Movies MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING (Dragonlord's Review)

[Adamant]

I don't think Ethan Hunt really is that much of a character other than being Tom Cruise doing stunts.

What could he do to make Ethan Hunt more of a character?

 

[BisexualMMA]

What could he do to make Ethan Hunt more of a character?

I have an idea of what Ethan Hunt is about and could take a guess if asked "what would Ethan Hunt do" which is a good sign that he has gotten his character across. But at the same time the character is more or less "good action guy who does the right thing."

 

[revoltub]

What could he do to make Ethan Hunt more of a character?

I have an idea of what Ethan Hunt is about and could take a guess if asked "what would Ethan Hunt do" which is a good sign that he has gotten his character across. But at the same time the character is more or less "good action guy who does the right thing."

I think Hunt is a "man at work" type of character. A guy you watch doing his job who's the best at it and always gets the job done. Like watching a master chef or something similar, you gain appreciation and some knowledge of who they are through the task.

But I mean I do get the criticism because we dont know much about him outside of that. We know he had a family from 1, we know he was married somewhere between 2 and 3, and from 7 we know he had a criminal past of some sort.

Hunt is like James Bond in that they are characters you are supposed to aspire to rather than relate to. Although Bond perhaps has more vices and signature character traits that makes him a little more relatable at times.

 

[CrimsonFan]

Alright.

This was probably my most anticipated movie of the year, so I didn't want to believe @Dragonlordxxxxx review of 7/10.

But I do agree with it. The last 3 MI movies have been stellar IMO. Steadily improving until now

While I think this movie possibly has the most impressive action scenes throughout.. the movie simply doesn't have any time to breathe, and the plot is just all over the place and at times doesn't even really make sense. I guess I never really understood why the main bad guy was being controlled by the AI, or how that relationship even began. I think less time spent on big action scenes and more backstory into that character could have helped the movie.

This felt like a John Wick film where it's just constant barrage of action for 3 hours. And after a while it was just too much.

I still enjoyed the movie and would recommend it.. but it was hardly the best mission impossible yet, and IMO a step down. You'd have to go all the way back to MI 2 or 3 for me to find a movie in the series I would rank it over.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

I saw it. 7/10 is fair. I been wondering how Tom Cruise gets away with the Scientology stuff scott free.

https://nypost.com/2017/06/08/how-come-no-one-asks-tom-cruise-about-scientology/

It’s been years since anyone has cared, but the accusations against him are really bad. It’s so weird it just never matters with him.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-mov...e-dead-reckoning-movie-savior-1234789015/amp/

Does anyone remember Wilhaven? The Sherdogger? @willhaven720

 

[Nameless Ghoul]

I "finally" saw it tonight. I'm part of the "Cruise:Last Action Hero Cult", and even with MI:2 we are seven movies in, and there has only been one "dud". I enjoyed my time seeing Ethan Hunt, and the squad again. I also found myself enjoying Hayley Atwell's performance alot. Yet, it's what 2 hrs 43mn of only "setting up" the next movie? Allowing "Part One" to be in the title, and not letting it be a "natural surprise" for the viewers like Empire Strikes Back/Across The Spider-Verse/ect was a surprising misstep by Cruise/The Studio.

 

[Dragonlordxxxxx]

Box office update:

Dead Reckoning Part One dropped 64 percent on its second weekend with $19.5 million for a U.S. total of $118.8 million so far.

 

[Adamant]

I imagine this will probably do typical M:I numbers. Which is usually in the $400-700 million range at the WW box office.

 

[ufcfan4]

Box office update:

Dead Reckoning Part One dropped 64 percent on its second weekend with $19.5 million for a U.S. total of $118.8 million so far.

Damn. maybe he promoted Barbie and Oppenheimer a little too much lol.

That really does surprise me. I figured Cruise had so much momentum from Top Gun and I believe Fallout made a lot of money. I’m sure it can still do solid business internationally but 19 mill domestic in a second weekend for a film that big is startling.

Fallout didn’t have that one-two punch of competition in its second weekend though probably.

 

[HereticBD]

Damn. maybe he promoted Barbie and Oppenheimer a little too much lol.

That really does surprise me. I figured Cruise had so much momentum from Top Gun and I believe Fallout made a lot of money. I’m sure it can still do solid business internationally but 19 mill domestic in a second weekend for a film that big is startling.

Fallout didn’t have that one-two punch of competition in its second weekend though probably.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a trend. Next weekend's tallies will be interesting. I think the death of movie theaters(something I never put much stock into), might actually be happening. The big strike that's gonna put a pretty big dent in content for movie theaters to run, ain't gonna help either. And they're still trying to recover from COVID shutdowns.

I wouldn't want to be a theater owner right now.

 

[Adamant]

Damn. maybe he promoted Barbie and Oppenheimer a little too much lol.

That really does surprise me. I figured Cruise had so much momentum from Top Gun and I believe Fallout made a lot of money. I’m sure it can still do solid business internationally but 19 mill domestic in a second weekend for a film that big is startling.

Fallout didn’t have that one-two punch of competition in its second weekend though probably.

I think timing has something to do with it. They should have gone either a month before Barbie/Oppenheimer or a month after. Not a week before.

 

[Dragonlordxxxxx]

Damn. maybe he promoted Barbie and Oppenheimer a little too much lol.

That really does surprise me. I figured Cruise had so much momentum from Top Gun and I believe Fallout made a lot of money. I’m sure it can still do solid business internationally but 19 mill domestic in a second weekend for a film that big is startling.

Fallout didn’t have that one-two punch of competition in its second weekend though probably.

Remember that time where Cruise tried to "promote" his competition Barbie but secretly wanted them to fail at the box office, just like what happened to The Flash when word got out he praised the movie. Well, Gerwig and Robbie reversed the bad mojo back on Cruise.

 

[Dragonlordxxxxx]

I think timing has something to do with it. They should have gone either a month before Barbie/Oppenheimer or a month after. Not a week before.

April would have been a good month to release Dead Reckoning as there was no other tentpole movies playing at that time except for Super Mario Bros. This year's May and June are just so crowded with no breathing room.

 

[Dragonlordxxxxx]

That really does surprise me. I figured Cruise had so much momentum from Top Gun and I believe Fallout made a lot of money. I’m sure it can still do solid business internationally but 19 mill domestic in a second weekend for a film that big is startling.

I can see a trend with some of these franchises and I think a lot of moviegoers find some of them to be stale. Fast X did not blow up the box office as expected and seems to be slowly dwindling down. Same with the Mission: Impossible franchise. Christopher McQuarrie has directed three M:I films so far with a fourth one coming out next year. I think Cruise needs to have another creative filmmaker take the reins to get out of this rut. I like that the first five M:I films have different filmmakers (De Palma, Woo, Abrams, Bird and McQuarrie) and each bring a different flavor to their movies.

 

[RollSonnenRoll]

I saw it. 7/10 is fair. I been wondering how Tom Cruise gets away with the Scientology stuff scott free.

https://nypost.com/2017/06/08/how-come-no-one-asks-tom-cruise-about-scientology/

It’s been years since anyone has cared, but the accusations against him are really bad. It’s so weird it just never matters with him.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-mov...e-dead-reckoning-movie-savior-1234789015/amp/

Does anyone remember Wilhaven? The Sherdogger? @willhaven720

10-15 years ago, Scientology was the weirdest thing the general public thought about Hollywood. Now so much has come out that it's barely in the top 10. I just don't think people care anymore

 

[BisexualMMA]

I can see a trend with some of these franchises and I think a lot of moviegoers find some of them to be stale. Fast X did not blow up the box office as expected and seems to be slowly dwindling down. Same with the Mission: Impossible franchise. Christopher McQuarrie has directed three M:I films so far with a fourth one coming out next year. I think Cruise needs to have another creative filmmaker take the reins to get out of this rut. I like that the first five M:I films have different filmmakers (De Palma, Woo, Abrams, Bird and McQuarrie) and each bring a different flavor to their movies.

I like the different directors thing in theory. In practice I think it was a hodgepodge with 2 and 3 being the worst of the franchise and I was actually quite surprised Cruise kept rolling with it and #4 seemed to rescue things and was in the same mold as the McQuarrie movies at least as I remember them.

I think the issues with Dead Reckoning are mostly on stuff other than the directing...like the script...but at the same time Cruise / McQuarrie are to blame for the rut as you say because I think they've been given carte blanche in creation to execution to do as they see fit with little opposition. I mean...you could say they've earned it...but you could say Shyamalan and Blomkamp and so on did as well, and those got stale just much faster.

Anyway I'm McQuarrie Mission Impossibled out but I was never very attached to the franchise in the first place.

I'd personally rather Cruise went and did stuff like Robert Downey and Hugh Jackman are doing post Iron Man and post Wolverine, or like Hugh Jackman was doing in between Wolverine movies...but at the same time Cruise seems to be having so much fun breaking his bones and stuff that it's hard not to be kind of happy for him.

 

[ufcfan4]

I can see a trend with some of these franchises and I think a lot of moviegoers find some of them to be stale. Fast X did not blow up the box office as expected and seems to be slowly dwindling down. Same with the Mission: Impossible franchise. Christopher McQuarrie has directed three M:I films so far with a fourth one coming out next year. I think Cruise needs to have another creative filmmaker take the reins to get out of this rut. I like that the first five M:I films have different filmmakers (De Palma, Woo, Abrams, Bird and McQuarrie) and each bring a different flavor to their movies.

Make sense. Franchise fatigue and all that. I've definitely noticed those box office receipts with each new Fast and Furious movie. It's been like the Transformers films, the domestic numbers getting smaller and smaller to the point that you need to rely on the still robust international numbers to probably even justify further films.

I just thought MI would avoid that cause Cruise is a reliable star and that series has actually remained good to this day. It does seem that the latest one can't quite live up to some of the more recent outings but it's still good from what I hear.

Oppenheimer and Barbie though definitely were marketed as and had the vibe of fresh, innovative films and I think that showed with this week's numbers. People vote with their dollars and they went for the fresh film over the established franchise.

 

[Dragonlordxxxxx]

I like the different directors thing in theory. In practice I think it was a hodgepodge with 2 and 3 being the worst of the franchise and I was actually quite surprised Cruise kept rolling with it and #4 seemed to rescue things and was in the same mold as the McQuarrie movies at least as I remember them.

I think the issues with Dead Reckoning are mostly on stuff other than the directing...like the script...but at the same time Cruise / McQuarrie are to blame for the rut as you say because I think they've been given carte blanche in creation to execution to do as they see fit with little opposition. I mean...you could say they've earned it...but you could say Shyamalan and Blomkamp and so on did as well, and those got stale just much faster.

Anyway I'm McQuarrie Mission Impossibled out but I was never very attached to the franchise in the first place.

I'd personally rather Cruise went and did stuff like Robert Downey and Hugh Jackman are doing post Iron Man and post Wolverine, or like Hugh Jackman was doing in between Wolverine movies...but at the same time Cruise seems to be having so much fun breaking his bones and stuff that it's hard not to be kind of happy for him.

I unabashedly love M:I 3 and shamefully like M:I 2. I know all of Part 2's problems and critiques but I still like it, probably one of the reasons is I'm a fan of John Woo.

Yeah, Dead Reckoning Part One's script is not that good.

I want to see Cruise in more sci-fi action/thriller movies. Most of my favorite movies of his are from his sci-fi work like Edge of Tomorrow, War of the Worlds, Oblivion and Minority Report.

 

[Adamant]

I can see a trend with some of these franchises and I think a lot of moviegoers find some of them to be stale. Fast X did not blow up the box office as expected and seems to be slowly dwindling down. Same with the Mission: Impossible franchise. Christopher McQuarrie has directed three M:I films so far with a fourth one coming out next year. I think Cruise needs to have another creative filmmaker take the reins to get out of this rut. I like that the first five M:I films have different filmmakers (De Palma, Woo, Abrams, Bird and McQuarrie) and each bring a different flavor to their movies.

I wouldn't expect the M:I franchise to be considered stale or dwindling or in a rut at this point. It literally just came off the all time high of Fallout. And it seems like Rogue Nation is in most people's Top 2 or 3 of the whole franchise. And Ghost Protocol was another super good one. After three successful entires like that, why all of a sudden would people be feeling burnt out on it? It wasn't like it came out a year later from the last one. It's been 5 years. Perhaps it's just a matter of bad timing and DR1 not being as good as Fallout?

But I do agree that a new filmmaker should take over for #9. Then maybe down the road McQ can return if need be, or if he wants to.

I'd like to see Brad Bird do another. But I don't think that's very likely, so I'm not sure who I'd pick to be next. Any ideas?

 

[BisexualMMA]

I unabashedly love M:I 3 and shamefully like M:I 2. I know all of Part 2's problems and critiques but I still like it, probably one of the reasons is I'm a fan of John Woo.

Yeah, Dead Reckoning Part One's script is not that good.

I want to see Cruise in more sci-fi action/thriller movies. Most of my favorite movies of his are from his sci-fi work like Edge of Tomorrow, War of the Worlds, Oblivion and Minority Report.

I was big on A Better Tomorrow and The Killer. I was never crazy about anything John Woo did in Hollywood...but Face Off was pretty fun.

Oblivion is a greatly underrated movie and Edge of Tomorrow is a massively underseen one.

I like War of the Worlds and Minority Report a little less than most people...but Tom did a great job in carrying War of the Worlds. Establishes everything off the bat playing catch with his son at the beginning.