MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE

Rotten Tomatoes gives this unholy mess of a film 96%, which suggests either that their algorithm has been corrupted by The Entity, or most critics were watching a different film to me.

Where to start?

Well, the way Ilsa is killed off here is nothing short of a scandal.  She is a major reason why the previous two films were so great, yet here she is killed midway through the film in a somewhat meaningless fight with a bad guy she should be able to eat for breakfast. 

Which brings me to the underwhelming villain Gabriel, who doesn't bring much to the table as far as I could see, other than an irritating smugness.

Time will tell whether this story needed to be split into two films.  Judging by the amount of padding here, and the absence of any memorable stunts, I'm sceptical.

By padding, I mean the stuff in the desert at the start, the ludicrous business with the nuclear bomb at the airport, the seemingly endless car chases in Rome, or the fight on the train roof. 

Yet the film is somehow unable to give us much screen time with the most intriguing new character, Paris.

I was also disappointed by the absence of any real mission for the team, other than the tedious business of chasing some keys.  Mind you, given how difficult they find the basic task of getting Ethan onto a train, maybe it's just as well.

And don't get me started on the ludicrous way Ethan chooses to meet his boss early on, infiltrating a high security meeting in disguise.  Has he not heard of a phone?  It was yet more padding, designed to liven up an otherwise dull exposition scene. 

Coming back to the keys (do we have to?) you can get away with one of them being pickpocketed once, but the number of times it happens here gets very silly.

All in all, a big disappointment, notwithstanding that I seem to be the only person on the planet with this opinion.

RATING: x Find Something Better To Do

PS:  In a subsequent episode of the Screen Drafts podcast which ranked all eight Mission Impossible films, this one came bottom, so I feel totally vindicated in my low opinion.