[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
Only in theatres.
Is there any other movie series, action or otherwise, that continues to get better and better with each movie? The Mission Impossible franchise has been going for nearly 30 years now, ever since Tom Cruise decided he wanted to take crack at producing and picked the espionage television property for a big screen reboot back in 1996.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One once again keeps that momentum going with yet another heart-stopping, adrenaline-fueled action ride that at times is a little over expository but more than compensates with breathtaking action and top-notch performances from the cast through the crew. This is a magnificently staged movie that will do nothing but ratchet up expectations for the next chapter. Because, oh yeah….
Bad news first, if for no other reason there is not a lot of that sort of nonsense. But true to the summer of ’23 trend, Dead Reckoning is another “Part One of Two” movie. However, the good news is that unlike Fast X, Dead Reckoning is a complete movie with an ending that could stand on its own. While these two action juggernauts share some oddly similar DNA — a submarine, a chase through Rome, sins of the past returning to haunt the hero, etc. — one is a masterclass in action-sequence pacing, mixing natural humor into its blood curdling tension. The other has Vin Diesel in it.
This time, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team — Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and even Kittridge (Henry Czerny returning from the first flick) are up against one of their most abstract and possibly deadly villains ever: artificial intelligence. After a Russian sub is disabled during an artificial intelligence weapons exercise, everyone in the government starts freaking out because they accidentally created an AI that’s way smarter and now it’s gone rogue and when something goes rogue, who ya gonna call? Ethan Hunt and the IMF, that’s right. But this newly aware AI is smart enough to know it needs a human dude to help it accomplish its goal and negotiate its own sale to the highest bidder, so it enlists a mysterious bad guy, Gabriel (Esai Morales), who has some history with Hunt already. So, Ethan and his team have to track down some puzzle keys in order to stop the AI from doing whatever it’s doing, which they won’t know until they get the keys. Or something.
What works is the powerhouse team of Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie, who has been in the director’s chair for the last two flicks, Rogue Nation and Fallout. Cruise is one of the hardest working, most dedicated Hollywood movie stars in the history of motion pictures. McQuarrie obviously loves working in the world of impossible missions and his working chemistry with Cruise shows on screen. The movie is predictably unpredictable, with plot twist after plot twist revealing new information to keep everyone literally running full speed towards the insane climax.
If there is any weakness it is in the presentation of the villain. The Entity isn’t exactly a new kind of threat. It’s basically Skynet and whatever that thing is in The Matrix. One thing the movie does that may be the only thing that ever slows this action spectacle down is over explain the threat and it’s capabilities. There are a few scenes early on that literally do that and only that, over explain the villain. It’s almost as if McQuarrie, who also co-wrote the screenplay overwrote the motivations just to cover his bases and seal up any plot holes. But once you get to the third group of characters over explaining what is about to happen it already feels like overkill. Thankfully, after all the chattiness, the action really kicks in and the movie is an absolute blast. And at 2 hours and 30 minutes plus, it’s a little long in the tooth but this damn this is never boring.
While the team is put at the forefront and gives everyone a decent amount of dialogue and more than enough to do to keep this train moving at break-neck speeds, it also introduces us to Grace (Hayley Atwell), a thief who gets caught up in the middle of the IMF’s new mission and has an agenda of her own, even if she’ being played. Atwell is the breakout star of this movie. She has incredible chemistry with Cruise, fits right in with the rest of the IMF-ers and handles the physical action like a seasoned warrior.
Plot, characters, blah, blah, blah. It’s the the death defying action the Mission Impossible movies have become notorious for that keeps packing people into the seats and for Dead Reckoning Part One, the law firm of Cruise and McQuarrie have gone all out to one-up any and all stunts and action sequences that have come before this movie. I’m not sure where to begin because every action sequence goes hard and never takes prisoners. From a stunning chase through Rome while Cruise and Atwell are handcuffed together to the jaw dropping train chase sequence that is a killer nod to DePalma’s first entry, but blows that out of the water for one of the most stunning action set pieces in the series. Then there is Cruise’s suicidal free fall motorcycle jump from a mountain cliff, which is even more stunning in the film than it is in all of the trailers.
But, you guys, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Tom Cruise. This man is 60 freaking years old and is still a maniac. Yes, he does his own stunts. That shit is real. His devotion to the character and this franchise has grown it from a fun re-imagination of a fun 60s spy show to literally the best action movie franchise of all time.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is easily the best action movie of 2023, and it’s only July. Can’t see that changing. This movie is a non-stop thrill ride with unbelievable action set pieces that work overtime to top anything that has come before it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to see Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One as soon as possible, on the biggest screen you can find.
Good luck, agent.
Lover of movies and tacos. Ad man. Author. Member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Founder of the Terror on the Plains Horror Festival. Creator and voice of the Reel Hooligans podcast.
Comments on this entry are closed.