Misión: Imposible - Sentencia Mortal Parte 1

Remember that classic MI scene where they broke in at CIA, and Cruise was hanging from the ceiling using wires? It's not a huge setpiece, but that scene is a nailbiting example of ingenious problem solving.

In 'Dead Reckoning' there's none of that. Here it's keys changing hands every 10 minutes that is suppose to pass as suspense. And of course the only true selling point: the stunts performed by Tom Cruise.

But I want and expect more than that.

A large part of the film is devoted to people sitting or standing in a room, explaining what the plot is. Endless talking and explaining. We are told in several scenes the same information we just heard. Worst one is Benji, who is merely there to repeat things for someone in the cast, to make sure everyone in the audience knows what is going on. That is sloppy writing. One of the biggest no-no's as a screenwriter is resolving to "so what you are saying is, that..." info sharing. Benji does this all the time. And he is as incompetent as usual. And he is supposed to be a part of a small and unique team that is saving the world? Really?

I hope MI:8 isn't just another Tom Cruise stunt reel where it looks like they make the story up as the go along, as long as all marks are checked in the end (running, face swapping, dealing with heights etc), and where character development takes a backseat. Bigger is not always better. And the action ALWAYS has to serve the story, not the other way around.

This movie started out promising but by the end, it just felt like being robbed of two and a half hours. I am a big fan of the MI movies (including MI2, which people seem to hate) and I could appreciate this movie for the few scenes that it did right, but it treats the audience like idiots in its bland, repetitive storyline (how many times do we need to hear the words "the key" and "the entity"? It was as if the writers of this movie just gave up on their jobs when they wrote this. Easily the weakest MI movie ever filmed. It had me staring at my watch every 20 minutes. As others have mentioned, the character development in this movie is also truly awful. I have barely any interest in seeing Part Two of Dead Reckoning at this point. The high scores this movie is getting absolutely baffle me. This movie by no means deserves a score higher than a 6 or a 6.5.

4 considerations for those with high expectations and who want to avoid severe disappointment:

1 THE NEW ACTORS LACK CHARISMA

I NEED a vicious bad guy, to really pull me into the thrill of the moviie, but none of that! There isnt even one bad guy in particular, because there are now numerous supposedly "bad" guys / girls and they all FAIL to impress me.

Haley Atwell is not my cup of tea either. She unfortunately does get a lot of screentime.

2 IT LASTS TOO LONG

There is WAY too much superfluous (explanatory) talk that really slows down this movie. It lasts WAY too long because of it ( 2hours and 43 minutes). Half an hour could have been easily cut out of it!

I started looking at my watch, halfway through...and I got BORED. There I said it. I say it again, I got blipping bored. That's the last thing I want to experience during an action movie!

3 THE STUNTS DONT LOOK REAL

There is such a heavy layer of ADDED CGI effects, that the REAL stunts actually stop looking real at all. The real stunts look WAY more impressive in the behind the scenes footage, than they do in the actual movie.

4 THE JOKES FALL FLAT

Simon Pegg looks like a really old man now and he somehow has lost his usual wit and charm, which were a delight in the earlier MI movies. Without a witty Simon Pegg, GONE are the jokes as well. I didnt laugh out loud once. I smirked a few times...

This MI movie is definitely one of the worst editions, if not the very worst, because it BORED the heck out of me. THAT has never happened to me before watching a MI movie!

Despite this disappointing conclusion I still wanna thank you for reading my 2001 th review on Imdb.

The latest Mission: Impossible film is a part one of two story but finishes in a satisfying way rather than annoying and you won't feel hard done by.

It's another great big screen action film that we've come to expect. It feels huge the whole time however I must say I while the set pieces were stellar, the hand to hand combat scenes were not great and a big step down from the last film (Fallout).

Thebeginning is slow with a lot of expository being dumped (more than you'd usually see) but once it gets going it is pretty nonstop.

This is a good chapter and Haley Atwell shines but it is nowhere near my favorite of the series.

7/10

Mi rankings

Mi6 Fallout Mi3 Mi4 Ghost Protocol Mission: Impossible Mi4 Rogue Nation Mi7 Dead Reckoning part one.

Ethan Hunt has left the mere secret agent status and has ascended to the all living perfect messiah.

There is so much wrong with this movie, which seriously pains me because I seriously love this series. The mission impossible movies have steadily become more convoluted and more stupidly written. This film reaches the peak of absurdity, feeling more like an over the top fast and furious movie. All foolish action, cheap parlor tricks to pull the heart strings (empty relationships), horrible writing, poor plot development.

I mean seriously what ever happened to show don't tell?! This is becoming rather ridiculous.

*convoluted villain dialogue* "So what you're telling me is you plan to establish a new world order if you get that key and if someone stops you that would be bad?!"

Has Ethan Hunt suddenly become this vanilla James Bond? With the Bond girl cycling through every few films? Lazy writing. Not natural feeling. Forced. Bligh

It pains me to give this so low.

The truth is, this movie is mindless entertaining action. Tom Cruise delivers on some awesome stunts (seldom compared to other MI films). It's not horrible. It's fun entertainment, but a scour on the (in my opinion) reputable authentic feeling mission impossible series.