Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (2023 | USA | 163 minutes | Christopher McQuarrie)
Is there a long-running blockbuster movie franchise that is more dependably good than the Mission: Impossible films with Tom Cruise? I don’t think there is. I tried thinking it out, but for every film franchise I thought of, there’s been at least one Dial of Destiny, or Eternals, or Moonraker. But since the first Tom Cruise-led MI film in 1996, directed by Brian DePalma, there’s yet to be something in the series I’d classify as anything less than a really, really good time.
Dead Reckoning Part One, which is in theaters today, is an absolute blast. It’s the first film of a promised two-part finale (that seems to be in vogue right now), where I presume it ends with Cruise’s Ethan Hunt finally declining to accept a mission.
Hunt’s mission is to keep two pieces of Archimedes’ Dial a key out of enemy hands because it will allow some terrible people to do bad things with AI. It’s a very, very 2023 concern. Esai Morales is Gabriel, the villain that wants to get his hands on the technology for extremely malevolent reasons.
I don’t want to give too much of the plot away because it doesn’t really matter and I found the best way to enjoy it was to watch the action unfold. Plus, I’d need a corkboard and yarn to keep track of all of the crossing and double-crossing on display here.
There are a lot of MI veterans here (Ving Rhames, Esai Morales, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Czerny) and Hayley Atwell is the newcomer, an expert pickpocket whose ability to swipe things (like mysteriously powerful keys) lands her in the middle of struggle between Ethan Hunt and Gabriel. She’s an interesting character and a welcome addition into the fold.
After seeing MIDRP1 and Fast X, I wonder if Romans come to expect elaborate chase scenes through the town plaza at any given moment. The chase scenes are pretty much identical (and really not much different than the chase scene through Tangier in Dial of Destiny) but they’re awfully fun to watch. I saw Dead Reckoning the night before the preview screening of Dial of Destiny and they had so many parallels and similarities but I found Mission Impossible superior in pretty much every way. (To be fair, Harrison Ford just turned 81 yesterday and Tom Cruise is twenty years younger).
Still, the precision and the choreography of the action scenes keep us watching and wanting more. They don’t feel like they’re overwhelmed by CGI but like actual humans doing actual stunts.
Summer is always the time for blockbuster films – and Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is the first great one of the season. I can’t wait for Part Two.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning: Part One is now playing in theaters pretty much everywhere.