Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible series is known for its exciting stunts, but the franchise will be facing a massive stunt challenge with the releases of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and its sequel. After releasing six movies since the original film in 1996, the Mission: Impossible series is finally coming to an end, with its two-part finale releasing in July 2023 and June 2024. However, another stunt-heavy franchise has decided to release its series finales at the same time, meaning that Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is going to have to really step up its stunt game.
The Fast & Furious franchise is finally coming to an end alongside the Mission: Impossible series, meaning that the two franchises will have to do some serious competition with each other. Fast X and Fast & Furious 11 will be releasing in May 2023 and February 2024, placing their release schedule ahead of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and Part 2 by just a few months. The audiences for Mission: Impossible and Fast & Furious have a plenty of overlap, with both series being long-running stunt-focused action movies. Because of the timing of these movies, Mission: Impossible will be pressured to make its stunts better than ever.
Why Mission: Impossible Has To Up Its Stunt Game For The End
The stunts in Mission: Impossible - Fallout were praised as some of the best action scenes in modern cinema, with many of them being the highlight of the movie. It wouldn't be good for the series to be outdone by its predecessor, meaning that the stunts in Mission Impossible 7 will have to be more exciting and more dangerous than ever before. While most of the Mission: Impossible movies have been critically acclaimed, Mission: Impossible - Fallout set a new standard for the franchise, upping the ante for the upcoming two-part series finale.
As one of the last Mission: Impossible movies, Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One could solidify or derail the franchise's legacy entirely. If the movie is a disappointment, it could sour the reputation of the franchise as a whole. Other big finales like Avengers: Endgame succeed because they meet audience expectations, which in that case was to see all the popular MCU characters in a single feature film. Similarly, letdowns like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 were so disappointing that they retroactively hurt the popularity of their predecessors. Audiences expect grand stunts from Mission: Impossible, so if the finale doesn't deliver, the entire franchise stands to suffer.
Luckily, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One does seem to be preparing for some incredibly exciting stunts that could one-up previous movies. One of the film's biggest sequences will involve a moving train, with many real-life explosives being used in the stunt's filming. While that is just one stunt, it proves that the two-part finale is at least attempting to up its stunt game, although it's hard to surpass stunts — like climbing the Burj Khalifa. Mission: Impossible - Fallout being one of the best-received films proves that the movies are still getting more exciting each time. Hopefully, the stunts in the finale will continue this trajectory of greatness.
Can Mission: Impossible Beat Fast & Furious?
Fast X is just around the corner, with Fast & Furious 11 not far behind. These films pose a major threat to Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and Part Two, causing many to wonder if Tom Cruise and his crew will be able to outdo the long-running racing series. Much like the Mission: Impossible movies, the Fast & Furious series has upped its game with each entry, almost as if the two franchises are constantly fighting with each other. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One will be coming out after Fast X, meaning that Fast & Furious will get to set audience expectations.
More recent entries in the Fast & Furious franchise have shown off some wacky stunts, such as driving a car on a plane, driving on top of a train, and driving tons of cars off of a parking deck. Fast 9 even sent cars to space, with the vehicles being attached to rockets. While the Fast & Furious movies tend to care much less about being grounded, the stunts are still big enough to excite an audience and leave them wanting more. Fast X and Fast & Furious 11 will leave the Mission: Impossible finale having to respond, with many viewers hot off seeing all these exciting new car stunts.
What's even scarier for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and Part Two is that it doesn't even have time to prepare for what Fast X and Fast & Furious 11 will do. With only a few months between releases, there's no time to film new scenes in order to make Mission: Impossible seem more exciting than whatever Fast & Furious has up its sleeve. The stunts in Fast X will undoubtedly be ridiculous, but they still have the potential to hurt Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. However, Mission: Impossible can still win for one big reason.
Why Mission: Impossible Stunts Aren't The Same As Fast & Furious
Although the two movies have a lot of overlap when it comes to audiences, the stunts in Mission: Impossible are far different from the ones in Fast & Furious. Fast & Furious heavily uses CGI for its stunt sequences, with very few things actually being done practically. None of the actors actually went to space in Fast X (obviously). Mission: Impossible, on the other hand, is well-known for using practical effects in almost every stunt sequence and fight scene. Oftentimes, the scenes that are shown on screen really happened, which makes Mission: Impossible more exciting.
Tom Cruise always does his own stunts, meaning that when Ethan Hunt is hanging from a helicopter in Mission: Impossible - Fallout, that's not a stunt double — that's Tom Cruise. The stakes are felt, as Cruise is in legitimate danger during filming, so even if the stunts aren't quite as exciting as what occurs in Fast & Furious, their realism is so much more intriguing. Fast & Furious' heavy use of CGI means that the actors are almost never in danger, with many of the action scenes being no more real than a video game cutscene. While Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 does have to outdo its predecessors, it shouldn't really worry about the Fast & Furious movies.
