Tom’s review published on Letterboxd:
Tom Cruise saved action movies! - But were they really gone?
Either way it's just unbelievable... one of the best action films of recent years and for me personally even overall. I love everything about Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 from start to finish this gives you incredible action and a damn entertaining stay at the cinema. I've had so much fun here, from the incredibly funny humor to the cool interesting story idea and the many twists and turns that hypnotize you to the screen. Just a pleassure of emotions.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning manages to create scenes that have often existed before, such as a train action scene or a car chase in rome, but still brings in so many new ideas and still let you get excited about them, just unbelievable. The stunts in this film are unique and define the franchise just awesome. There's so much instantly iconic action and fight scenes that I can't get my mind off of watching it since yesterday. The pace of the film is so fast but doesn't let the great plot and the really spectacular ideas slow down, but manages to create the perfect mix of action, comedy and story in such a way that every moment is simply perfect.
The humor is also really special for such an action franchise but simply fits into these films, the chemistry between the characters, which by the way are well written, is so nice to look at. The whole franchise always manages to handle old characters well and still integrate new ones perfectly into the story and it's no different here. For example Hayley Atwell war sooo good, it was pure fun watching her onscreen. There still are Fight scenes that I can't get out of my head since yesterday.
Also, don't forget the iconic soundtrack, which is so cleverly composed and integrated here. Whenever the famous soundtrack is played, you get goosebumps and just feel the feeling of fun and nostalgia. But not only the soundtrack is love for the ear but also the soundtrack effects like explosions, gunshots, cars and crashes were so loud and felt so real just a pleassure. Moving on to the other technical stuff, the camera work was perfect and the footage was great, plus the overall cinematography and fight choreography was just perfect to look at and truly stunning. It felt so clean and also edited very well.
The whole plot is very up to date and allows for so many great ideas that the viewer can just get excited about and move thoughts into your brain. The plot of part 1 is told in 163 minutes, but this slightly longer runtime is sooo fast done. And when the end came I was really sad because I just enjoyed everything and thought we were like maximum 1 and a half hour in. I often sat there in amazement and with my mouth open because the film was just so great. The entire cinema was also very interested and enjoyed the film, the cinema often started laughing out loud and you often heard exclamations like "Oh my God", "Is that crazy" and all that. Simply a perfect action film overall, and for me one of the best of the year so far. I can't wait for part 2 to come out! And I will definitely watch part 1 again in the cinema. A clear recommendation for anyone who wants to watch an action film with lots of twists and interesting ideas. For me personally is, the Mission Impossible franchise, the best of the famous action franchises, it is better than Die Hard, James Bond and even John Wick. Even if this is a hot take, I stand by it and now I really want Part 2 of this masterpiece.