to COVID shutdowns, and the filmmakers’ desire to add an expensive sequence involving a Russian submarine.

That scene was originally slated to appear in the next installment, but Cruise and Mc Quarrie believed it was necessary to include earlier in the two-part story. However, the cost had to be assumed wholly by Paramount, because Skydance Media, which co-financed the movie, had a contract requiring the studio to assume overages beyond $240 million. Robbins avoids specifics, but admits things got thorny. “Let’s just say that the studio and the production and Tom were in a disagreement over direction, and there was a stalemate going on,” Robbins says. “We had to hit the pause button. They were stuck on how they were going to move forward with ‘Dead Reckoning Part Two’ while finishing ‘Part One.’”

So, I ask, was the disagreement over money? “It was a production issue, and it was about the scope of what was being asked for,” he says. “And the question we needed to ask was do we need this and why? And then how big is it going to be, and how long is that going to take?”

Yeah, we've already seen that with Ultron.

The domestic drop was in the 60s, but yeah, it was a shock to say the least. We'll see how it holds in its second weekend against Barbenheimer—third overall.

I think the movie was GREAT and it's probably my FAVORITE of the year so far. While I'm a little sour at Ilsa apparently dying while Grace gets her focus now instead, Grace was really well done though and it's hard to argue with results. I'm definitely excited for the next movie next year.

x2 There are...no strings on me.

Edited by Mizerous on Jul 26th 2023 at 4:21:41 AM

This film is dead.

Tom Cruise's M:I-DEAD RECKONING PT 1 will lose -1,130 theaters in just its 3rd weekend. Becoming profitable is now an impossible mission for this flick.'

This is so bAffling they did put it here. It has an A cinema score, good word of mouth, a 90 on rotten tomatoes. And franchise goodwill. Which uh they blew on a bad air date.

I don't think anyone was expecting Barbie or Oppenheimer to be the hits that they were.

Sandwiched between two huge movies looks bad, but I can see the logic if you view it as "girl-focused comedy movie" and "serious and slightly dry biopic". Putting a more traditional action blockbuster from a proven franchise in the mix doesn't seem like such a huge gamble.

Having seen all three movies, I still really enjoyed this one and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Edited by ArthurEld on Jul 27th 2023 at 5:13:28 AM

It could've done pretty well with an earlier opening if Paramount hadn't overestimated Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Yeah but that I can understand. Not moving it after Oppenheimer took all their imax screens (their big money makers). That's not a good idea.

Yeah. Robbins needs to talk to whoever scheduled the movies this year. They have not been making good choices.

Hopefully things go better for TMNT. And the next MI doesn’t cost $300 Million.

I think their mindset is the damage is done and they're trying to save face. The movie didn't have the runaway opening that Top Gun: Maverick did, but still opened on point. Barbenheimer crushed it worse than expected though clearly.

They need to try to pick up premium screens during a weekend where things are dead. Doing that with a re-release might help in a slower stretch or a particular dead zone—maybe even before Part Two drops next summer (though not too close to it though).

IMAX Tried To Help 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One' Have Better Box Office Returns, But Paramount Wouldn't Budge (IMAX's post-production head Bruce Markoe said "Sometimes studios work with us & move dates around but other times they just say, ‘Nope, that's our date. We don't care!’."

Well dang this is embarrassing. For the gist. Imax knew they would only have a week for their screens so tried to convince then to move it (September has like nothing for a month). But they said no and uh well....

Then it was pride. Both Paramount and Tom Cruise didn't want to admit the movie was in trouble—or denied it to themselves—and Barbenheimer clearly stole their thunder.

Hate that articles are saying it's a milestone. A milestone is good, not bad! Stop it!

Was that "the Entity" doing the voiceover with Kittridge's voice at the end of the movie by the way? It's a bit hard to tell.

I just watched Heart of Stone. Totally forgettable (a shame, I love Gal Gadot she should get a better agent these days), but I couldn't help but laugh upon seeing a number of similarities between the two films. Anyway, Dead Reckoning does it all better, by a long shot.

I hope Part 2 will work out better for them all, though June and July 2024 seem pretty crowded too.

Edited by Iridener on Aug 11th 2023 at 3:58:13 AM

It's not the first time Paramount did wrong with the schedule. Star Trek and Into Darkness came out in May, near or over $400 million. Star Trek Beyond came out in July instead, $343 million ended up lossy due to a high budget - just looking back at 2016's slate, had Beyond come out a few months earlier, maybe changing places with the studio's other big movie (or even in September, when Star Trek celebrated its 50th anniversary), it certainly could have earned more.

Dead Reckoning certainly deserved more attention. Even if it could be considered half a movie, it was a great one, and at least knew how to finish with things mostly settled\set rather than simply ending in the middle of a scene like Across the Spider-Verse. And regarding the action, along with the train I was impressed at how it improved on the Fallout "driving the wrong way" scene (it was longer, more frantic, and the characters were handcuffed!). If only the Hollywood strike can be solved to film what's left of Part 2, lest it gets delayed.

Apparently no word about when it goes to Paramount+ while its DVD/home video release will be on Halloween—and Paramount may not even send it to the streamer for a while actually is what I'm hearing too. They definitely are gonna make a push for forcing those who waited to see the movie to pay money for it—and pay well for it—in order to make up for its lack of success in the theater. That to me is definitely the smart move.

As much as there's hope it's misdirection,regarding the movie's big death...

Currently it's on Paramount Plus in the UK at least. I may even get around to watching it before Star Trek: Discovery's over and I cancel it again.

Why do people think Ilsa died after the whole "Paris has pulse" line when they were both stabbed by the same weapon?