Dead Reckoning - Blog Posts

I rewatched Mission Impossible dead reckoning, this time with my parents, and holy shit im CACKLING. i forgot how fucking funny that one car chase scene is. my whole family was like. crying from laughing. it's just something about that tiny ass yellow car drifting circles.

Me: I watch Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning for the plot

The "plot":

Watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!!! Significant improvement from the last two entries in at least a few ways. It actually feels like McQuarrie is directing with a much stronger aesthetic vision, the set pieces are neither too sparse (as in Rogue Nation) nor too dense (as in Fallout). That train action sequence is easily the best in the three movies. It's almost even about something. I am willing to believe that there is some intentionality behind the relationship between artifice and doing things to some standard of 'real' and the production structure of the Mission: Impossible movies within the context of contemporary filmmaking (although I think McQuarrie and Jendresen a little out of their epistemological depth as screenwriters). I'm even willing to believe that the Entity is a potentially potent way of constructing this analogy. It certainly does not succeed in all respects, but this movie is actually trying to say something, which is more impressive than the previous installations I have seen over the past few weeks.

I'm not willing to extend enough good will to believe that Ilsa's fridging is some meta-commentary on bad scriptwriting because it was orchestrated by an artificial intelligence. I think that it is an interesting angle, but it's also a very convenient excuse to eliminate the character who was so mistreated in the last installment. On the bright side, Atwell's Grace is a significantly more realized character and a real step in the right direction. It's just too bad that McQuarrie is only willing to have one female team member at a time.

There are a couple of other minor ups and downs, like the wonderful typewriter shot (love love love), the brief grasp at a real sense of a new digital epistomology, the disappointing lack of emphasis on the non-use of technology in the final act, and the juvenile, absurd nightclub scene where rave lights and circular screen graphics are meant to instill some deep sense of fear. Broadly, this movie does function. Unlike Rogue Nation, I don't feel a frustration with the ridiculous political positioning (although perhaps I've just gotten used to ignoring it), and unlike Fallout I don't have quite the pit forming in my stomach about how much I enjoyed the 'Tom Cruise is the best' show. We'll see how the final chapter stacks up.