‘Impossible’ is nothing
If you think you know what you’re getting with the latest Tom Cruise vehicle, you’d be right. And it’s perfect.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Director: Christopher McQuarrie • Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny
USA • 2hrs 43mins
Opens Hong Kong July 8 • IIA
Grade: B+
As exciting as a chase through crowded streets can be, you have to wonder: Have any of the people who made Fast X or, now, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, actually been to Rome? Because stunts, CGI, models or sets aside, the level of disbelief that needs to be suspended to just let go and follow a car down the Spanish Steps and through notoriously, erm, voluminous Roman traffic is high.
Which, it must be said, is precisely the appeal of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, the latest in the indefatigable wee superstar Tom Cruise’s modern update of the spy series. Unlike Fast X, though, Dead Reckoning fully and completely understands what it is on a more fundamental level, and since writer-director Christopher McQuarrie took over the series at Ghost Protocol (he directed each instalment after that) it’s gone from strength to strength, with Cruise getting more ambitious with the stunts and action sequences each time – like Fast guru Vin Diesel. But of the two overly-empowered wannabe titans – Cruise got Paramount to hold Top Gun: Maverick for a theatrical release and he forced them to move Dead Reckoning away from Oppenheimer for maximum IMAX screen exposure – my money’s on Cruise. His movies are ridiculous too, but there’s a committed polish to the spycraft and disguises and moles and – yes, actual fucking stakes – in the MI series that’s hard to resist. Short version: Tommy delivers again.
Don’t worry. He runs
Dead Reckoning has too much story to summarise with any clarity – or without spoilers – so let’s just say most of it pivots on Ethan Hunt (duh, Cruise) teaming up with mercenary DGAF burglar Grace (Hayley Atwell, the OG Agent Peggy Carter) and his regular crew to find a doohickey that messes with digital information, anywhere, anyhow. It’s a super-AI (timely subject matter!) called simply The Entity, and Hunt’s old boss, IMF director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny in fabulous, slippery weasel form), wants him to find it so he can control it. The required doohickey is a key, and laying hands on said doohickey demands a great many chases across deserts, through central Rome, weaving in and out of narrow Venetian alleys, around crowded Middle Eastern airports, and down moving luxury transport. As a start.
That’s really all the detail needed to slip into Hunt’s world again, and it’s similarly all you need to have a good time if Dead Reckoning is the first MI film you’ve ever seen (hard to believe, buy hey). Fans of the series are going to appreciate the callbacks (another similarity with Fast, but way less implausible): aside from Kitteridge, Vanessa Kirby’s White Widow, Alanna Mitsopolis (herself the daughter of the first film’s Big Bad) is back, so is the fabulous Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), and all manner of references to Hunt’s troubled past and his journey to the IMF. Dead Reckoning very much feels like the beginning of the end, but in a satisfying way that makes sense for this universe, and for its, ahem, generous running time, it’s one of the best-paced films of 2023 so far.
So how does it stack up against Fallout, arguably the best of the series so far, and how does incoming villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) rate against Philip Seymour Hoffman’s GOAT Owen Davian (who was also seeking a doohickey, this series is maggoty with doohickies)? Almost as good and… we’ll see; the story’s not over. Hoffman set an incredibly high bar but at this point in time we’re here to see Cruise jump off high buildings and race speeding trains with motorbikes and such. Dead Reckoning starts with a terrifically tense submarine chase (you can never go wrong with a sub chase) and ends with a white-knuckle climb (!) out of a train that’s one for the ages. And so many masks – but not too many. It’s one of the funnier MIs… This is perfect summer entertainment.
As for the newcomers to the franchise, Atwell’s inherent charm manages to keep Grace from being a complete asshole, and by the end she’s mostly one of the gang. Like so many female characters Grace suffers from the writers’ conflagration of tough cool chick with bitch that also sucks as life. She does better than poor Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy) who, as Gabriel’s muscle Paris, does what she can with the garden variety crazy assassin role while trying desperately not to be Dark Mantis. Shea Whigham (The Gray Man, Boardwalk Empire) as CIA fixer Jasper Briggs drops in for some flawless crankiness while chasing Hunt. But this is Cruise’s show, and though he doesn’t quite hit the dizzying heights of gripping a moving plane or scaling the Burj Khalifa, for the most part he again demonstrates his commitment to mass entertainment. It’s no Maverick, but it’s close. See you this time next year. — DEK