Different directors have different approaches to moviegoers navigating the thorny question of how long is too long. James Cameron practically dared viewers to simply leave “Avatar: The Way of Water” as needed and catch up on what they missed the next time they watch the movie. But when it comes to the next “Mission: Impossible” sequel, the filmmaking team decided to remove that possibility from the equation altogether. Editor Eddie Hamilton went on to say that:
“You don’t want to give the audience space to feel that that’s an option. They have to be pulled along in the story, and kept engaged the whole time, and (they] don’t want to leave the cinema because they don’t want to miss anything.”
With a runtime of 156 minutes (or two hours and 36 minutes), pushing “Dead Reckoning” into rarefied territory that makes it the longest “Mission: Impossible” movie yet, fans may be skeptical of the idea that there’s no downtime whatsoever to take their attention away from the movie. According to Hamilton, however, he claims that, “From the very beginning of the movie to the end, it’s just one massive, complex sequence after another.”
If the action is staged well enough and filled with just as any top-notch set pieces as director Chris McQuarrie’s previous movies in the franchise, something tells me that most general audiences will be too caught up in the thrills of watching Tom Cruise defy the laws of physics to care about how long they’ve actually been sitting in their comfortable, air-conditioned seats in the dead of summer.
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” will base-jump into theaters on July 12, 2023, though with an exclusive IMAX run of only one week before the arrival of “Oppenheimer.”
