Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Written by MovieGuys on July 23, 2023

Spectacular cinematic action let down by an incoherent story and shallow characterisations.

As is almost always the case with the MI franchise, the latest offering dishes up spectacular, highly polished, explosive action. Regrettably it comes at the price of a coherent story and rounded characterisations.

The story feels like it was made to accommodate the excess of exposition. Its a jumbled mess of poorly articulated ideas, that is, unsurprisingly, difficult to follow. Its not helped at all by an over abundance of peripheral characters. They simply add to the confused jumble and just as unsurprisingly, are never given the chance to display any depth of characterisation.

The results a film I personally found frustrating to watch. It boiled down to a series of action plot devices, including car chases and train wrecks. Certainly, some thought went into these sequences but because there is an absence of a solid story and believable characters, to cement the whole thing together, they don't amount to much, on their own.

In short, polished action but for me, lacks the key factors that bind any film together, including a decent story and characterisations. In short, I can't really recommend this one, in spite of being a fan of the franchise.