MOVIE: Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning (Part 1) (2023)

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Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning (Part 1) Year: 2023 Rating: PG-13 Length: 163 minutes / 2.72 hours When it comes to the Mission: Impossible movies, you know what you’re going to get. Tense countdowns. Action set-pieces. Tom Cruise running. Even though the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) has overcome many obstacles in the past, there’s always a question of whether this latest mission will be too much for them. With Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning (Part 1) (2023), the threat is so large that this movie only covers half of it. As long as you’re OK with not having a conclusion to the full plot, this movie is fun and full of action. With Artificial Intelligence (AI) being a current hot topic, using it as the antagonist of this film felt like it fit right into the cultural zeitgeist. Not that AI has been a new villain by any means (as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) has shown). Considering the (fictional) power of this AI, the Maguffin of the two-piece...
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MOVIE: Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

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Mission: Impossible - Fallout Year: 2018 Rating: PG-13 Length: 147 minutes / 2.45 hours It's a little weird to think that we're already on the sixth Mission: Impossible movie, especially considering how far the franchise has come since (what I consider) its revival in Mission: Impossible III (2006). Since then, the action has been consistently impressive and the stunts mind-bogglingly intense. Fallout continues to provide on this franchise's promise of high-octane action and neat spy tech, even if the latter doesn't seem to be nearly as impressive as in its previous installments. Ironically enough, one of the problems I had with this movie was how it tried to interweave plot from previous films in the franchise. I'll be honest and say that I don't watch these movies for the plot. Sure, I'll follow along to see how the team has to accomplish the "impossible" in the form of setting up a ridiculous stunt. From scaling tall buildings in Dubai, accessing computer servers underwater, and hanging above...
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