Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames star.
If we only know one thing about the long-running franchise, it’s that Tom Cruise always runs.
Now past 60 years of age — egad! — the still-rising star made Mission: Impossible (1996) as the maiden voyage of his production company and has increasingly guided the sequels that followed. The first four installments were directed by four different directors (Brian DePalma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird). With Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015), Christopher McQuarrie became the fifth director, but he’s stuck around to make Mission: Impossible — Fallout (2018) and now this swollen entry, with Part Two on its way next year.
Perhaps it’s because McQuarrie is, first of all, a writer; he won an Academy Award for his original screenplay, The Usual Suspects (1998). He worked with Tom Cruise on Valkyrie (2008), which he co-wrote and co-produced; reportedly, McQuarrie completed a couple drafts on Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (2011), before writing and directing Cruise in Jack Reacher (2012). McQuarrie also co-wrote Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and co-wrote Top Gun: Maverick (2021).
Clearly, Christopher McQuarrie knows how to write for Tom Cruise. In the Mission: Impossible films, Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, speaks excitedly, succinctly, tersely; he is not given to long, emotional speeches. He has defied death, over and over again.
Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One continues in this tradition. The new villain is not from Russia or Eastern Europe or the Middle East or Asia or Latin America or anywhere specific, for that matter. Instead, as with other recent movies and television shows, the villain is self-aware Artificial Intelligence, here called The Entity, which plans to control the world through digital technology.
Ethan Hunt’s mission, should he choose to accept it, is to recover both halves of a physical security key, which will unlock … something. Ultimately, the security key is the movie’s MacGuffin, with the advantage that it is small in comparison to the big stakes at play: the future of the world!
The movie itself is sufficiently self-aware to make fun of its own contrivances, dating back to its origin as a television series in the 1960s, early on. Then it dismisses them so that the focus returns to an endless series of chases, even as the labyrinthe nature of the ostensible spy-plot is endlessly unwoven.
In contrast with blockbuster adventures that rely heavily upon visual effects — yes, I’m looking at you, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny — the latest M:I keeps its primary reliance upon physical effects and stunts performed by living human beings.
Granted, it’s likely that every action sequence was tarted up with visual effects, for safety and other reasons, but the car crashes and motorcycle chases and berserk collisions and madcap accidents look and feel realistic. Or close to realistic, or not really but, my, oh my, how did they do that?
Only occasionally do the filmmakers stretch beyond the point of believability, but by then the spirit of the thing has become contagious. Tom Cruise sometimes even appears fallible; he can run and run and run, but he can’t outrun every looming disaster or avoid every fatal accident, for himself and others.
Surrounded by faithful regulars, like field agent Benji (Simon Pegg) and computer tech Luther (Ving Rhames), along with former MI5 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), Ethan Hunt makes an uneasy, unreliable alliance with highly-skilled career thief Grace (Hayley Atwell). His primary antagonist this time is the mysterious Gabriel (Esai Morales), who is supported by, among others, a vicious killer named Paris (Pom Klementieff).
In carrying out his mission, Ethan comes into conflict with those who had commissioned his work in the first place, and finds himself pursued by U.S. forces that narrow down to the doggedly determined Jasper (the always reliable and enjoyable Shea Whigham, looking fit and trim) and his partner Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis), who keep popping up anytime that film needs hindrances to the success of Ethan’s mission.
The last pieces of the puzzle are supplied by the appearances of Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), one-time head of the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) that spawned Ethan and his colleagues, though now in a new role; and the so-called White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), an arms dealer.
That’s a lot of moving parts, and sometimes the pieces fit together as if every piece were painted the same color. It can be quite confusing, and confounding to keep track of the switchbacks and reverses and double-crosses and betrayals.
Yet director Christopher McQuarrie knows how it all fits together, and keeps all the pieces moving in a vastly entertaining manner that rarely pauses for breath. It’s a big rush of adrenaline that keeps pumping to the very last moments. And it’s only the first part of an action epic that aims to exceed expectations.
The film opens Friday, July 14, in Dallas, Fort Worth and surrounding cities. For more information about the film, visit the official site.
Dallas Film Now. 