Mission Impossible has been the longest standing franchise that survived all ups and downs. In the midst of Hollywood strike, Dead Reckoning has still managed to survive big screens and made good profit. Now, how much lobbying played a role in its success, is something out of scope for us to discuss.

But, when it comes to Tom Cruise, all the hype around it is generally true. I am too guilty of watching the movie for only stunt sequences in real time. And that has been my motivating factor to watch Mission Impossible all throughout. Especially, after seeing Tom climbing a cliff in Mission Impossible 2 which was perhaps the best of the lot. 

Out of all the seven installments of the franchise, the story of Dead Reckoning appears to be the weakest. I don’t know for a fact why Hollywood seems to be all obsessed with Russia in its storyline. I mean how many times we will see Russia as the epicenter for all the world’s activities. It’s kind of boring and repetitive now. 

Mission Impossible 3 was the best in terms of story and screenplay due to its bearing on a non-Russian storyline. And, there was a lot indeed in terms of fast-paced action sequences which actually revived the whole Mission Impossible franchise.

Now, coming to the story of Dead Reckoning, it is all about artificial intelligence getting stronger and trying its grip on humanity until it meets Ethan Hunt. It’s very similar to Eagle Eye but that movie was fast-paced. Even the story had an element of surprise. Eagle Eye managed to keep the suspense going till the end. But, Dead Reckoning is a straight arrow. We all know what we are dealing with and it is boring.

The interesting aspect is only in the stunts that we all crave for because of the hype on social media. The disappointing fact was that the bike sequence where Ethan Hunt dives from a mountain top was done in haste. I believe the editing was poor as that was the main highlight of the entire movie. It was done in a few minutes time and didn’t actually give any sense of what just happened. This brings to the fact that the pacing of the movie is very bad. The scenes that required depth and time were kind of fast forwarded and the boring elements were shot in length. The death of Ilsa Faust took some time but the fist-fight that led to her demise was unnecessarily prolonged. I’m not sure if the second part of the Dead Reckoning has some surprise for us regarding Ilsa Faust. I believe you can still watch part one of the Dead Reckoning if you’re invested in the stunts performed by Tom Cruise like me.