Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning — Part One (2023)
“There’s no place I won’t go to kill you”.
“There’s no place I won’t go to kill you”.
Well the men and women in the rubber face masks from the Impossible Mission Force are back and to celebrate I hid away from the rain of a UK Summer as well as the world they’re trying to save and re-watched every one of the six films in the series hence far. To say I’m a fan of the man upon whose back the entire franchise is carried would be a grand understatement even for me. All the world, whether it be that strange place I observe through a rain streaked window or via the big screen of a cinema is a stage and we are all merely players, and Tom Cruise plays the part of a movie star exceedingly well. Four decades on since Thomas Cruise Mapother IV first burst onto our cinema screens and now nearly three decades since he produced and starred in the transfer of Bruce Geller’s 1960’s and 1970’s original TV series, Cruise returns once more in the reassuring company of franchise stalwarts Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson alongside other returnees, familiar character names and that oh so familiar musical soundtrack to many of our lives.
Before we get to a spoiler free appraisal of this seventh film in the franchise, being a man of certain vintage and with a cinematic love for all things Tom Cruise, I couldn’t resist revisiting the entire IMF catalogue once more and being the contrarian that I am, I watched them all again in reverse order. I could get ahead of myself with my conclusion that the first and sixth films are the high watermarks of the franchise that bookend this series of films magnificently, but first, here’s my chart of the films in order of cinematic greatness:
Mission: Impossible (1996) (directed by Brian De Palma)
Mission: Impossible — Fallout (2018) (directed by Christopher McQuarrie)
Mission: Impossible III (2006) (directed by JJ Abrams)
Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015) (directed by Christopher McQuarrie)
Mission: Impossible II (2000) (directed by John Woo)
Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (2011) (directed by Brad Bird)
So in reverse order: Ghost Protocol is utterly dreadful and a run of the mill action film that bears very little resemblance to a Mission: Impossible film. From Hungary to The Kremlin in Russia and a bad guy or boogeyman called “Cobalt”, I cared very little for it a decade ago and even the ridiculous stunt on the outside of a Dubai hotel couldn’t save it from being the least regarded in my affections. MI2 starts brilliantly with the snatching of a deadly “Chimera”, an early inversion in the use of the rubber face masks so indelibly linked to the series and Tom Cruise as headliner once more “Ethan Hunt” free climbing a rockface. But director John Woo’s trademark slow motion shots continue to frustrate me and like Ghost Protocol above, it just doesn’t have the feel of a Mission: Impossible film for me.
Next up is the first of four instalments (present and future) from the directorial skills of Christopher McQuarrie and arguably the first of two back-to-back sequels in the series as Rogue Nation sees “The Syndicate” (which morphs into “The Apostles” in Fallout) with the same brilliant enemy in the guise of actor Sean Harris and my goodness is this a REAL Mission: Impossible film! No doubt well regarded and known as the film whereby Tom Cruise clings to the outside of a military aeroplane climbing into the sky, we also have the delights of travelling from Belarus to London, Washington to Morocco and Berlin before the opera in Vienna and all within a film that brilliantly showcases the comedic acting prowess of Simon Pegg. I love Fallout more even though it’s seemingly sponsored in every cinematic frame by BMW (even more so than every other film in the series) but continuing a theme of bad guys at number 3 we have the magnificent and much missed presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman as perhaps the most repugnant and vindictive bad guy in the series so far and the chasing of a “Rabbit’s Foot” from Berlin to China through to Vatican City, as well as yet another ridiculous stunt with Cruise base jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper and a very early cameo appearance from Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame.
Fallout too is very much in the category of being the archetypal Mission: Impossible film and directed once more by Christopher McQuarrie, a huge reason for my excitement in watching the seventh instalment in the franchise for the first time today. But lastly and before we get to that, we must return to the beginning and the reason we’re all here in the first place and the Brian De Palma directed original from 1996 and THE Mission: Impossible film that still stands the test of time and a bona-fide masterpiece. Here we have a “NOC-list”, an early representation of a rudimentary internet and arms dealers as we traverse the globe from Ukraine to the Czech Republic and THAT exploding fish tank scene. But we also have a stellar all-time cast list from John Voight to Jean Reno, Emilio Estevez to Ving Rhames and of course Vanessa Redgrave and the star of the show for the next two decades and more, Tom Cruise.
Appetite whetted? Before we continue, can I direct your attention to an old movie article of mine on the films of Christopher McQuarrie and without further ado, please then continue on to my spoiler free appraisal of his latest impossible cinematic mission?
This article won’t self destruct in 5 seconds.
But it just might.
Christopher McQuarrie — Impossible Mission?
“Way of the Gun”, “Jack Reacher” and “Mission Impossible Rogue Nation”. All lovingly spoiler free.medium.com
So to today and accompanied by my movie loving son we decamped once more to the reassuring darkness of our local cinema and first things first, you simply have to, given the means and opportunity, see Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning — Part One on the cinema screen. It’s the very epitome of a “big screen movie”, loud, wide, fast, breath taking and a rip-roaring ride of excitement and edge of the seat thrills. All of which you’d expect from the franchise but it’s reassuring to note that all of this and so much more was present and correct. The dead reckoning from the movie’s title refers to an undetectable and “invisible” Russian nuclear submarine traversing the bottom of the Bering Sea and quickly we’re transported to a gun fight in the Saudi Arabian desert, the beauty of Rome and Venice before the heavily trailed denouement over two hours later with perhaps the most outrageous stunt Tom Cruise has ever pulled off throughout the franchise as he roars a motorcycle off the edge of a mountain before parachuting aboard the Orient Express!
In between are set pieces and stunts galore, the highlight of which is a car chase through the winding streets of Rome that is as brilliantly breath taking as anything seen in The French Connection, Ronin or The Italian Job, and all within the cramped confines of a speedy runaway Fiat 500 as our hero is handcuffed to yet another duplicitous scoundrel and soon to be love interest in Part 2. Probably. The set pieces and stunt action sequences never let up and if you think driving a motorcycle off the top of a mountain in order to catch up with a speeding train is audacious, wait until you see what happens when our hero actually boards the train!
The story that weaves around these incredible action sequences is of a “Dark Messiah” with “no past” seeking the two parts of a cruciform key as an “entity” or sentient Artificial Intelligence threatens to control the world. Standing in his way, or should that be in the way of a rogue, Matrix like AI is the rogue, disavowed fugitive in the shape of our hero “Ethan Hunt” (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team of returnees “Luther Stickell” (Ving Rhames), “Benji Dunn” (Simon Pegg) and “Ilsa Faust” (Rebecca Ferguson). The comedic, light relief from Simon Pegg is the film’s undoubted stand-out and much needed when set against the heart thumping action sequences and, it must be noted, the real let down of the film for me, the bizarre AI entity through line. To say I hated this narrative diversion would be yet another of my humongous understatements.
What wasn’t a let down was the addition of many new characters to the franchise as well as a returning Henry Czerny as the untrustworthy inside man “Kittridge” from the original 1996 film. All these decades on we now have the addition of Hayley Atwell as thief for hire “Grace”, Vanessa Kirby returns in a cameo from her appearance in the previous film as trader for hire and illegal go-between “The White Widow” and the smouldering bad guy without a past Esai Morales as “Gabriel”.
Dead Reckoning is a thrilling and exhilarating addition to the Mission: Impossible canon and I cannot wait to see where and how Cruise, McQuarrie and their merry band of thieves and black operatives take the action in Part 2.
I just wish we didn’t have to reckon with the frankly absurd rogue AI Matrix as the film simply didn’t need it.
Thanks for reading. Please see my “Film” library for more spoiler free appraisals of hundreds of films old and new, or linked below are my three most recently published reviews from this year:
“Asteroid City” (2023)
“You can’t wake up if you don’t go to sleep”.medium.com
“Greatest Days” (2023)
A million love songs later?medium.com
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 (2023)
“It really is good to have friends”.medium.com