I saw Dead Reckoning last week with my son and definitely do recommend (no spoilers) as you’ll see below in the weekly recommendations.
If you’ve ever been to a movie and thought, “I wish this ENTIRE thing was action sequences,” THEN DO I HAVE THE MOVIE FOR YOU.
OR, if you just really like Tom Cruise running, you’re also gonna love this movie.
I can’t emphasize this enough; almost the entire second act of this movie is Tom Cruise running: on top of an airport, around an airport, outside an embassy, and then all throughout Venice, though mainly in alleys. It’s enough to make me wonder if Tom Cruise saw the running montage in Forrest Gump and thought, “THIS, but sexy and faster and me?”
There’s a premise/purpose story arc about needing to shut down a rogue AI (which, buckle up kids because “Rogue AI” is about to become the new Russian / North Korean vague every-villain in 90% of all action movies in the next few years) but it’s really about the pursuit of a MacGuffin key in the shape of a cross when activated (SYMBOLISM!).
But double really, this is a movie about Tom Cruise tilting at old age windmills by running, fighting, and motorcycling off a mountain. Some of the stars may change, but Tom Cruise (as well as Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg) remains the constant.
I did find it interesting though, that a partial emphasis of this movie is about the importance of the bond of those who are closest to you. No one explicitly said “FAMILY” in an extremely Vin Diesel Fast and the Furious voice, but the symmetry is evident, both in the emphasis of and allure of the Mission Impossible movies. You’re not watching either movie for character work or plot mechanics; you go because you like the people and the vibes no matter how unrealistic or inaccessible the actual issues of the movie are.
In this way, the Fast movies are like dining at an Outback or a Cheddars while the Mission Impossible movies are like dining at a locally-owned specialty restaurant. One’s menus are laminated and the other’s are not so the only REAL difference is the appearance and experience.
Truly though, as a lot of movies are stuck in a sort of demographic hell where they try to appeal to everyone but also no one, Dead Reckoning is an excellent reminder that in the absence of generative IP or elder premise to reboot, if you have a big enough star, budget, and tolerance for crane shots devoted to watching a small, white, 60-year old white man sprint through Europe, then you TOO can create a movie franchise juggernaut.