Describe This Movie In One Mission: Impossible Quote:
KITTRIDGE: I can understand you're very upset.Brief Plot Synopsis: Master spy defies death *and* his natural hair color.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 sticks of exploding gum out of 5.
Tagline: N/A (guess the title was long enough)
Better Tagline: "Critical approval is enough to forgive your cult's crimes, apparently."
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Stop me if you've heard this before: the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) is tasked with ... an impossible mission. This time, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and crew have to track a "cruciform key" that's connected to a sentient AI across all manner of exotic locales before it falls into the hands of the villainous Gabriel (Esai Morales). Does this new nemesis have a history with Ethan? You better believe it.
"Critical" Analysis: The dialogue around the Mission: Impossible movies — mostly concerning Tom Cruise's commitment to a thrilling moviegoing experience at the risk of his own safety — has gotten pretty tiresome. I know, because I've been guilty of perpetuating it myself.
Dead Reckoning Part One continues the tradition of impressively ridiculous action set pieces that's been in place since the Burj Khalifa sequence in Ghost Protocol (remember in M:I III when we only saw the final shot of Ethan obtaining the Rabbit's Foot in Shanghai? Good times). Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie have perfected their formula: cram so much action in that audiences don't care how repetitive the plots have gotten.
Case in point: the "Entity," as the AI is referred to throughout the movie, has insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of our defense and resource infrastructure. This naturally poses a threat to everything from our national security posture to the Earth's air and water. Sounds pretty bad, and shockingly implies that — in an alternate universe — perhaps the Spaceballs were a tool of the Entity as well.
In McQuarrie, Cruise has found a director he trusts to make multiple movies with (several are tied with two each, including Spielberg, the Scotts (Tony and Ridley), Zwick, and Liman). The pair's collaboration began with 2008's Valkyrie, which McQuarrie wrote, before he went on to direct Cruise in 2012's Jack Reacher. Dead Reckoning Part One will be the third M:I movie he's directed (he also co-wrote Ghost Protocol), with Part Two coming in 2024, barring any more pandemics.
Side note: how pissed was McQuarrie when he found out Fast X also used the Spanish Steps for one of their car chases? He had to know Cruise wasn't about to be dissuaded from getting his obligatory motorcycle sequence in. Maybe that's why McQuarrie passive aggressively refused to provide onscreen labels for locations he thought we should already know (Venice, Rome).
The core cast is still solid, though Ving Rhames's Luther is visibly weary in his scenes. Rebecca Ferguson continues her streak of excellence, and franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell (as Grace, a thief caught up in the IMF's shenanigans) seems game for everything. Gabriel, as portrayed by Morales, is a formidable opponent, but any talk of him being the best M:I villain is off base. He is, at heart, a tool of the Entity. Compare/contrast with Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian in III and it's not even close.
In the film's defense: the stunts are reassuringly gonzo, the fight scenes refreshing coherent, and it practically demands a big screen experience. At the same time, we're seeing the telltale signs of franchise bloat.
The two-part finale has a ... well, not exactly "storied" tradition, but dates back to the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises. A series as consistently entertaining as Mission: Impossible seems deserving of an extended sendoff, unless it isn't. Cruise recently gave an interview which cast some uncertainty over that outcome:
“Harrison Ford is a legend; I hope to be still going. I’ve got 20 years to catch up with him,” Cruise said. “I hope to keep making ‘Mission: Impossible’ films until I’m his age.”Cruise could be full of shit, or maybe he's seriously thinking of continuing his quest to die onscreen in order to finally escape Scientology's grasp. But Dead Reckoning Part One is *two hours and forty minutes* long, and there's no reason for that. Scratch a couple shots of Ethan brooding over European landscapes, truncate a car chase or two, and save the exposition for an audience that cares about that sort of thing. Because that ain't this.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is in theaters today.
