Film Review - Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Like a few other Hollywood action franchises, Mission: Impossible has been going on long enough now that it’s figured itself out. As with the now-eleven-film-strong Fast & Furious empire, M:I has calcified in its later tenure: these movies have become not just about incredible stunts, globetrotting spy intrigue, and characters pulling off masks to reveal they were someone else – they’re also about the unique figure of Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt.
Where other superspies might be hardened to the necessities of sacrifices to save the world, a core trait of Hunt that has emerged over these last three M:I films directed by Christopher McQuarrie is the hero’s inability to let any innocent person get hurt. “I don’t accept that,” he seethes when prodded about the likelihood of himself or someone he cares about needing to be put in harm’s way. And you believe him, because he is the man that makes the impossible happen.
This seventh instalment follows Hunt coming up against a new, artificial-intelligence enemy referred to simply (and, to hilarious effect, repeatedly) as The Entity. With the help of its human envoy Gabriel (a steely but unremarkable Esai Morales), it is spreading out of control across every network in the world, including those of global intelligence agencies. There is, of course, an object that needs retrieval in order to counteract The Entity – a very fancy golden key that leads Hunt to various returning players like the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) and the always-captivating Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). Additions for this seventh instalment include an iffy Hayley Atwell (her flirtatious energy is poorly matched to Cruise’s largely sexless, man-on-a-mission performance) and a fun Pom Klementieff, who brings a demonic revelry to her new antagonist. The best inclusions are Shea Whigham as the classic, archetypal government man trying to keep on top of Hunt’s rogue tendencies (every “he oughta be here somewhere” and “he’s jerkin’ our chain!” lands to grin-inducing effect as Hunt eludes him again and again) and Henry Czerny returning as another government suit, Kittridge – a character he hasn’t played since the series’ first film in 1996. Kittridge gets a lot of the monologuing about AI takeovers and untold consequences, and Czerny’s wonderfully still, staring-match performance makes every plot convolution a delight.
Make no mistake, though – despite any complexity of the larger narrative within these films, McQuarrie knows that all that stuff is just glue. Glue that links together the hair-raising action sequences that are Dead Reckoning’s real goal. The achievement of these films, the thing Cruise is fixated on when he’s spending all his promo interviews talking about his singular goal of ‘entertaining the audience’, is delivering audacious, breathtaking action setpieces – one after the other, each with swiss-clock precision.
Everything exists in service of that goal, to the extent that there are visual devices that allow you to track the action, like a pair of high-tech sunglasses that let Hunt (and the viewer) see exactly where the all-important key is at all times. It’s all constructed to minimise exposition, and let the incredible action carry you through visual storytelling alone. It’s mind-boggling how difficult it is to do this stuff, and yet McQuarrie and Cruise are so reliable at doing it: every sequence is engineered with such dramatic skill and precision, every time you’re not just wowed, but clinging to your seat through genuine tension the action creates.
In fact, there’s a certain glee to be found in the way these films build stakes. Like anything else, they stack the odds as high as they possibly can against the hero. But, in a way that’s unique, you never really believe that Ethan Hunt might fail. No one ever stops to ask him “how are you going to pull that off?” anymore. We all – characters, audience, everyone – know that he will. As impossible as the odds get, he only gets more messianically capable. It’s absurd, and it’s perfect. The Ethan Hunt character, through various combinations of trick masks and athletic physical stunts, averts global-scale disaster, every time.
The sheer joy of that formula, of this character, with every possible disadvantage stacked against him, saving the entire world through a motorbike cliff jump – that’s the magic of these movies. The fact that they seem to understand that, and want to perpetuate it? That’s why I’ll be back to watch every time.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is screening in cinemas from Thursday 13th July. For tickets and more info, click here.