Paramount’s Mission: Impossible movies are often considered a pleasant surprise whenever one of them rolls around. They come just reliably enough that you like hearing when one’s on the horizon, but not so often that you kind of get sick of them. And it doesn’t help that pretty much all of them are fairly good in some way—even if it took a few years before folks came around on some entries, like Mission: Impossible 2.
This weekend’s Dead Reckoning Part One has been a bit of a longer wait than expected. Much of that can be owed to the way the COVID pandemic wrecked so much of live-action Hollywood, including Paramount’s original intentions to shoot both Reckoning films back-to-back. (Those plans got scuttled, and it may be that Part Two will get delayed out of its July 2024 date due to the actor strike.) A single trailer released last year was all audiences had to subsist on until basically this past May, but now the film is here and reminding everyone why the franchise is regarded so well.
Social media impressions and reviews for Dead Reckoning One have been pretty solid, and it’s looking like the movie will be another hit on par with Rogue Nation and Fallout before it. Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie have all but demanded folks see this in theaters, but it’s not like the urging is really needed. For many, the promised spectacle of seeing Cruise bike off a mountain and fight Esai Morales on a speeding train is enough, and having reliably fun actors like Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham and Haley Atwell pop up is icing on the cake.
Let us know in the comments below what you thought of Dead Reckoning’s first half. How complete does it feel as a “Part One” to you , and how does it stack up to the rest of the franchise?
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