Either by happenstance or serendipity, Dead Reckoning is the most topical a Mission: Impossible movie has been since maybe 2006 -when it went all in Iraq-era fear of global terrorism. But this film taps into something even more potent, even more relevant not just to the year but the very time of year it has released. Right as the controversy erupting around the use of A.I. is at its peak, and Hollywood’s actors have joined their writers on the picket lines in part because of an institutional refusal to regulate such technology, a big action-spy movie of the summer comes out that is very concerned with the threat posed by artificial intelligence. Granted, it’s not a particularly authentic portrait of A.I. -much more in the vein of your standard sci-fi movie’s image of the technology’s threat, but it is still analogous. And potently so in a movie so often a testament to artistry and traditional notions of spectacle.
Tom Cruise has made it his impossible mission of late to vanguard the cinematic experience, choosing to do so not just through the promotion of classical techniques of blockbuster action filmmaking, but via movies that are patent allegories to the current state of the Hollywood industry. It’s a difficult but not a vain endeavor, and it’s what made Top Gun: Maverick last year such a fascinating experience as well as a thrilling one. And this seventh installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise is no less compelling. Especially in its later episodes, I really came to appreciate Tom Cruise’s daredevil spy series last fall, and Dead Reckoning Part One follows in the tradition of each preceding movie in upping the ante, challenging its limitations, and even enriching its world.
It is a world now plagued by a rogue, possibly sentient A.I. called “the Entity” that is transmitting through international Intelligence networks, accessing and manipulating information for its own nebulous agenda. Every world power seeks to control it for their own ends, and because of that Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is determined to find and destroy it, once again acting against a collective of intelligence agencies putting a bounty on him, needing two halves of a complex key to do so. Involved are his reliable team of Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) –though also a few new faces: a mysterious professional thief called Grace (Hayley Atwell), and a powerful acolyte of the Entity called Gabriel (Esai Morales), an old nemesis of Ethan’s from his pre-IMF days.
One of this movie’s greatest strengths is its cast. The Mission: Impossible movies under Christopher McQuarrie -returning for his third here- have been very good at utilizing their powerful roster of characters around Ethan, and this one may be the most impressive yet. From Morales’ devious and charismatic villain through to Shea Whigham and Greg Davis as a pair of mismatched agents tasked with tracking Ethan down, everybody has an electric personality and everyone gets a moment to shine. Pegg and Rhames remain solid backup figures defined by their loyalty. Henry Czerny returns as Kitteridge, the IMF director last seen in the 1996 first movie, with as much ostentatious gravitas as ever. And Cruise himself is in his comfort zone -even when that comfort zone means diving off some towering cliff in Norway. Ethan as a character isn’t interrogated by the script quite as much as the previous two movies -although he is motivated by more trauma, both in his far past and the present; and Cruise taps into some sharp intensity for it. But the real stars of the movie are the women. Ferguson has been one of this series’ strongest players since her introduction, and she is just as magnetic as ever here -as Ilsa is drawn even more overtly in her relationship to Ethan. But there’s also Pom Klementieff as Gabriel’s ruthless partner Paris, whom she plays with tactile physicality and a bitterly acute coldness. Vanessa Kirby reprises her role as the arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, also after the key -easily carrying some of the movie’s most nuanced performance requirements in a more complex role than in Fallout. Yet if anyone can be called the movie’s scene-stealer, it is Atwell, who enters the action with a thrilling confidence and immediately attractive charm. Seemingly confined for so long by the role of Peggy Carter in the MCU, Dead Reckoning finally allows Atwell to flex her muscles as one of the best movie stars of the era. Oftentimes she is the main character as much as Ethan, and fully earns every heroic, psychological, and comedy beat that comes her way.
This is a very funny movie, it should not be overlooked. McQuarrie’s script cultivates a strong balance of tone in terms of the propulsive drama and its self-aware comic sensibility alike. There are a number of highly effective, original comic beats, and some even borrowed from cinema classics. Like John Wick, Mission: Impossible occasionally looks to silent comedies for inspiration, and wears its cinematic laurels on its sleeve -from an opening inspired by The Hunt for Red October to a third act paying subtle tribute to The Lady Vanishes.
And yet it’s A.I. conception is largely its own, albeit drawn from the anxiety of what it represents for the movie industry: a great, mysterious and unchecked power threatening to topple order and truth. It is perhaps an ostentatious analogue, but one driven by a severe sense of purpose and underlying frustration. The Entity hinders the team’s ability to perform their tasks, it manipulates digital images, and even adopts the voice of one of Ethan’s allies to deceive him -an incredibly timely illustration of the horrors of letting digital copies stand in for real people. The grim world of this movie is a starkly potent mirror for the environment it was made in, but it isn’t without some optimism, some hope in fortitude. The Entity forces Ethan’s team offline, but in that circumstance, they prove themselves adept and capable nonetheless -a symbol of the practical value of artists and artisans against the overwhelming technological exploitation uncritically pushed by the suits.
It’s curious though how the Entity functions as both this avatar of the looming threat of A.I. in the film industry in particular, and also a kind of God, complete with zealots like Gabriel, and heretics like Ethan and Ilsa. Gabriel and Grace being the names of the two most important new characters is certainly a charged choice, as is this consequent bonkers implication of Ethan going up against God as his biggest and potentially last mission ever. It’s to be seen whether this apparently religious comment pans out, but he and his team can certainly put a wrench in God’s plans.
There is a certain buildup to a reckoning for Ethan coming in the next installment. And perhaps tied in to this religiosity is a story choice that puts the single damper over the movie going into its final act that, despite the exhilaration, it never completely overcomes. Of course, Ethan doesn’t either -and that’s part of the problem. Dead Reckoning is a movie that engages in the old ‘fridging’ trope for one of its women characters, and while it has a genuine emotional impact and the full scope of its ramifications aren’t clear yet, it is a bit sour for a movie that otherwise is so considerate with its feminism.
But this is a Mission: Impossible movie, so we have to talk about the action, which is as tight and wild and thrilling as ever. McQuarrie is an expert at setting scenes, doing so impeccably in an opening infiltration of Intelligence headquarters, and weaves considerable tension through effortlessly cool sequences at the Abu Dhabi Airport and in an atmospheric Venetian nightclub on which all of the main players descend. This movie features two great long-form chases, one vehicular during the daytime in Rome -in which Ethan and Grace outmaneuver enemies and authorities while handcuffed together in a smart car; the other a nighttime foot-chase that includes a katana vs. knife fight and Ethan cornered in a tight alley. Like with Fallout, the last act is basically one giant set-piece aboard and around the Orient Express, the crème of which is Ethan’s free-fall skydive -the major Tom Cruise stunt of this film. But the sequence itself is so compellingly executed beyond this, McQuarrie evolving the action stakes with the sheer ingenuity at what all could be done with an action scene on a train. Pretty much everything is covered, all of it consistent, creative, and coherent, and far outpacing the first movie’s CGI-addled train sequence.
Coming on the heels of Across the Spider-Verse, Dead Reckoning Part One is another half-movie that works pretty solidly on its own -better even, as it doesn’t devote its last ten minutes to setting up Part Two, though still leaving sufficient threads in the air. Cruise and McQuarrie know that it is in fact part of the movie’s very thesis to be a rounded and satisfactory blockbuster; and it achieves that in spades -easily one of the best entries in this unexpectedly great series. It’s a model that should be followed, especially if next year’s resolution is indeed the last. Cruise’s mission is going well -let’s see others take it up too.
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