Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) Movie Review: The discourse surrounding movie theaters’ vitality and mainstream entertainment’s credibility has seemingly intensified lately. Last summer, Tom Cruise proved how the two are synonymous with each other; the critical and box office success of “Top Gun: Maverick” stood as a testament to how the two work best when they aren’t mutually exclusive.
What made the 61-year-old actor a household name globally in the first place was the franchise that he’s now carried across 27 years without losing steam. The success behind the “Mission: Impossible” films has been its knack for understanding the cultural current during each new outing. After introducing the TV-based franchise in 1996, Tom Cruise has steadily been the face of the films while also producing them.
Over the decades, along with various directors, the franchise has upped the ante on spectacle and action, especially the stunts Cruise famously insists on doing himself – something that has resoundingly become part of each film’s worldwide marketing campaigns.
Thus, staying true to the menacing times of the advancements in AI looming over us, the villain in “Dead Reckoning Part One” isn’t a person but an all-powerful algorithm. ‘The Entity,’ as it’s called, believes that its computation skills have concluded that Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is the only thing that stands in its way. But when an old nemesis returns back, Hunt must choose between staying true to his objective or sacrificing loyalty to his friends.
The series essentially saw a stylistic and thematic reboot with its sleek fourth chapter. Every film following the 2011 outing has been directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who also co-produced and co-wrote last year’s “Maverick.” Thus, more than his imaginative visual flair, it’s the off-screen working relationship between McQuarrie and Cruise that has brought a breath of fresh air among the fans.
Balancing the emotional journey of the superstar’s on-screen portrayals with deftly crafted practical set pieces compounds the myth of Cruise possibly being the last superstar of his kind. Even more so than the previous two films, the seventh film cleverly ties back to the 1996 film in surprisingly effective ways.
Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.This is because McQuarrie, along with co-writer Erik Jendresen, not only visually recalls De Palma’s film here (look out for Fraser Taggart’s cinematography resorting to Dutch angle shots and canted close-ups to capture interrogations and Cruise’s sweaty face), but also want you to remember the arc Hunt has been going through since the inception of the franchise. The story, more so than ever, wisely dispenses the screenplay with fiddly details and dialogue while also heavily relying on the physicality of Cruise doing everything he does best. It invariably roots the film into a sense of palpable emotionality while delivering spectacularly what fans expect from the franchise.
The opening Abu Dhabi airport sequence, in particular, recreates the essence of spycraft chicanery – something that once defined an era of mainstream Hollywood entertainment. Not only does it feel refreshing, but also instantly sets up the dynamics of the team while informing just how much history Hunt and his team have been through together. What follows in the second act is a gloriously crafted chase sequence across the streets of Rome.
It marks one of the multiple sequences in the film that puts contemporary summer extravaganzas – namely “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Fast X” – to shame by the sheer craftsmanship. Moreover, the film adds an extra dynamic throughout the chase, involving a newly gifted recruit known as Grace (Hayley Atwell) and Hunt being literally handcuffed to each other as they try to navigate through a dozen cars chasing them. Her on-screen chemistry with Cruise is some of the most gleeful stuff you’d watch this summer.
Much like “Dial of Destiny,” the narrative progression here also relies on a device split in two halves that our heroes must chase to protect. Although “Dead Reckoning Part One” isn’t devoid of faulty exposition, it gets away from its contrived plot conventions as the screenplay remains mindful enough to root them into character dynamics. By associating another device that becomes a recurring gag between Hunt and Grace, the movie proficiently cloaks the obvious contrivances in resounding emotionality. It only makes the fight against an artificially engineered algorithm all the more powerful.
The film’s main (human) villain, Gabriel (Esai Morales), takes orders from the Entity. At the same time, his right-hand woman Paris (Pom Klementieff), proves to be the more physically threatening adversary. She features in almost every major action set piece of the film, which brings me to the shift in style that McQuarrie brings with this installment. After the towering achievement of “Fallout” – which remains the best film in the franchise – the filmmaker (cleverly) doesn’t try to go bigger on the action. Instead, the seventh film goes deeper and darker than any of the previous films. Although most of the plot dynamics lead into the next movie, the setup works extraordinarily well without resorting to lackluster structuring that often masquerades as cheap cliffhangers.
However, the film lacks the meticulously paced and deftly filmed action that its predecessor peaked with. The stunt choreography and scripting remain crisp but devoid of the visually coherent grandiosity of “Fallout.” For instance, although the sequence in Rome is more elaborate and extensive than the chase sequence across Paris from the earlier film, it falls short of delivering the swashbuckling elegance from which McQuarrie often draws mileage.
But what “Dead Reckoning Part One” misses out in its action grammar, it more than makes up for it by prioritizing the kinetic vigor of its star more so than ever. Despite its massive runtime, the film feels more urgent than most action blockbusters. The approach of striking the balance between CGI and old-fashioned action best culminates with the film’s last act, which quite easily is the best time you’d have at the movies this year.
In fact, there could be an argument made of how the entire last hour of this 163-minute film is the best “Mission: Impossible” film on its own. It mixes traditional espionage beats with practical stunts, with a soundscape that knows just when to dial itself down. Moreover, it keeps building momentum on the bedrock of the formula which gave us the best moments in the franchise – the fact that no matter how much Hunt and his IMF team plan things through in advance with their flamboyant tech, things would always go wrong leaving them to improvise.
Here, the improvisation leads to the biggest stunt in cinema history. We watch Hunt drive a Honda CRF 250 off the peak of a Norwegian mountain, plunging 4,000 feet down into a ravine before opening the parachute that leads him to crash into a moving train. McQuarrie is known for expressing character through action. Still, the meta-textual subtext of the cliff resembling the Paramount studio logo reinforces the human cost of fighting an algorithm for preserving visceral artistic expression.
In a recent interview, while referencing Harrison Ford’s “Dial of Destiny,” Tom Cruise opened up about his desire to keep making “Mission: Impossible” films until he reaches the former actor’s age. “I’ve got 20 years to catch up with him”, he said. There’s a probability that given the next film sticks its landing, the franchise might compound its place as the best one in film history. At 61, will Cruise emerge as Hollywood’s savior again? The answer is as convincing as the probability of Hunt being the only thing standing between an algorithm having the world at stake.
Read More: 10 Best Action Sequences from the Mission Impossible Franchise
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) Movie Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Thames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vaness Kirby
Where to watch Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
