Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Need to Know
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a 2023 American spy action thriller film that sees agent Ethan Hunt and his team embark on their most dangerous mission yet against a mysterious, all-powerful enemy that could take control of the future and completely change the fate of the world as we know it.

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny

Why Is It Worth Watching?
Dead Reckoning is the sequel to Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) and the seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible film series. Through the previous movies, Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team (a hush-hush American spy agency) have successfully saved the world numerous times against the most formidable of adversaries, but this time around they find themselves against the most sinister one yet – a powerful rogue artificial intelligence (AI) called the Entity. The plot tackles a well-known and real fear in which cutting-edge technology brings into existence an AI that’s capable of immeasurable good, but instead is used as a terrifying new weapon that could threaten all of humanity if in the wrong hands, or even worse, if it takes on a mind of its own and progresses out of our control.
While the dangerous AI runs amok, a specific key that’s split into two halves can be used to manipulate it. One of those halves is about to be sold on the black market, and Hunt and his team have to intercept the key as well as figure out where the second half is and get to it before any of the buyers with nefarious intentions secure them first. The movie is an exciting blockbuster and boasts some of the franchise’s most memorable action sequences.

Oppenheimer

Need to Know
Oppenheimer is a biographical thriller drama based on the 2005 biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The movie chronicles the life of the theoretical physicist who was pivotal in developing the first nuclear weapons as part of the US’ Manhattan Project, thereby ushering in the Atomic Age.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh

Why Is It Worth Watching?
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan – known for crafting mind-bending films such as The Prestige, Inception and Interstellar – this latest offering follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, from a curious young man questioning the physical nature of stars and other celestial bodies and the laws and theories of physics to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the nuclear fallout post that event. The movie has been specially filmed in a combination of IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film—including, for the first time, sections in IMAX black-and-white analogue photography. As with his previous works, Nolan has intentionally utilised extensive practical effects and minimal computer-generated imagery (CGI) to create this cinematic masterpiece. The movie, although 180 minutes long, is lean, relentless and doesn’t waste a single scene. The amazing cast of some of the best actors currently working, have put in top notch performances complementing the movie’s cinematography, outstanding score and razor-sharp editing. Not only is Oppenheimer one of Nolan’s best works to date but is also an exceptional demonstration of film-making at its finest.