Tom Cruise and Vin Diesel are racing on parallel tracks to your local movie theater.
Five years. That number separates action stars Tom Cruise and Vin Diesel in age and is the same gap between the releases of their first franchise-spawning films — Cruise’s Mission: Impossible (1996) and Diesel’s The Fast and the Furious (2001). It’s a tidy little coincidence, setting up how decades later, the most recent entries in their film series would come out the same summer and be riddled with other commonalities, too. Are Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1 and Fast X the same movie? Take our quiz to test your knowledge of how the living manifestation of destiny and La Familia overlap.
Which Movie Is It?
This film, in the anti-ageism vein of Hollywood's longest-running franchises, centers an action star who qualifies for AARP membership. (Let’s start with a gimme!)
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
Correct! Happy belated birthday to Tom Cruise, who turned 61 on July 3, and happy early birthday to Vin Diesel, who turns 56 on July 18. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct. This film features a tech thingy that everyone’s fighting over.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
Yes! In Dead Reckoning, the Entity is a sentient computer program that can penetrate banks, intelligence, and various international systems; we learn that it acts like a virus and transforms facts, and therefore all the world's governments are fighting over it. Fast X, meanwhile, features the reappearance of God’s Eye, the hacking program developed by Nathalie Emmanuel’s Ramsey that everyone was trying to steal in Furious 7. It’s now in the possession of the American government, who are using it to spy on Dom and his team. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct. This film features a shadowy government organization that doubts our heroes.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
You got it! The Mission: Impossible franchise gets a lot of jokes out of how no one takes the Impossible Mission Force seriously. A room full of other intelligence-agency directors all scoff in Dead Reckoning when Henry Czerny's Kittridge explains what the IMF does. And remember when Dom and La Familia started working for the American government through Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody in Furious 7? When Mr. Nobody was in charge, he trusted Dom; in Fast X, he has mysteriously disappeared ,and the Agency is now being run by Alan Ritchson’s Aimes, who paints Dom and the crew as terrorists. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct. This film features a handsome baddie who happens to have connections to our protagonist’s past.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
Yup! In Dead Reckoning, scorching silver fox Esai Morales plays Gabriel, who years ago murdered a brunette in front of Ethan, sending him on the path to join the IMF. Gabriel’s whole deal now is that he lives for death and signs up to work for the Entity so that he can kill as many people as possible. He wears a lot of ascots. In Fast X, Jason Momoa is Dante Reyes, son of drug lord Hernan Reyes from Fast Five, the guy whose money Dom & Co. stole during that vault heist. Dante wants revenge, and he talks a lot about causing “suffering.” He too wears a lot of accessories. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct. This film features a brunette love interest and a blonde female villain.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
Indeed! Rebecca Ferguson returns in Dead Reckoning as Ilsa Fault, the former MI6 agent. There’s also a new brunette, Grace, played by Hayley Atwell, who charms Ethan with some sleight of hand. On the blonde-bad-girls side of things, Vanessa Kirby plays the White Widow and Pom Klementieff works a “Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner” vibe as the Gabriel-aligned mercenary Paris. In Fast X, meanwhile, brunette Michelle Rodriguez returns as Letty, Dom’s one true love and now the adoptive mother of his son Brian. And blondie Charlize Theron is still the hated hacker Cipher, who killed Elsa Pataky’s Brazilian cop Elena — though thankfully, she's left the bowl cut behind. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct. This film features a chase sequence on Rome’s famous Spanish Steps.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
Right! Dead Reckoning’s Ethan and Grace end up handcuffed together in a tiny yellow Fiat, which they drive together down the Spanish Steps, pursued by a gigantic Hummer. (The film also had its world premiere there, at the Piazza di Spagna square.) In Fast X’s first action set piece, the Agency sets up La Familia by sending them to Rome, where Dante is waiting with a gigantic spherical bomb. Despite Dom, Letty, and the team’s best efforts to stop it, the bomb rolls around through Rome’s streets and smashes down the steps before blowing up in the Tiber River. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct. This film features an explosive (literally) action sequence for its cliffhanger ending.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
Correct! Dead Reckoning's impressive final act takes place on a train traveling through the Austrian Alps, where Gabriel sets off a series of bombs attached to a stone bridge. In Fast X, meanwhile, Dom saves his son Brian by speeding vertically down the Aldeadávila Dam as Dante blows it up. Director Louis Leterrier and his team built a replica of the dam and a ramp to capture the car bouncing off the wall at Leavesden Studios in England. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct. This film is one-half of a potential series ender.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Fast X
Maybe? Director and co-writer Christopher McQuarrie has said neither he nor Tom Cruise intend for the two Dead Reckoning films to conclude the series, and they're still working on ideas for future sequels. And on the promotional trail for Fast X, Vin Diesel started telling reporters that the film is the first in an intended trilogy, meaning that Fast X Part 2 would be a Two Towers situation, and a potential Fast 11 would be The Return of the King. That off-the-cuff red-carpet moment felt like Diesel trying to corner Universal into guaranteeing another film, but whether that bargaining tactic pays off, only time will tell. Congratulations on achieving the impossible: selecting the incorrect answer on a question where both choices are correct.Am I Talking About the New Mission: Impossible or Fast X?ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57kWlpbGdgbHyiuYyiZK2ZnKC2r7OMmpmoraRiuqq%2F0qKmp2WZor2wv9KimaWdXWx6sL6Mn5isrF2te6nAzKU%3D