John Wick 4, Indiana Jones 5, and Mission Impossible 7 suffer from, what I call, the Sequel Syndrome. The crisp and tautness of the first part gets lost in the sequels. John Wick: Chapter 1, Raiders of the lost Ark, and MI:1 all were under 2hrs run time. Sequels of these movies continue with characters from earlier parts for nostalgia and add new characters to remain fresh and get some newness. More characters mean they all need to be given some space which results in increased run time. How creative one can get in the same universe? 😀 Repetition kicks in, narration drags, run time goes up and we just wait for the movie to end. We leave the hall feeling, chop off few scenes, get the duration down by 20-30mts, and the movie would have been much swifter and snappier with no drag. All these three movies clock nearly 2:35hrs or more. You remember the opening and final acts but in between scenes are jumbled up in the memory. So many characters pop in and out and after a point you give up – it doesn’t matter anyways. OK, let me end the rant 😀 Good news is all 3 movies pull themselves up with the final act. John Wick: Chapter 4 gives the best closure for the series. Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny didn’t guess the climactic act, and it worked fantastically. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 final 40mts is an adrenaline rush.
John Wick: Chapter 4: Friendship means little when it’s convenient
Out of these 3, this is my favorite and comes on top. While the movie is long, it kept the momentum with interesting characters and story building within its universe. We keep invested in John Wick and curious to know his destiny. Fight and action sequences – let’s just say you get more than your money’s worth.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: It’s not so much what you believe. It’s how hard you believe it
Dial of Destiny is a wholesome nostalgia ride – the fedora, the whip, the impish grin, swashbuckling action scenes. We see de-aged Harrison Ford in the opening act, it works except for the voice. Let’s pardon it for Indy, it has been 42 years. What if Sallah accompanied Indy on his journey? That would have been much more fun, isn’t it? Why do they need to kill the Renaldo (Antonio Bandera) character? Harrison Ford, John Rhys-Davies, and Antonio Banderas shaking hands with Archimedes (Nasser Mermarzia) would have further elevated the finish for the movie.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1: We cannot escape the past. Some of us are doomed to repeat it.
There is a submarine that gets bombed. In it there are two keys. Those are the keys to the source code that controls the all too powerful AI which is going to take over the world. Powerful groups and secret organizations across the world are looking for those two keys. Even AI is part of the key hunt. It isn’t hard to guess…to retrieve those keys and make sure it doesn’t fall into the hands of the bad guys is the mission of Ethan Hunt if he chooses to accept it. Did he succeed? Movie works for the most part. There is a sag in the middle portions, but the movie pulls itself up with final climactic action sequence – bike jump and the train wreck. Other action pieces are beautifully done but the challenge is they have to cross the bar set by earlier MIs. Repetitiveness fatigue kicks in. Opening submarine sequence is something we have seen in movies from 80s and 90s. Could have been written differently. Theme music still gives the goosebumps, Tom Cruise’s run is mesmerizing to watch and yes, Face Mask still works 😄