Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Written by snunes97 on December 27, 2023

This is the weakest M:I movie so far, which doesn't mean it's bad but it definitely has a few critical issues. The smaller issue is the pointless action sequences. This movie has a couple of overly long sequences that drag on for way too long and serve no purpose. They bring nothing new to the table in terms of stunts and don't add anything to the story. It's just padding and noise. However, the biggest issue is the plot about artificial intelligence. The filmmakers seem very insecure about the audience's ability to understand the themes used in the story. As a result, there are multiple long scenes where characters sit in a room and repeatedly speak about certain plot elements, in different levels of detail, as if they're trying to make sure the audience understands what they're talking about. I think "rogue computer program" is something that most people would understand, but the movie really tries to make this concept much deeper than it needs to be for the purpose of the movie, resulting in multiple needlessly complex exposition scenes. All of this to say that the movie could have been 30 minutes shorter if you could trim the pointless action sequences and the tech jargon. As it stands, Dead Reckoning Part Two is going to have to do some very heavy lifting in order to compensate for this bloated Part One.