The Pitch: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back for another impossible mission, and this time his enemy is… artificial intelligence. Specifically, the world’s foremost expert in jumping from great heights to keep said world from exploding is trying to take down “the Entity”: That’s the name we get for this super-advanced A.I., one capable of predicting human decision-making on top of manipulating systems and networks on a global level for its own purposes.
Thanks to the Entity, Ethan and his loyal companions Benji (Simon Pegg), Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), and Luther (Ving Rhames) are all targets, along with newcomer Grace (Hayley Atwell), a high-level thief the Entity hopes to manipulate for its own ends. The target for everyone involved is the key to a nuclear submarine, but as always this mission boils down to Ethan being pushed to his limits, knowing that not everyone will survive.
Run Tom Run: Tom Cruise’s third Mission: Impossible movie with director Christopher McQuarrie (and fourth collaboration in total, following 2012’s Jack Reacher) doesn’t reinvent much of what’s now become the franchise’s house style. That house style is a relatively recent innovation, of course, following the first four films in the series, led by Brian de Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, and Brad Bird all delivering their own idiosyncratic takes on the spy-verse. But as producer, Cruise seems to have decided that McQuarrie’s approach is the one that works for him, and so that’s the approach we now get.
McQuarrie has proven to be a pretty effective director of these films, though, if only because of his deep appreciation for the aesthetic pleasures of Tom Cruise running. And oh, does Cruise get in his steps over the course of this film, finding new and exciting locations through which to run, which McQuarrie’s cameras capture with just enough of a wink to let the audience know that he gets it.
Beyond that, McQuarrie’s basic stamp on the M:I franchise has been that of narrative safety, with each film avoiding any of the riskier choices that defined Cruise’s early decades of work, even as Cruise takes bigger and bigger risks physically. At this point, the man’s body is this franchise’s equivalent to the Millennium Falcon or Dom Toretto’s Dodge Charger — the primary vehicle for the action.
Any Member of Your IMF Team… But when Cruise isn’t jumping a motorcycle off a damn mountain, there are some refreshing twists on stunts you’ve seen before. As just one example, similarly to May’s Fast X, Dead Reckoning features a high-speed car chase through an Italian city that causes a lot of destruction. In this case, though, the destruction is largely the result of very poor driving (due to external complications), not to mention henchwoman Paris (Pom Klementieff) driving through any and all obstacles in her path with a manic grin on her face.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount)
Cast-wise, Klementieff stands out as one of the best additions to the franchise; her role doesn’t get much definition, but does add a fresh spark of chaos to McQuarrie’s now-familiar approach. Similarly, Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis anchor an amusing side plot, as intelligence agents assigned to apprehend Ethan while knowing full well that their mission might be… a little difficult.
In the middle of one of the franchise’s most brutal exposition dumps to date, Cary Elwes brings some delightful deadpan reactions to someone explaining just what the Impossible Mission Force is. And Hayley Atwell might have Agent Carter’s accent but manages to make the enigma that is Grace an intriguing character in her own right, while the returning players know their assignments and meet them with relish — especially the delightful Vanessa Kirby.
Then there’s Cruise, who at this point is completely indistinguishable from Ethan the character, a tribute to or a consequence of Cruise’s specific brand of old-school movie stardom. Thanks to his innate on-screen charisma, Cruise is always watchable and engaging, but there are films where he does make at least a little effort to slip into a role (Edge of Tomorrow in particular stands out in this regard). Here, Ethan remains an avatar, so similar to other past Cruise roles — a cipher who exists to run, brood, save the world, and nuzzle attractive women.
Women Talking: The clumsiest choice of the film is by far its need to force Ethan into a choice between lady brunettes he has vaguely non-platonic feelings for; the mind games that the Entity’s playing make sense in a “sure, evil AI, you do you” sort of way, but what doesn’t make sense is watching grown-ass women (proven badasses, at that) sit passively while Ethan attempts to handle the situation. This is the first Mission: Impossible film to pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors, an achievement undercut by these characters’ occasional reduction to objects in service of the story.
Though… It’s not much of a story. Because the enemy here is AI, Dead Reckoning stands out as the least politically engaged Mission: Impossible movie to date, which is understandable on some level, if one is concerned with making a global hit in a time when who knows what countries might be at war with each other in a few months.
But it flattens the narrative and shifts the franchise further into the realm of science fiction than it’s ever been before, while also forgetting that great science fiction usually has something to say about the world it’s depicting. In this story’s hands, the Entity ultimately feels like a cop-out to avoid making any one country or ethnic group into the bad guy, with plot twists that feel directly borrowed from this spring’s Mrs. Davis or CBS’s procedural-turned-techno-thriller Person of Interest.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount)
The Verdict: The best jokes of the Mission: Impossible franchise are always some variation of “what now?” — that moment of escalation where an already pretty bad situation gets ramped up to another level. And Dead Reckoning Part One is packed full of these moments, feeding directly into the audience’s ongoing thirst for Cruise’s self-destruction; if nothing else, stunt-wise the film more than delivers, especially in its train-centric climax.
Also, in comparison to other Part Ones which have come out in recent months (looking very specifically at you, Fast X) Dead Reckoning does manage to feel like a complete film while also still setting up the upcoming Part Two (currently scheduled for release on June 28th, 2024).
However, that just signifies the way in which these films might have blockbuster budgets and play on movie screens, but on a narrative level they’re now far closer to episodes of television… bringing us full circle to where Mission: Impossible began. The continuity isn’t great (there’s a wild amount of inconsistency in these films regarding what the IMF actually is and how it operates, as just one starting point) but there have been some improvements: The original 1960s series had its charms, but those screens weren’t big enough for Tom Cruise. And that remains this franchise’s most consistent selling point.
Where to Watch: Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One jumps off a mountain and into theaters on July 12th.
Trailer:
