Thank the good lord Tom Cruise is still alive and kicking. Mission Impossible 7 has opened to extraordinary success with both audiences and critics giving the film 90% or higher reviews, while its also crushing it at the box office.
Hollywood would literally be dead and buried right now if it wasn’t for Tom Cruise and his iconic films.
In classic Tom Cruise fashion, the last true “movie star” has once again saved Hollywood’s rear end as Mission Impossible-Dead Reckoning, Part One, or Mission Impossible 7 for short, has exploded to fantastic reviews and box office success in its opening weekend in theaters. And, without being too dramatic, there’s no man alive today more responsible for keeping the “theater experience” alive than Tom Cruise.
Steven Spielberg was 1,000% right when he told Tom Cruise “you saved Hollywood’s ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry,” at the 2023 Oscar celebration for Top Gun: Maverick…which got a huge thanks from Hollywood with a single Oscar win (Best Sound).
Regardless, Tom Cruise, along with a few other guys like James Cameron with Avatar 2, Dreamwork’s Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, Keanu Reaves and John Wick 4, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, etc., has been one of the sole forces keeping people in cinemas and theaters with the excellence of his movies. And Mission Impossible 7 (Part 1) is just another reminder that Cruise is the last “movie star” alive today.
I’m not going to spoil the movie for it’s only been out a few days, but I have to say that it’s easily one of the best action movies and Mission Impossible films yet. The action is intense, dramatic, lethal, ruthless, unrelenting, and so much fun to watch as Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Atwell (Mission Impossible debut), Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg really sell the plot and characters of these films.
(Paramount Pictures-Mission Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One-Official Trailer)
Now, the Mission Impossible films have never been the most complicated tales in terms of plot (well, aside from all the twists, turns, and backstabbings these spies end up doing), but that’s perfectly okay as the characters, who are all played to perfection by the actors and actresses I’ve listed above and the ones I did not (there’s just too many good performances to list), take the reins of the film.
And that’s exactly what you want from stories as characters are the most vital part to any tale, whether it be in a novel, play, movie, show, video game, etc.
Just go and see the film as I not only highly recommend it to everyone, but watching this movie in the theater also shows Hollywood, the studios, actors, writers, directors, producers, and everyone else currently in the midst of striking that we (the audience) want to watch these kinds of movies.
Anyway, as for the critical and box office reception, Mission Impossible is utterly killing it on all major review aggregate websites as it has a 96% certified fresh critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, an 8.2/10 IMDb score, and 8.1/10 critical score, 8.8/10 audience score and “Metacritic Must-See” approval on Metacritic.
Moreover, it’s currently the highest rated Mission Impossible movie on Rotten Tomatoes is you aggregate the fan and critical score, which is saying a lot considering there’s seven of these films.
And, the box office totals get even better with the film debuting a $122M 3-day opening weekend total tally ($40M domestic, $82M international), while the total box office haul prediction for this film are going to skyrocket as the word-of-mouth spreads over how good this film is.
(Paramount Pictures-Mission Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One-Official Trailer)
Yes, the high $290M production cost (and most likely $400M total cost) is going to hamstring the profits this movie makes at the end of the day, but this film was one of the first to be shut down when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Italy (where the movie was filmed) back in early 2020.
A film like this should be losing Paramount hundreds of millions like other COVID-19 films, such as Black Widow, Lightyear, Dolittle, Mulan, West Side Story, Babylon, Mobius, and nearly every other major Hollywood release that year, not in the position of making $200M-$400M.
Yes, this film is not as successful as Top Gun: Maverick, but this is the 7th installment in a franchise film that had a release just back in 2018, while Top Gun: Maverick was an amazing sequel to a 1986 film nobody thought was getting made, let alone be as good as it was.
You just can’t compare the two in box office terms.
Nevertheless, I can happily say that the good aspects of Hollywood have not lost their luster just yet as Mission Impossible 7 came out of its own mission impossible (aka: surviving the COVID-19 pandemic and following up Fallout with a great story) with flying colors and stunning success.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Paramount Pictures) (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One | Official Trailer (2023 Movie) – Tom Cruise – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Paramount Pictures) (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One | Official Trailer (2023 Movie) – Tom Cruise – YouTube)
In Text Image 2: (Paramount Pictures) (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One | Official Trailer (2023 Movie) – Tom Cruise – YouTube)
