The Plot: The world has just got a lot more dangerous. A rogue artificial intelligence dubbed ‘the entity’ is threatening to take control over all electronic systems. The key to unlocking its unknown potential lies in a two-part key. Ethan (Tom Cruise), Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) choose to accept the mission to hunt both parts down and retrieve them, but there are bigger concerns. Unlike their Government, IMF intend to destroy it so that nobody has control over it. Now IMF find themselves as the rogue agents hunted by every interested party including the mysterious Gabriel (Esai Morales) and the mysterious Grace (Hayley Atwell)…
The Verdict: There’s a generally-accepted belief that with each instalment of a film franchise, it moves further away from its origins and gradually deteriorates in quality as its ambitions grow ever larger. The Fast & Furious series entertainingly bucked that trend for a while but is now in a steep decline and barely resembles its basic cops-and-robbers origins. It would appear however that Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise don’t believe in accepted beliefs and certainly didn’t get that memo from either Hollywood or audiences. Their Mission: Impossible franchise is now in its seventh instalment in 27 years with Dead Reckoning Part One. On the face of it, it’s a textbook example of how to make a well-crafted summer blockbuster,but also rips up the action textbook to stage some brilliant set-pieces that would make James Bond and Jason Bourne break a sweat with worry. Over to you, Eon Productions.
The Mission: Impossible franchise is that rare, almost unheard of thing in Hollywood: a franchise that actually increases in quality over time. Fallout wowed critics and audiences alike with its death-defying stunts and muscular action. Producer and star Cruise along with co-writer/director McQuarrie have set themselves the unenviable task of outdoing themselves once again. It’s what audiences expect of course, but it can’t be an easy task. Nobody can drop the ball here and everything needs to run smoothly… but then Covid came along and threw several spanners in the works. Everyone in the industry looked to Cruise and McQ (as Cruise calls him) as an example of how to proceed in the new, uncertain filmmaking environment. If there was pressure there, it doesn’t show onscreen. Every scene knits together seamlessly,despite delayed shoots and an infamous but partly justified onset rant by Cruise. For this is a film that plays with high stakes both on and offscreen but takes everything in its stride with confidence and the kind of cinematic flair that comes with time.
Dead Reckoning is a big and topical story about artificial intelligence, written some time ago but it might as well have been ripped straight from newspaper headlines. It’s expansive enough to justify more time and on the evidence of this Part One, this may just be the warm-up round. Not that it slows down or anything. It thrillingly starts in fifth gear and McQ keeps it there throughout, not letting up in the pacing and world-class action sequences. Think Fallout was the ultimate Mission: Impossible film? Think again. Dead Reckoning Part One continues to up the ante and that starts with the film’s signature stunt: Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff. That was day one of the shoot. Hollywood’s biggest daredevil continues to push himself, even at 61,to ensure verisimilitude for audiences and champion the theatrical experience in all its thunderous IMAX glory. This is not a film to watch on a mobile phone or an airplane with tinny sound a few months from now.
The Cruise control here is quite remarkable. He keeps Ethan relatable by making him human and McQ underscores that with some welcome moments of vulnerability and humour. His chemistry with franchise new entrant Hayley Atwell is palpable, best exemplified by a breakneck Rome-set car chase which leaves Fast X sputtering in the dust. Ethan is one for following the plan, but now he has to improvise and that keeps things fluid and unpredictable like Atwell’s slippery operative. There are a lot of interested parties in this most dangerous game here, but they all get more than a few moments to shine and state their own intentions in controlling ‘the entity’ – or is it controlling them? There are a lot of moving parts then which could easily grind against each other. Instead,they work together like clockwork so that there’s no visible mechanics. The artificial intelligence plot is heightened so that it becomes increasingly time-sensitive but also moves well beyond a typical Bond-style macguffin. Dead Reckoning Part One is an action spectacular which moves from one stunning set piece and location to another, while keeping the characters in check as a good story should. Part Two follows in June 2024 and can’t come soon enough.
Rating: 4.5 / 5
Review by Gareth O’Connor
In short: Action spectacular
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie.
Starring Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby.