Movie Review Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023) 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie 

Written by Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen 

Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Esai Morales, Cary Elwes, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Henry Czerny 

Release Date July 12th, 2023 

Published July 13th, 2023 

I'd never heard the term Dead Reckoning before. In the opening minutes of the new Mission Impossible franchise entry, titled Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, they explain the term in the most efficient fashion and it dawns on you just what a perfect title this is for this adventure. It's a little thing, but I absolutely love that level of attention to detail and I appreciated that the movie gave us this information not with a windy info dump but with an offhand comment that explains the context of the term. On a colloquial level, it very simply means to navigate based on limited information on your own location. 

That's a perfect metaphor for where the Impossible Mission Force, headed up by Tom Cruise's super-spy, Ethan Hunt, find themselves. They are navigating a world saving adventure plot with very little knowledge or where they are going next. Every little twist and turn of the plot, every development surrounding the McGuffin, is delivered with precision and in a way that only gives us and these wonderful characters, just enough info to take us the next step. That the McGuffin happens to be a literal Key is quite a fun and clever detail that, again, I absolutely love. 

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning opens on a Russian Submarine navigating back to Russia after a very successful mission. This mission involved fooling the entire world's worth of submarines and military intelligence. The sub commander explains that his new sub was able to get within mere meters of the most advanced submarines and military ports in the world, completely undetected. It's a game changing piece of technology that would give Russia a grave advantage in any world conflict. I say that it would, if this sub didn't soon wind up at the bottom of the ocean. 

How it got there is the world altering mystery at the heart of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. Ethan Hunt has been given the mission of recovering to halves of a very special key. It's a key that unlocks control of a world altering A.I that may itself be the villain of this movie. With his newly reunited team, including Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa, Simon Pegg as Benji, and Ving Rhames as Luther, Cruise's Ethan Hunt must recover a key but he doesn't know what this key unlocks or where the lock actually is. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review La Bamba

La Bamba (1987) 

Directed by Luis Valdez

Written by Luis Valdez

Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Esai Morales, Joe Pantoliano, Elizabeth Pena

Release Date July 24th, 1987

Somehow, despite having seen the movie La Bamba more than a dozen times in my life, watching the movie on its 30th Anniversary felt brand new. La Bamba was a film of my youth; I was 11 years old when the film hit theaters in 1987. I watched it repeatedly when it was on pay cable and free TV in the later 80’s and 90’s and then the film fell from my memory. You might be wondering how I could have allowed something I must’ve treasured to leave my memories. The answer is more complicated than I had imagined.

La Bamba, the movie, we will get to the song later, tells the story of teenage rock star Ritchie Valens who nearly became a footnote in musical history when he was killed in a plane crash alongside the legendary Buddy Holly and fellow rising star The Big Bopper, on February 3rd, 1959, after having released only 3 hit singles and being a mere 17 years old. Though his popularity was rising in 1959 with people comparing the young Chicano rocker to Elvis, Valens wasn’t nearly the star Buddy Holly was and could have been preserved in history only by his family and community had it not been for this remarkable 1987 biopic.

Director Luis Valdez is a legend in his own right and in his own unique way. Desperate for an outlet for his plays, Valdez approached legendary California union activist Cesar Chavez about creating a theater troupe among the striking migrant workers. Chavez agreed only after Valdez devoted time to union organizing, time which he also took to recruit actors and performers from among the striking union to join him. He founded a troupe called El Treato Campesino, The Farmworkers Theater, which has become the creative home for Mexican Americans of many talents over the past 50 plus years.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media