The seventh installation of the Mission: Impossible franchise — Dead Reckoning Part 1 — hit theaters July 12. Anticipation for the new Tom Cruise flick is incredibly high, to put it mildly; the movie boasts a whopping 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with more than 270 reviews published.
In a series that began in 1996, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt has taken on several missions and performed increasingly wild stunts over the last two decades.
MORE: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One raises the bar for action filmmaking
While not every movie of the series is perfect — looking at you M:I II — it’s a franchise that has improved with time, experience and Cruise’s willingness to perform absolutely WILD stunts.
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Mission: Impossible II
Thank goodness this IP had staying power, because the 2000 John Woo flick was incredibly not good. Stars were not lacking in the sequel with Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, Brendan Gleeson and Dougray Scott joining Cruise and Rhames.
Mission: Impossible II over-utilizes and over-relies on the mask gimmick, busting it out a whopping five times by my count. There’s also what is essentially a motorcycle fight that is so unnecessary, and a Limp Bizkit song that is so very 2000.
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Mission: Impossible III
This is a pretty fun movie. It’s not as elite as the first one or the second half of the franchise, but Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic as the bad guy, and we get to meet love interest and future Mrs. Ethan Hunt Michelle Monaghan. The plot is a little loose with the IMF trying to recover a “rabbit’s foot,” but somehow it works. It’s rarely about the plot.
More elite middle management in this one with Laurence Fishburne and Billy Crudup.
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Mission: Impossible
Please don’t yell at me, I love this movie. It’s the one that let us know this franchise could be something, and it’s a ton of fun the entire time. Jon Voigt is perfection in this, and Emilio Estevez — spoiler alert — meets his demise in the worst way in an elevator shaft.
The twists are outstanding, and the iconic data stealing scene at the C.I.A. is one of the more memorable movie scenes.
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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
This franchise was reborn with Ghost Protocol. The stunts stepped up a notch, we met Simon Pegg’s Benji and the addition of Jeremy Renner as the hesitant “analyst” is fantastic.
The Burj Khalifa climb is arguably the best stunt ever done in an action flick. Just unreal stuff. Every time I watch Ethan Hunt make that swing and jump into the open window before clocking his head, I get anxiety.
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Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
The Syndicate. Alec Baldwin in charge. Benji at the Vienna Opera. Rogue Nation has it all. While the Burj Khalifa climb is the most impressive of the stunts done in the series, this movie has the one that gives me the most anxiety: a prolonged free dive into an underwater data storage tank with limited time and oxygen.
No thank you.
We do meet Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Lane (the terrifyingly soft-spoken Sean Harris, both of whom have bigger roles going forward.
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Mission: Impossible - Fallout
This is where you really realize that they have absolutely hit their stride with the formula and what makes one of these movies incredible. The stunts are great, the fight scenes are great and the cast is great. Vanessa Kirby is a wonderful add, and Angela Bassett as the latest middle management at IMF is *chef’s kiss.*
Plus we got this moment where Henry Cavill seemingly reloads his biceps in a fight:
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Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
They keep raising the bar for action movies and then surpassing it. Right out of the gate, Dead Reckoning Part One is going 100 miles per hour. And it doesn’t let up. Like many of the others that have preceded it, the plot is a huge international threat that only Hunt and his team can stop. But the action is unbelievable, the set pieces and locations are breathtaking and Hayley Atwell is an absolute vision.
Anticipation for Dead Reckoning Part Two will be high. Go see this on the biggest screen possible.
