Dead Reckoning...More Like Dead on Arrival

 

"You can't kill me yet, there's a Part Two!"

Foresight

My Favorite Franchise Let Me Down

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (2023)

Baggage Tags: 
Opening Day, "Lie"MAX, Movie Posters as Spoilers

The hype was real for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. This was the movie event of 2023 for me — I even assembled my own crew of I.M.F. agents (a.k.a. friends) to see it opening day, at the biggest screen in Seattle: the Boeing IMAX Theater at the Pacific Science Center.

I picked this theater because, unlike the city's many "Lie"MAX screens (looking at you, Regal Thornton Place), the Boeing shows true IMAX footage in its full 1.43:1 glory. LieMAX theaters project in a 1.90:1 ratio — about 22% smaller — and usually with lower 2K resolution, while true IMAX uses crisp 4K.

But alas, I was duped.

Dead Reckoning was marketed with the phrase "Experience it in IMAX," which really just means: “Pay more, get less.” I didn't realize until after the movie started that it wasn’t actually filmed for IMAX — the image never expanded to fill the screen. It’s a small marketing trick, but now I know: "Filmed for IMAX" is the phrase you need to look for.

Disappointment set in early... and it wasn’t just because of the screen.

When I’m hyped for something, I go full media blackout. I avoid trailers, articles — everything. I made it an entire year without seeing any footage for Dead Reckoning. And then, walking into the theater, the poster spoiled the movie’s biggest stunt: Cruise’s motorcycle jump. It was like having a coworker casually spoil the Red Wedding the morning after it aired.

The Mission: Impossible franchise is known for thrilling cold opens.

• MI-2 kicked off with an insane rock climbing sequence.

• MI: Ghost Protocol opens with prison break as funny as it is exciting.

• Rogue Nation had Ethan Hunt clinging to the side of a freight plane.

Dead Reckoning opens... with a sluggish submarine sequence that doesn’t introduce Ethan Hunt at all — and doesn’t deliver any real stunt spectacle either.

After the misleading IMAX marketing, and the lackluster cold open, the movie never fully won me back.

Sure, I remember the Rome car chase being a blast, and the finale on the train genuinely delivered. But there's a big, soggy middle section that left almost no impression on me. I’ve forgotten half the movie, and it’s only been a few years.

Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie have been a match made in action movie heaven — and to be fair, this was a COVID production, so I’m willing to cut it a little slack..

It's time to give this mission another go.

Let's unpack Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.

Hindsight

Spoiler Alert: Cool Motorcycle Stunt