Mission: Impossible: Deadly Reckoning Chapter 1 is the prelude to the reboot of the series

Original link:https://taiwan.chtsai.org/2023/07/10/mission_impossible_7/

“Mission Impossible: Deadly Reckoning Chapter 1” is the seventh installment in the series. There are plenty of links to previous episodes and the style of the series that at first look like a nod, but some that border on irony feel more like a farewell. This is a film with a bit of background. (no thunder)

In 1996, the first episode of “Mission Impossible” reversed the convention of the TV series “Dare to Die”. At that time, many people were not used to it, thinking that it was “not “Mission: Impossible””. In the blink of an eye twenty-seven years have passed, the series of movies has even outlived the TV series of the year.

The series also established new paradigms. Seeing “Mission: Impossible”, what people of the new generation and era think of is no longer the TV series “Dare to Die”, but the movie “Mission Impossible”. Even me, a TV kid who grew up watching “Dare to Die” is like this.

But twenty-seven years is a long time after all. Tom Cruise played Ethan Hunt for twenty-seven years. At the same time, two Pounds, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, were retired, and the style of Pound’s movies also underwent a major reversal.

In contrast, the freshness established by “Mission Impossible” overturning “Dare to Fight” back then is no longer fresh. Of course we’d all like to see Tom Cruise continue, but it’s time for the series to flip.

It is in this context that we can see the meaning of “Mission Impossible: Deadly Reckoning Chapter 1”. It pays tribute to, criticizes and even ridicules the past styles in a meta-set way. If it is not to bid farewell to these once fresh and now old-fashioned conventions, I can’t think of any other motives.

And because of that, it’s a film for viewers familiar with the series (not necessarily die-hard fans, but at least seven episodes were seriously watched when they premiered in theaters). You can see what is behind it, so you can enjoy it.

Another interesting point is that the high-tech props in the movie are not so high-tech anymore.

I remember that one of the props in “Mission Impossible 3” is a real-world product, the palm-sized UMPC OQO, which was indeed a very powerful product in that time and space. Then there’s the iPhone 4 in the fourth episode, “Mission: Impossible: Ghosts.”

The villain in this episode wears an AMOLED smart watch with a touch screen. This device has very little role in the movie, and it doesn’t have much use. It also looks high-tech at first glance, but in fact it feels like a very cheap “no-name smart watch”. A more traditional watch might work better.

To sum up, if you just regard it as an independent movie, or an episode of a simple series of movies, you will feel that the action is brilliant, of course there is absolutely nothing to say, but the slightly thin plot is difficult to support those action scenes and character motivations.

In any case, the action alone is enough to make this movie enjoyable. If you can see its ambition from the meta-setting of the movie, you will appreciate it more. Of course, this is just the prelude to the reversal, what really makes people look forward to is the next episode.

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