Unsure where to even start, as this is such a massive disappointment on almost every level. Nearly an hour straight of opening exposition, summing up not just the last movie, but huge chunks of the franchise, are delivered via repeating scenes, each building on the last’s patience testing Tom Cruise glazing, mistaking tedium for tension. As much as Ethan Hunt has been a stand-in during Cruise’s rehabilitation tour over the last twenty years, the six-hour double encore that is DEAD/THE…

Thinking I was a bit tough on this in theaters - though arriving after the one-two action sledgehammers that are ROGUE NATION / FALLOUT certainly did it no favors - as DEAD RECKONING remains just as (re)watchable as all (but one of) the others, even managing a kind of freewheeling sense of humor about itself with the cartoonish Fiat chase in the first hour. If anything, the bloat is felt most in the first act, as it takes 29 minutes…

Cleans the franchise up after the over busy clunkiness of Shane Black’s entry by reducing the logline (and, in turn, the iconic alien beast) to its pro wrestler essence. “Predator vs. Commando” transformed into “Predator vs. Lethal Weapon” before “Predator Battle Royale”. Now, it’s “Predator vs. Native Warrior”, stripping all pretension away and barely leaving room for anything beyond one properly choreographed and thrillingly gnarly set piece after another, arrows and tomahawks flying and drawing green blood as the ultimate…