2025 - MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING, overlong supposed wrap up to the series

Supposedly the final film in the series, well maybe.  The plan was to tie together all the previous films in the series and do call outs to characters who had appeared in those films.The result was this overlong mess of a film that drags on for almost 3 hours.  Apparently no one could tell producer Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie that audiences have very short attention spans.

 

The major problem and simple fact is that the audience knows nothing will happen to Tom Cruise. In spite of any danger he gets into, you just know he is going to triumph.  A ridiculous biplane chase scene at the end although well staged and photographed is just unending because Cruise has to survive.  

 

The fact that for almost 3 hours the audience sits though this weird plot about an evil AI about to destroy the world with all it's high tech hardware and only Tom Cruise flying around in a bi-plane can stop it is almost a call back to Charles Schultz's cartoon dog Snoopy pretending to be a World War  flying ace fighting the Red Baron while sitting on his doghouse. 

  

The film has a large cast but really it's all about unsurprisingly Tom Cruise.  Bringing back some of the characters from the first film and killing off one of the original members of the team really means next to nothing.

 

Expensive and slickly made for a film that was to be the final hurrah in the series it's just a big letdown.  Also this really isn't the end of the series since the open ended epilogue with the characters certainly leaves the film wide open for another improbable mission.  However this was a box office disappointment so it's hard to know if Tom Cruise as Ethan Hawk will show up again.

The film was written by Christopher McQuarrie qnd Erik Jendresen,  the running time is 170 minutes.

2023 - MISSION IMPOSSIBLE DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, ??

Of the three big action films this summer, this was probably the best of the bunch.  Furious X was plagued by a glut of supporting players, a ridiculous villain and a bunch of very obvious computer generated action scenes.  Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had an 80 year old hero and a nasty streak to it that the film couldn't overcome. What all three of these films do have in common is their extraordinary running time, they all come in at a bloated two hours plus.

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning at least has a sense of humor something which the other two films didn't even remotely possess.  To sit through these kinds of action films and not have a couple of lighthearted moments shows a failure to understand how to entertain an audience looking for some escapism.

The action scenes in Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning are for my money better thought out and staged.  The car chase scene is entertaining compared to the boring Furious X car chases and the large scale action piece on the train is certainly more thrilling than the overblown time travel climax in the Indiana Jones movie.  However this Mission Impossible film lets these scenes go on and on and on which ultimately dilutes the thrills.

Finally, there is absolutely no excuse for the lengthy running time on this current Tom Cruise action epic.  This film could have easily lost a good thirty to twenty minutes which would at least made it more playable for the audience.  The formula for these films is also starting to look like it's out of gas. This is essentially the same movie as the last six Mission Impossible films.  The sixty year old Tom Cruise may be getting a little old for this action hero stuff.  There was clearly a lot of digital cleanup going on with his face. 

The film was written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen, the running time is 164 minutes.

2015 - MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION, number 5 in the series

If you've seen the first four films in this series you've seen this one since it's basically the same film.

 

131 minutes.

2012 - JACK REACHER, a decent crime thriller

 A shot at reviving the movie crime thriller.  Tom Cruise is some sort of mysterious former army super cop investigator.  He's been called in to investigate a supposedly random mass shooting incident.  

In films like this the trick is in the storytelling and the director/writer Christopher McQuarrie does a decent job of keeping the plot straight and the action moving along so it all doesn't seem to improbable.

The acting is low key, even the female lead Rosamund Pike plays it so cool it's almost like she is in an episode of Dragnet.  Cruise is Cruise so if you like Tom Cruise playing a super cool tough guy you will like this film.  A very odd piece of casting is German director Werner Herzog as some sort of Russian bad guy who is behind the plot.

If you enjoy a decent old style car chase and lots of people getting their heads banged together you will probably greatly enjoy this throw back to and old style glossy crime thriller.

130 minutes.