Naming the big bad “The Entity” is a dead giveaway that plot isn’t going to matter as much as the spectacular action sequences in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. And unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know Tom Cruise has put his body through hell to pull off the seventh MI film’s insane action scenes. Cruise’s efforts pay off big time in one of the best entries in the blockbuster franchise.
But about that plot… Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is tasked with recovering a key that controls The Entity, an artificial intelligence that has become sentient. The Entity began with controlling social media and moved on to attacking governments across the globe. But that’s small potatoes compared to its ultimate goal: world domination.
Taking down an enemy that’s everywhere and nowhere all at once is an impossible mission. So, of course, Ethan and his IMF team – Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) – are the right group for the job. However, there’s a catch. The United States government and its counterparts (both allies and enemies) don’t actually want to destroy The Entity. No, that would make way too much sense and best serve humanity. The U.S. and other governments want to control the world’s most powerful and deadly AI and harness its power. Guess which side Ethan and the IMF land on in that debate.
There’s only one way to either control or destroy The Entity: the two halves of a one-of-a-kind key must be united. As Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One begins, one half is in the possession of someone Ethan and the IMF team know well and respect. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) has a massive bounty on her head and half a key in her hand that’s worth dying over.
Tom Cruise’s first major action scene comes early on as Ethan and Ilsa take on dozens of paid mercenaries in a remote, abandoned town in the middle of the Arabian Desert. Given that this is a Mission: Impossible film, it’s obvious who will emerge victorious. But the fight’s still gratifying to watch for action junkies/MI fans and serves as a tantalizing tease of what’s to come.
What goes down in the two+ hours following makes Ethan’s first action outing – a gunfight in a windstorm against nearly insurmountable odds – look like a cakewalk.
Tom Cruise has apparently discovered the fountain of youth and hasn’t lost a step since making his first appearance as Ethan Hunt in 1996’s Mission: Impossible. The ante’s upped with each MI installment, and Cruise, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, and co-writer Erik Jendresen embraced the challenge, filling Dead Reckoning Part One with one innovative, electrifying stunt after another. I mean, come on! That motorcycle stunt off a cliff followed by a BASE jump deserved its title as the biggest stunt in cinema history. Cruise took part in 13,000 motocross jumps and 500 skydives just to nail that one action sequence.
There’s no questioning Cruise’s commitment to wowing audiences. The man’s dedicated to making these action epics as authentic as possible, risking his life to deliver something extraordinary on screen.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One hits the tracks with a train sequence vaguely similar to but better than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s. The pivotal fight between Cruise and Esai Morales, absolutely nailing the role of a bad guy from Ethan’s past, was shot on top of a real train going 60 mph. Just let that sink in … a fight on top of a speeding train done practically rather than via CG. That just doesn’t happen outside of the MI franchise.
Dead Reckoning Part One also features Cruise engaging in one of the most dangerous sports in the world, speedflying. Toss in a heart-pounding car chase in a ridiculously small Fiat with Cruise handcuffed to Hayley Atwell (a fantastic addition to the IMF world), and the question becomes, how will Cruise and McQuarrie ever top Part One with Part One?
We need to wait until June 2024 for that question to be answered. Odds are, Cruise and McQuarrie will find a way to blow our minds.
GRADE: A
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, action, some language, and suggestive material
Running Time: 2 hours 43 minutes
Release Date: July 12, 2023
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Starring: Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Frederick Schmidt, Cary Elwes, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma, and Rob Delaney
