Movies Update - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 2 delayed by a year until 23 May 2025

[Keyser_Soze]

9 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

You also can't skip it because the characters (Ethan and Luther) and world particularly wouldn't feel lived in you skip 2. 1 to 3 would be weird to me.

 

I tried watching it one afternoon on HBO a long time ago and it was unbearably bad. Skip this shit, read a synopsis or something.

[Greatoneshere]

12 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I tried watching it one afternoon on HBO a long time ago and it was unbearably bad. Skip this shit, read a synopsis or something.

 

You might think it unbearably bad but it has its charms and it has a cult following (see me, @GeneticBlueprint, etc.).  It's worth watching once properly if you've never seen it.

[Keyser_Soze]

10 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

You might think it unbearably bad but it has its charms and it has a cult following (see me, @GeneticBlueprint, etc.).  It's worth watching once properly if you've never seen it.

 

You're acting like I respect @GeneticBlueprint's opinion on anything

 

(Now I have to go easy because he came back with a pretty sick burn last time )

[GeneticBlueprint]

How can you not love John Woo when he--as @Greatoneshere puts it--goes full John Woo? The action is awesome and silly and fun and overly stylized. It's great.

[Greatoneshere]

17 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

How can you not love John Woo when he--as @Greatoneshere puts it--goes full John Woo? The action is awesome and silly and fun and overly stylized. It's great.

 

Exactly. It's all so overblown and operatic and over the top and ridiculous. And Woo intends it this way. I mean, Zimmer's score is cranked up to 11 and it rocks. The film is patently ridiculous because it's a movie that came out in the year 2000, at peak sexy Cruise, and it goes full 2000 in almost every design decision for maximum EFFECT. It's awesome and the action scenes are legitimately well done because Woo finally had an American budget that he could finally do, to a degree, the action he was easily able to do on shoestring budgets in Hong Kong with his Chow-Yun Fat action films of the 80's (barring maybe Face/Off). Thandie Newton is gorgeous in it and a great foil against Cruise and the villain is an absolute POS you love to hate.

 

Skipping M:I 2 is crazy to me but I get why people don't like the movie.

[Kal-El814]

The Woo-iness of 2 is all well and good. I think the worst part of MI2 by a longshot is the overreaction to the first movie where people seemed to not be able to follow who was a traitor, who wasn’t, etc. MI2 corrects for this to an absurd degree and explains the plot aloud what feels like three dozen times.

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

27 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

How can you not love John Woo when he--as @Greatoneshere puts it--goes full John Woo? The action is awesome and silly and fun and overly stylized. It's great.

 

I don't remember much of it, but maybe one day I'll be and watch ALL the movies anyway (I've only seen up to 2 and both were bad)

[GeneticBlueprint]

4 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I don't remember much of it, but maybe one day I'll be and watch ALL the movies anyway (I've only seen up to 2 and both were bad)

 

 

Don't understand how anybody could think the first movie was bad in any way. But still, you're missing some of the best moments in the entire franchise if you haven't seen anything after 2.

[Keyser_Soze]

8 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Don't understand how anybody could think the first movie was bad in any way.

 

It was like just boring and nothing happened until the scene at the end which was the best scene and you could have just watched that in the trailers.

[Greatoneshere]

22 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

The Woo-iness of 2 is all well and good. I think the worst part of MI2 by a longshot is the overreaction to the first movie where people seemed to not be able to follow who was a traitor, who wasn’t, etc. MI2 corrects for this to an absurd degree and explains the plot aloud what feels like three dozen times.

 

Yeah, that was definitely the case. I mean, the first one does have a labyrinthine plot, but that's part of what makes it great, not bad. The first film is full Brian de Palma and I love it but that was always a strange (but very real at the time) criticism of the first one. 

 

10 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Don't understand how anybody could think the first movie was bad in any way. But still, you're missing some of the best moments in the entire franchise if you haven't seen anything after 2.

 

Yeah, I mean the stuff in the later ones. Even 3 has some great shit in it, I like that one. Everyone loves 4 (Ghost Protocol). Rogue Nation is a banger and Fallout is even better.

[Kal-El814]

3 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Yeah, that was definitely the case. I mean, the first one does have a labyrinthine plot, but that's part of what makes it great, not bad. The first film is full Brian de Palma and I love it but that was always a strange (but very real at the time) criticism of the first one. 

 

 

 

In hindsight, the funniest parts of the original MI are Tom Cruise looking like a fucking child for some reason, extra prayers to Xenu or some shit, who knows. He looks 17 in some shots in that film like they lifted footage from Risky Business. Also literally everything related to the internet in that movie is peak comedy, he just… sends an email to a random email address and it’s the terrorist he’s looking for. And she replies! “Hello I am interested in crimes, A/S/L?” “Why yes I too like crimes let’s meet f2f.”

 

Longterm I think the only “issue” I have with the series is the fabricated drama around people thinking Ethan might flip, or that Ethan might just murder some police officers to maintain cover, etc. Come on now. If Ethan turned it’d be like First of the North Star, you’d already be dead. How do you not know this

 

As thrill rides and seeing Tom Cruise continue to punish himself, they remain very fun.

[GeneticBlueprint]

14 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Yeah, I mean the stuff in the later ones. Even 3 has some great shit in it, I like that one. Everyone loves 4 (Ghost Protocol). Rogue Nation is a banger and Fallout is even better.

 3 is great because of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Such a great villain.

[Greatoneshere]

4 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

 

In hindsight, the funniest parts of the original MI are Tom Cruise looking like a fucking child for some reason, extra prayers to Xenu or some shit, who knows. He looks 17 in some shots in that film like they lifted footage from Risky Business. Also literally everything related to the internet in that movie is peak comedy, he just… sends an email to a random email address and it’s the terrorist he’s looking for. And she replies! “Hello I am interested in crimes, A/S/L?” “Why yes I too like crimes let’s meet f2f.”

 

Longterm I think the only “issue” I have with the series is the fabricated drama around people thinking Ethan might flip, or that Ethan might just murder some police officers to maintain cover, etc. Come on now. If Ethan turned it’d be like First of the North Star, you’d already be dead. How do you not know this

 

As thrill rides and seeing Tom Cruise continue to punish himself, they remain very fun.

 

Yeah, definitely agreed on all counts. The computer stuff in the first is highly amusing every time I do revisit the film. There's a lot to like about the franchise overall, like you say. Fun characters and dialogue, action scenes, etc. 

 

Just now, GeneticBlueprint said:

 3 is great because of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Such a great villain.

 

An absolute highlight in the film. The bridge action scene is epic. It's almost like Abrams used to know how to make a movie.

[GeneticBlueprint]

The Internet stuff from the first one is definitely hilarious through today's lens. But pretty much all movies made in that era are really bad about how computers and the Internet actually work.

[Kal-El814]

3 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

The Internet stuff from the first one is definitely hilarious through today's lens. But pretty much all movies made in that era are really bad about how computers and the Internet actually work.

 

Oh yeah, it’s not a knock on the movie at all! And you’re right, it’s a funny era for that kind of thing. Here’s a handbag, give yourself two minutes and your face can become someone else’s face. How are we going to find this terrorist? I know, I’ll email terrorist@crimes.com

[TheLeon]

I think that 2 is ultimately a fine movie for what it is, but it’s by far the least essential. Unless the green gas shown in the new trailer is a new form of Chimera, everyone involved in making these movies has agreed to pretty much forget that 2 ever happened. 

[Brian]

Wow. You don’t skip any movie. They are all bangers. 

[5timechamp]

After all the great fake outs in 7 its hard to imagine any tension being created… they’ve made the impossible become possible too many times… someone of significance might need to be sacrificed for the greater good

[Brian]

Or Ethan Hunt can continue winning. It’s a movie bud. Let’s enjoy watching someone win since we all lose in life. 

[Greatoneshere]

3 hours ago, TheLeon said:

I think that 2 is ultimately a fine movie for what it is, but it’s by far the least essential. Unless the green gas shown in the new trailer is a new form of Chimera, everyone involved in making these movies has agreed to pretty much forget that 2 ever happened. 

 

If you don't watch at least M:I 2's opening you can't understand one of the best references/jokes/callbacks in Fallout. So, watch M:I2, it has become essential due to that reason alone.  

 

For those who have seen Fallout:

 

Spoiler

Ethan free climbing the cliff at the end of Fallout.

 

[SoberChef]

 

I had heard about this having aired during Cinema Con back in April ... freaking WOW this man is insane & I love him for it!

[johnny]

2 sucks shit, and you don’t need to watch it. fuck what these jabronies say 

[Derek]

3 hours ago, johnny said:

2 sucks shit, and you don’t need to watch it. fuck what these jabronies say 

You've been holding that in too long, johnny. Too long.

[EternallDarkness]

7 hours ago, SoberChef said:

 

I had heard about this having aired during Cinema Con back in April ... freaking WOW this man is insane & I love him for it!

 

dude is the good kind of crazy 

[SoberChef]

Dead Reckoning Test Screenings Begin ... Suit Execs Continue to Prove Their Stupidity

[SoberChef]

In all seriousness, 147 minutes (2.5 hours) isn't that long for a film, let alone one in a long running franchise that is the first of two parts to conclude THIS version of the franchise.

[SoberChef]

Also, can @Remarkableriotschange the title to something like the official Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning thread or something? Makes sense right?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Pikachu]

The Cruise missile doesn't miss!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 minutes ago, Pikachu said:

The Cruise missile doesn't miss!

 

That means he's not a Kinzhal.

[Kal-El814]

A few thoughts.

 

The stunts look wild, which should surprise nobody.

 

Took a long time, but Tom Cruise is finally starting to look like a wax figure of Tom Cruise. Motherfucker is 60, Jesus Christ. Maybe he'll have a love interest at some point that is within TWO DECADES of his age.

 

Despite there being 10 million of these movies, the only two names I remember are Ethan and Luther, it's wild that the humans in this series are so inconsequential despite the fact that they're always played up as being super important. We know almost nothing about any of them.

[Greatoneshere]

3 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

Took a long time, but Tom Cruise is finally starting to look like a wax figure of Tom Cruise. Motherfucker is 60, Jesus Christ. Maybe he'll have a love interest at some point that is within TWO DECADES of his age.

 

Despite there being 10 million of these movies, the only two names I remember are Ethan and Luther, it's wild that the humans in this series are so inconsequential despite the fact that they're always played up as being super important. We know almost nothing about any of them.

 

I'm not sure if you meant specifically with his character in Mission: Impossible movies, but Jennifer Connelly was Cruise's love interest in Top Gun: Maverick and she's 52 years old so that's at least only 8 years younger. But yes, his typical much younger love interests in his movies has been getting increasingly unbelievable/hilarious as the years have gone by. Within Mission: Impossible, Michelle Monaghan was Cruise's main love interest (and still kind of is) and she's 47 years old, so while 13 years younger is a decent gap, within the twenty years you mentioned.

 

As for the supporting characters in these films, I agree with you, but that's sort of the point. These are primarily plot driven movies where any character development happens on the fly as "the team" works together and does missions together. Their personalities develop from the way they handle themselves and behave on these missions rather than actual scenes where characters talk about themselves and reveal a lot about themselves. It happens sometimes, but is not a primary driver for these films' tone. They can be fun and serious, and the stakes can be high and feel dramatic, but the films rarely feel personal. There are times and moments where they do, but not usually. Obviously the later movies it's become just as much about the action and stunts as plot, but personal/character drama is still not a priority. Maybe the films could be doing a better job at that even within its structure, but there's a lot else to appreciate which is why I've always been a fan of this franchise. But I'm a sucker for Bourne and Bond type movies.

[Kal-El814]

17 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I'm not sure if you meant specifically with his character in Mission: Impossible movies, but Jennifer Connelly was Cruise's love interest in Top Gun: Maverick and she's 52 years old so that's at least only 8 years younger. But yes, his typical much younger love interests in his movies has been getting increasingly unbelievable/hilarious as the years have gone by. Within Mission: Impossible, Michelle Monaghan was Cruise's main love interest (and still kind of is) and she's 47 years old, so while 13 years younger is a decent gap, within the twenty years you mentioned.

 

As for the supporting characters in these films, I agree with you, but that's sort of the point. These are primarily plot driven movies where any character development happens on the fly as "the team" works together and does missions together. Their personalities develop from the way they handle themselves and behave on these missions rather than actual scenes where characters talk about themselves and reveal a lot about themselves. It happens sometimes, but is not a primary driver for these films' tone. They can be fun and serious, and the stakes can be high and feel dramatic, but the films rarely feel personal. There are times and moments where they do, but not usually. Obviously the later movies it's become just as much about the action and stunts as plot, but personal/character drama is still not a priority. Maybe the films could be doing a better job at that even within its structure, but there's a lot else to appreciate which is why I've always been a fan of this franchise. But I'm a sucker for Bourne and Bond type movies.

 

The age gap thing is more of a pet peeve in general, I don’t super care about it in MI. I also dunno that Tom Cruise has ever really had believable sexual chemistry with… anyone, but that’s a whole other thing.

 

I only really bring up the character bit because I feel like Cruise has pretty frequently said that it’s the characters that make these movies work. I get that he can’t get out there and say it’s about stunts, gizmos, and style at the expense of everything else, but… it’s weird. Was it the last one where there was a bunch of alleged tension about Ethan almost killing a bunch of cops as part of his cover? Or like I’m supposed to care that Simon Pegg’s character, whose name I cannot recall, is selling the IMF or whoever on the notion that Ethan isn’t really his friend? The movies do a bad job at making me care about any of that! Or how many times can the IMF or the US government wonder whether or not Ethan has gone rogue? Just get back to yeeting people off buildings or jet skiing over lava or something! Or rather I COULD care, but the movie seems to want or expect me to without being fussed about actually doing that work.

 

I think the Craig Bond movies, by and large, did this pretty well! So it’s not like it’s impossible (GOTTEM) to do.

[Greatoneshere]

7 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

The age gap thing is more of a pet peeve in general, I don’t super care about it in MI. I also dunno that Tom Cruise has ever really had believable sexual chemistry with… anyone, but that’s a whole other thing.

 

I only really bring up the character bit because I feel like Cruise has pretty frequently said that it’s the characters that make these movies work. I get that he can’t get out there and say it’s about stunts, gizmos, and style at the expense of everything else, but… it’s weird. Was it the last one where there was a bunch of alleged tension about Ethan almost killing a bunch of cops as part of this cover? Or like I’m supposed to care that Simon Pegg’s character, whose name I cannot recall, is selling the IMF or whoever on the notion that Ethan isn’t really his friend? The movies do a bad job at making me care about any of that! Or how many times can the IMF or the US government wonder whether or not Ethan has gone rogue? Just get back to yeeting people off buildings or jet skiing over lava or something! Or rather I COULD care, but the movie seems to want or expect me to without being fussed about actually doing that work.

 

I think the Craig bond movies, by and large, did this pretty well! So it’s not like it’s impossible (GOTTEM) to do.

 

Well, Tom Cruise had excellent chemistry with Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire, but I know what you mean. Tom Cruise isn't really that type of guy, which to me is why his performances in Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut work so well, because there's no actual chemistry there. I agree with you about him and strong on screen chemistry with love interests in his films.

 

I think it helps if you binge these movies in a row at once because the connective tissue helps you care more in the moment during these scenes. Obviously we know Simon Pegg (his character's name is Benji) likely hasn't betrayed Ethen Hunt (this is in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) but when they interrogate him the upteenth time about it, there's tension for me since this is one of Hunt's few long-term allies (since the 3rd movie) and Benji is relatively new to this kind of stuff. But I usually watch at least the previous film when a sequel drops so I can get some narrative momentum and investment, I don't just drop right in to the sequel, and that's always helped. I used to watch every canonical movie in a series when a new sequel came out (in any series) but that was a bit much.  Point is, watching each of these movies every few years silo'ed in isolation any dramatic momentum would be significantly dulled, I agree. Now that could be a flaw of the series but I imagine most movie series expect you to have just seen/be very aware of everything that has happened "so far" so the viewer can carry implied dramatic investment of the characters on over to the new sequel. Hell, this latest Mission: Impossible brings back some legacy Mission: Impossible 1 characters and that's only going to matter to people who really love/know Mission: Impossible 1. Everyone else won't give a damn I expect. 

[TwinIon]

I'm a complete sucker for these films, especially what Christopher McQuarrie has done with his entries.  Very much looking forward to this one.

 

This is one of those series that I always enjoy revisiting. The early ones have such wildly different vibes both from each other and the more homogeneous later entries, but I really enjoy them all for different reasons. Mission Impossible really is the improbable extended series that the Fast and Furious films wish they could be.