Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

Honestly if this film was not directed by Christopher McQuarrie, I would believe it. This is a far cry from the tight trilogy of films that came before it and sadly I left being disappointed in this newest instalment. More shockingly is how acclaimed this film is, I feel as if I've watched a different film to everyone.

Before I dive into the many flaws and problems riddling this film, I do want to highlight some things that work because it isn't all bad. For one, unsurprisingly, Lorne Balfe's score is unreal. Possibly my favourite score in the franchise. He is just able to inject every scene with so much energy and tension that is makes its long runtime fly by.

Performances were across the board great, with standouts being Vanessa Kirby, who destroyed everything she was given, such an incredible screen presence that immediately demanded your attention. Such a great surprise getting so much Hayley Atwell and she killed it (not her character which I will get to) and Pom Klementieff being the most deranged human driving a car was so fun. No surprise but Cruise gives another great performance as well.

Sadly, I feel as if that's where my praises end for this film. The main issue with this film is the writing. Now the writing of Mission: Impossible movies has never really been a standout, it's very serviceable, with each film sort of following the same formula. However, the problem with this movie is it's overwritten. Numerous scenes were just huge dumps of exposition, or just overly long. Prime example of this is near the beginning of the film when we're introduced to Kittridge again and there is a discussion about AI. For some reason there's like seven characters in this scene who go back and forth finishing each other’s sentences building up how big a threat the AI is. It felt ridiculously staged and just an uninspired way to get exposition across to an audience.

Strangely despite all the exposition in this film, actual plot of this film is also a point of contention. It starts off with the plot being that a key is the key to controlling the entity yet somewhere along the film characters begin to question what the key does, even though we were told it controls the entity. It gets more convoluted when the main villain of the film is able to use the entity without the key, so you don't need the key to control the entity. Honestly these films are never really about the plot, but when it is actively distracting and when the McGuffin affects the plot then it needs to be clear. It works in M:I 3 since it's a mystery box and we don't need to know what it does, but the whole film revolves around getting the key to control whatever it is that it becomes frustrating.

Again, with the writing, having so many characters in this film really did a disservice to most of them. The cast of characters from previous films feel so out of place here. Luther and Benji are used in one scene and then the film seems to forget about them, or just not know what to do with them. However, the most egregious of these was Rebecca Ferguson. What a waste. The film had no idea what to do with her, no idea what her relationship with Cruise is, and makes an infuriating decision with her character to service Cruise. Might be one of the most infuriating moments in the film is when the villain gives Cruise a choice to save a woman he's known for a day or someone who seems to have a relationship with. Moreover, it's not even his decision?!? Why would the movie frame it as such?

It just really infuriated me how much this film seemed to backtrack in having interesting and capable female characters who stand on their own, and instead replace it with Cruise having to be the hero. Despite Atwell's great performance I thought her character was completely muddled and was written to service the idea that Cruise must be the hero. She is set up as an international thief, with multiple passports and has escaped the law numerous times, yet from scene to scene the film changes whether or not she's actually this character. For example, in the car chase where they're handcuffed together, she fumbles along the entire time when she's able to get out the handcuffs whenever she wants. She has been wanted for multiple times and yet she's shocked when the law is hunting them down. Obviously, it was played for comedy, having her make all these mistakes, it just felt out character.

Despite really enjoying McQuarrie's other films, this film was just so poorly shot. Tell me why every single scene had to be filmed in close ups and Dutch angles? It really detracts from a lot of scenes and makes it uncinematic. When they're in the club it did allow for possibly the funniest scene when they reveal it's the entity's club and it cuts to a close up of Cortana on the wall with the most dramatic music.

Sadly, the direction took away from a lot the stunts and set pieces, with none of them really standing out among the best of the franchise. Such a disappointment having the main stunt of this film feeling lacklustre with how it was shot and edited. It also didn't help that the set pieces went on for far too long. I'm just so disappointed in this film, it feels like a step back for the franchise