Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Tom Cruise is 61 years old and he’s still doing all of his own stunts! I’ll say that again, Tom Cruise is 61 and he’s doing more than just accidentally butt dialing his smartphone and thinking that Twitter is an old Looney Tunes show. Hell, I’m nowhere near his age and I’ve already reverted back to calling laptops, “labtops”. So, what the hell am I doing with my life?

I’ll tell you what I’m doing! I’m finally starting my mid-life crisis! Yes, I’ve already dated a girl who was nearly half my age but that’s child’s play! Look at Al Pacino and Bob De Niro, I’m not really doing ish until I impregnate someone 50 years younger than me. So, I’ve got some work to do there. But in the meantime, I rented a Dodge Charger in LA just so I could drive 100 mph in the slow lane and yell at all the Black people who were crying and slowly driving out of Inglewood after being forced to move so a Black Swan Yoga could take over their homes!

But where I really found my next calling in life was rolling through Rodeo Drive blaring Rodeo Drive by Rage Against the Machine. There I saw my future self. I saw this rich fat, old dude being dragged from store to store by his much younger and hotter wife who looked like and was dressed like a Barbie clone. Barbie does Rodeo! And their two children also looked like and were dressed like Barbie and Ken! The little girl’s outfit matched her mom’s and the little boy had a pink blazer with white knit pants! It was incredible! This old, fat dude had hit the jackpot!

Hell, I’m already halfway there with the fatness, all I need now is the money! But the difference with me is, I will teach my kids reverse cultural appropriation. Since they will be half black and half white, I’ll make sure their hair is extra curly so they look like Jack Harlow. But as opposed to doing it so they can get rich off of looking white (although that would be a nice side benefit) they’ll do it so the cops wont shoot them for driving around in a Barbie mobile. I can’t be the angry, crying Black man on CNN. But by the time I accomplish all of this, I think the 70’s will be back in style, so I’ll have to teach them how to say things like “Jive turkey” and “Solid as a rock”. I’ll call them Wigga Ken and Wigga Barbie. I’m sure I’ll be loved in all the PTA meetings.

So, what’s the point of all this? I’m coming for you Cruise! You’ll be jealous of me when I turn 61! But in the meantime, I am willing to concede defeat to you. I just saw his latest film and I have to say that this freak of nature continues to amaze me! I own way too many Tom Cruise films: Collateral, Jerry Maguire, Edge of Tomorrow, Oblivion, Mission Impossible I…and those are just the ones I’m not ashamed to list here. Xenu continues to work wonders with this dude and MI 7 is no different.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is called on to work yet another impossible mission to retrieve both parts of a key that could hold “the key” to bringing a stop to a rogue AI program that can infiltrate every computer system in the world. It has left its digital footprint everywhere and no one knows what its endgame is but it has already destroyed a supposedly untraceable Soviet submarine in the artic somewhere. And whoever gets their hands on this key, could not only possibly destroy this AI but worse, control it. This, of course, could lead to all sorts of deadly consequences.

Now, here’s where my only issue with the movie comes in. Had they simply explained it in that manner and just gave you a ton of action scenes around it, everything would have been fine! But boy, do they over dramatize this plot. There’s all sorts of slow motion gazes with raised eyebrows and dramatic music as someone slowly stands up to display one half of the key. We get it, AI is scary, but trust me, waking up your girlfriend, who is NOT a morning person, for morning sex is way scarier! Try getting elbowed in the penis twenty times at 8 in the morning and then come talk to me about a key!

Anyway, once they get past this and you get over the fact that one of the main bad guys, who appears to be working on the side of the rogue AI, is simply an older and slower version of the Dos Equis man, the movie is actually on point. I just wish they had chosen to play Juvenile’s Slow Motion for Me every time this dude was in an action scene.

And speaking of action scenes, they are the main reason why you need to see this film in the theater. Watching these elaborate and intense car chasing scenes on a 50 foot screen is something you wont forget anytime soon. The train scene is one that will go down as an instant classic as parts of it remind you of what Christopher Nolan pulled off in Inception, and of course seeing Cruise leap off of a mountain in what is basically a scooter is breathtaking.

As hokey as the plot sounds, it actually is a fairly decent storyline, it’s just that they do kind of ham it up a bit. But outside of that, this film was definitely worth the price of admission and I found myself actually disappointed that the film was over when the final credits started rolling. I wasn’t disappointed because of the lack of quality, I was disappointed because I was ready for more.

So, this movie is certainly no jive turkey on Thanksgiving, I give it a rating of VERY FRESH!