REVIEW: ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’ is a Part One

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is large in scope and length. Clocking in at a long 162 minutes, the film is a globetrotting spy action film that capitalizes on the foundation that the Mission Impossible franchise has built. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie and written by McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen, the film stars Tom Cruise as the infamous and chronically rogue IMF agent Ethan Hunt with Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Rebecca Ferguson reprising their roles as Benji, Luther, and Ilsa, making up Ethan’s core team.

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan and his IMF team embark on another dangerous mission, only this time, the powerful enemy is non-corporal, even if its messenger, Gabriel (Esai Morales) twists a knife in the wound created by Ethan’s past before the IMF. The team’s mission is to track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands—a common plot that the story takes to a new level. Instead of a maniacal madman with an ideology that has warped their want for power, this film centers on a quick learning and ever-powerful AI system that has grown sentient. The only thing stopping it is a key split into two halves.

With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in on all sides,  a deadly race to close in on the key that will either control or kill the AI that can control the truth, and with it, the world. Known only as the Entity, it runs every possibility through countless algorithms and gives its face, Gabriel, everything he needs to overpower Ethan and his crew with little effort. Aided by Paris (Pom Klementieff), his righthand muscle, Gabriel serves the Entity and proves to the IMF team that choice is an illusion and their futures are all but decided.

While this could convolute the story, the illusion of choice is fertile ground to place the narrative. Winding effortlessly around twists that each have an impact, the overall story in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is grand but well-thought-out. Leaning into the absurdity that comes from spy stories, the Entity’s abilities and the way the IMF is discussed all manage to create a narrative that knows its genre and embraces every element that makes it great.

Part Ones are hard to nail. By their very nature, they’re incomplete. They hold enough of a story to make the audience invest their time and emotion but often end on a cheapened cliffhanger to pull you back in. Sadly, I don’t believe Tom Cruise overcomes the part one curse with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. This seventh Mission Impossible movie in the franchise was already a mammoth undertaking. After the picture-perfect last film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the bar was set incredibly high. For characters, for stunts, for action, and for story.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One ups the ante for stunts, action, and story, but it leaves one of its main characters in the dust, replacing her with a thief who turns out to be an inept damsel in distress shadow of a female action lead, trying to stand where Ilsa stood and not stacking up. Grace (Hayley Atwell) isn’t bad. She’s charming, attractive, and out for herself. Grace is a fine character, and when added to a mix of people who are willing to give it all for the greater good, her Machiavellian sense of self-preservation works. If Grace existed in her own space and not as a replacement but rather an addition to the dynamic, her character would be an endearing new addition to the Mission Impossible cast.

But instead, she can’t really fight, at least not enough to win anything without intervention. She needs constant saving, and for the last act of the film, she’s simply just holding onto Ethan. And while that could be humorous and endearing, she has effectively replaced Ilsa Faust in the main cast, one of the best women in American action films.

Ilsa was more than competent in the field. Ilsa sets the standard, and to see Grace fumble and flail in nearly every situation, makes Ilsa’s substantially reduced role in this entry hurt. Completely frustrating in every way, this replacement serves to both undercut Ilsa’s importance to the franchise and create a hole so large that Grace, no matter how charming she is, can never fill.

My largest critique of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is that nowhere in the franchise’s history has a character been so wantonly reduced as with Ilsa Faust. Limited in dialogue and undercutting the resiliency and skill we’ve seen in film after film, it’s a sin that shocks the audience into coming into the theater for Part Two and infuriates in one go. However, not all is lost with the women in Mission Impossible, as Paris is sure to grow in Part Two, and Klementieff delivers a stellar physical performance.

Still, I find myself enamored with the size and scale, and absolute beauty that has been brought to the screen. The action scenes aren’t just loud and brash but seamlessly crafted to land shock, awe, and impact for more than just an audible “damn” from the audience. I believe wholeheartedly that film can be enjoyed no matter the size of the screen it’s watched on. However, like Top Gun: Maverick before it, Cruise reminds you of the glory of theater sound shaking your seat and the scale of seeing some of the most insanely constructed practical stunt moments ever put on screen. While the film fails Ilsa, it doesn’t fail its action.

To make an action sequence is hard by any measure, but to do so with the kind of camerawork and planning that is done in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is miraculous. The film manages to give spectacle and substance while still holding onto the absurdity of the spy genre that was long set by the original television series, which this franchise was an extension of. You will find nothing bigger on the screen or more reverence for practical effects in the film than in Mission Impossible; that was true across the franchise and remains the calling card for an action franchise that makes a theater screen feel like a necessity.

The film beautifully uses Rome, Abu Dhabi, and London to tell a story that puts the environment first. This adds a level of complexity to the already dynamic action. Featuring the franchise’s biggest stunt, one that has been touted in featurette after featurette where Ethan Hunt jumps a motorcycle off of a cliff, the fact that Cruise actually did the stunt himself reads well on camera and isn’t just for show.

This is also the truth behind the other stunt work in the film and particularly the larger action setpieces around the world that range from a wide-open desert to the tight confines of a runaway train. Every Mission Impossible film takes the audience across the globe, and like the others before it, this film utilizes every location to the max.  While we’ve seen praise for Cruise’s dedication to the motorcycle jump, the true standout sequence of the film is the chase through the streets of Rome, down the Spanish Steps, and of course, Ethan Hunt doing it all with one hand.

It must also be noted that the film also uses action and physical moments in combination with stellar comedic timing to get many laughs from the audience. And every single one is earned. Limited in dialogue like other action films, both in the series and in the wider genre, dialogue isn’t everything, and as such, there isn’t much of it. Instead, each actor is able to create relationships and dynamics that are palpable even without scripted dialogue that help with both emotional connection and humor.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is the most mixed I’ve ever been on a film. Not because the bad outweighed the good but because I have a hard quantifying its tremendous strength against its singular weakness. Ultimately, I hope Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise will remain a duo that gives you every reason to enter a theater and that supersedes everything else. Dead Reckoning is a Part One, and with that, only Part Two will tell where this film fits in the larger scale of the franchise.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is in theaters nationwide July 12, 2023.