The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B
Mission: Impossible has become one of the most surprisingly consistent and enjoyable film franchises going today, which is amazing considering that it started way back in 1996. I was freaking twelve years old when this series started, for crying out loud! And unlike James Bond, the main lead has never changed and Tom Cruise is still carrying these things while he is in his 60s (hopefully he watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and won’t try to push it to when he is in his 80s). The convolutedly titled Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One continues the solid run for the series and provides yet another twisting plot with (mostly) amazing effects and stuntwork. It isn’t as good as Ghost Protocol or Fallout and resides in the middle ground of the series (though well ahead of the series’ only real misfire, Mission: Impossible II), but that is still enough to make it a well above average action flick.
The villain this time around is the Entity, an artificial intelligence program that has become self-aware. With this movie going into production pre-pandemic, that likely seemed more like science fiction then than it does now only a few years later. CIA Director Eugene Kittridge (a character that hasn’t been seen since the first Mission: Impossible and played by a returning Henry Czerny) briefs the IMF team on the Entity and the fact that all of the world’s major powers are seeking two halves of a key that, when combined, can unlock the ability to control the rogue program. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) instead wants to destroy the Entity so that no country can control it and the race is on to find the keys.
Aside from being oddly topical, the plot is just a major MacGuffin chase. Hell, they are even literally chasing keys, which is about the most basic MacGuffin plot that one can write. Sure, there are many twists and turns, but it ultimately amounts to people chasing keys. This being Part One and (spoiler alert, if you’ve never seen a movie) they find the keys, Part Two will obviously be a chase for what the keys will open. This is one of the more narratively confounding parts of the film, because the opening scene (literally the opening scene) shows us what the keys will open and where it is, but the characters are unaware of these details. This creates an odd dynamic where the audience is literally an entire movie ahead of the characters. To be fair to the filmmakers, this scene was actually filmed for inclusion in Part Two, but the studio felt that the plot would be too hard to follow if the audience didn’t immediately know all of these details. Because we’re too stupid to understand people looking for keys, apparently.
The plot may be generic and oddly structured, but, at the end of the day, that’s not what the Mission: Impossible series is all about. The audience is there to watch over-the-top action scenes and crazy stunts and this movie delivers. I will give the caveat that some of the visual effects here are below the quality of the last few entries, a problem that I assume is a product of the film having to pause production due to covid. However, one only needs to watch this movie on a double feature with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny to appreciate the quality of work here. Unlike so many other movies this summer, Dead Reckoning Part One never looks like a cartoon. Cruise’s admirable devotion to real stuntwork lends real weight and excitement to the action scenes and reminds me of what action movies looked like before shitty computer effects became an acceptable shortcut to real filmmaking. This entry does include more digital work than the previous entries, but it is still exhilarating to watch Cruise launch a motorcycle in the air and drop onto a train. The entire last act of this movie is an action sequence on a train and it contains more creativity than every other action movie this summer put together.
Cruise is certainly in the spotlight here and, while it is well-deserved, I do wish that the supporting characters could get a little more to do. Cruise is still incredibly effective and physical as Ethan Hunt, but the diminished roles of Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames left me wishing that the IMF still operated more as a team than as Cruise and some occasional sidekicks. The return of Henry Czerny is very welcome, though, as his unhinged performance is just as entertaining as it was in 1996 and he provides a welcome link for the series’ later installments with its formative years.
At 2 hours and 43 minutes, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is too long, especially for a “part one,” and the plot isn’t exactly inspiring. However, it’s a solid action flick that puts dreck like Fast X and The Flash to shame and runs circles around Indiana Jones’ latest computer-generated adventure. This is a series where I often have a great time in the theater and then can’t remember much about the movie a month later. This entry will likely also fall into that category, but it is still the most fun to be had in a theater this summer after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission:Impossible%E2%80%93_Dead_Reckoning_Part_One#/media/File:Mission-Impossible%E2%80%93_Dead_Reckoning_Part_One_poster.jpg
