Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Review: Ambitious And Timely, The Franchise is As Lively As Ever

Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic

The Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy, is featured in an extended car chase scene in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. They’re also featured in another big blockbuster from earlier this year, Fast X. Both franchises are in their third decades; this is the seventh M:I entry, and Fast X is the tenth chapter in its franchise run. 

Fast X moves through the Spanish Steps like a wrecking ball. Dead Reckoning Part One is as frenetic but more elegant and less destructive. I found myself thinking of the contrast in styles between the two movies using the same location and how emblematic it was of the two experiences I had with both movies, one being one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year (Fast X) and one being among the best (this one).

The Fast & Furious franchise morphed into a globetrotting, spy action franchise from its street racing origins. It aimed to become like the Mission: Impossible franchise and those like it had some success for a time before becoming derivative and overstuffed. Mission: Impossible found its footing as a franchise with its fourth entry, Ghost Protocol, and has been in a groove ever since. 

Dead Reckoning is the most ambitious M:I story yet, being a two-parter. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team of Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), Luther (Ving Rhames), and Benji (Simon Pegg) face their most serious threat yet in the form of a rogue AI called ‘The Entity’ that has potentially become sentient and has all of the major world powers in a race to attain and control it. They’re looking for two halves of a key, but they do not know what the key goes to and what it does concerning ‘The Entity’, they do not know. 

‘The Entity’ has a man working on its behalf, Gabriel (Esai Morales), a terrorist who also has ties to Ethan’s pre-IMF days. Complicating matters is a wild card in the form of Grace (Hayley Atwell), a pickpocket with constantly shifting loyalties. Also on Ethan’s trail is a pair of US agents (Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis) tasked by a returning Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) to apprehend or eliminate Hunt. Pom Klementieff appears as Paris, an assassin working for Gabriel, and Vanessa Kirby reprises her role as the White Widow.

Dead Reckoning has everything audiences have come to expect from the Mission: Impossible franchise: car chases, Tom Cruise running, hand-to-hand combat, Tom Cruise running, quick-wit dialogue, more Tom Cruise running, and a bit of fun even as the fate of the world hangs in the balance. It also features many practical effects and location shooting, making the film feel rooted in the real world. 

Tom Cruise jumping a motorcycle off a mountain (seen in all the promotions for the movie) is filmed from several angles and then cuts to a camera shot right next to him falling through the sky before he releases his parachute. The film also throws a train off a bridge into a ravine in spectacular fashion, another practical effect with cameras affixed to the side as it careens off the cliff.

It’s a strong cast. Cruise always gives his all, with a natural rapport with Rhames, Pegg, and Ferguson. People of a certain age have an affinity for Maverick in Top Gun, but Ethan Hunt is easily the defining character of Cruise’s career by now.

With a franchise lasting this long, there is always a need to bring in fresh blood, and Atwell is an excellent addition to the cast and one of the film's standouts, a natural breath of fresh air. Morales, the co-main villain (alongside ‘The Entity’), has ties to Ethan from his pre-IMF days, which are shown in very short flashbacks. I could have used a bit more of an explanation of his motives and a bit more shading in his backstory.

There are a lot of callbacks to the previous Mission: Impossible films, particularly the first one. Kittridge returns, Hunt’s sleight-of-hand magic tricks pop up more than once, and the third act takes place on a train with several elements that mirror the train sequence from the first film.

Perhaps the best thing about Dead Reckoning Part One is that it works well enough as a self-contained story to be satisfying. There are apparent dangling threads, and a lot is set up for Part Two in a year, but it doesn’t feel like an incomplete movie experience.

Artificial Intelligence gone bad is nothing new in an action movie, but given the explosion of news related to AI in 2023, having a plot centered on AI is a bit of serendipity for Dead Reckoning to release right now. There is a feeling with a few aspects of its capabilities that it is a convenient plot device, but, on the whole, it seems to work, and there is an overall consistency to ‘The Entity’. 

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is the first part of the most ambitious story the franchise has undertaken. Halfway through, it looks very promising. Given the track record of Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie with this franchise, there is little reason to doubt that the concluding chapter of this two-parter will be anything less than thrilling because the first part is high-end summer blockbuster material. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5