Do you like action movies? If so, you have to see Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, and you have to see it in theaters.
Action franchises are supposed to get lamer over time. They’re supposed to increasingly struggle to generate coherent plots and character arcs. They’re supposed to lose their grit and lean on uninspiring CGI. “Mission Impossible 7” sounds like a made-up movie in a joke about the decline of cinema.
Yet the franchise has only improved with time. Tom Cruise is now over 60 years old, but he continues to perform the most impressive stunts in Hollywood—no double required. And director Christopher McQuarry has proven again, with his fourth consecutive must-see installment, that he’s the modern master of action set pieces. Amidst all the adrenaline, the character development doesn’t fall apart.
This film has a leg up over its fellow impossible missions by virtue of its antagonist. Ethan Hunt’s nemesis in MI7 is a godlike AI that has weaponized our digital world against us. It’s threatening to use its limitless influence to dismantle truth, hijack the world economy, and manipulate the masses for inscrutable ends. (As Benji quips, “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”) So deistic is The Entity that it speaks through a messenger named Gabriel and foretells a disciple’s imminent betrayal.
These campy touches are welcome in a franchise that has always been a little less fun than it could be, thanks in part to Cruise’s relentless intensity. And don’t overlook that, like every good villain, The Entity reflects some of the hero’s qualities. Like Ethan, The Entity has gone “rogue” and has proven impossible to “control” by traditional means. Various governments greedily jockey for the key to The Entity’s power, just as they’ve tried to subdue Ethan time and time again. A true rival, indeed.
Plus, a digital adversary is a natural fit for a character played by Cruise, given that he’s become arguably the leading skeptic of the digital era of moviegoing. My showing of Dead Reckoning Part 1 opened with Cruise and McQuarry appearing onscreen to thank viewers for watching in a theater. Clearly, they don’t want their special craft subsumed by the vast, all-knowing algorithms of the digital platforms. Relatedly, at one point, The Entity demands that Benji feed it personal information, presumably to use to manipulate him later on. Is this a rogue supervillain? Or is it Netflix?
On the negative side, there are moments during which the movie’s action feels somewhat familiar. And it doesn’t only borrow from its series forerunners. In fact, I noticed similarities at various moments to: Speed (1992), The Lost World (1997), Spiderman 2 (2004), Casino Royale (2006), and even, at one uncharacteristically silly moment toward the end, Aladdin (1992). But when MI7 borrows, it does so only when it knows it can improve on the original. Its train-top tunnel brawl outdoes Speed‘s. Its Italian car chase outmatches Casino Royale‘s.
And no cinematic precursor features anything like the jaw-dropping motorcycle leap that marks the film’s most memorable moment. In every new installment, it seems, Cruise pulls off a showstopper, and this is one of the best.
So again, for an adrenaline-filled fun time, I highly recommend this movie. I wish it weren’t a two-part installment, but when you keep delivering the goods like Cruise does, you can do what you like. I can’t wait for the finale.
–Jim Andersen
For more recent releases, see my analysis of Asteroid City.