Cruise’in through the impossible with face lifts, train-jumping, and chases
Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Written by: Christopher McQuarrie & Erik Jendresen
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some language, and suggestive material
Release Date: July 12, 2023
Runtime: 2:43
This review may contain spoilers
Good Morning, Mr. Cruise
Mission: Impossible – another piece of Tom Cruise’s legacy. Well known for Jerry McGuire, A Few Good Men, and Top Gun (and its recent sequel, Maverick), Cruise has been attached to the Mission: Impossible movies as super-spy/adrenaline junkie Ethan Hunt since 1996. For six films, he has been pulling off disguises, gunfights, crazy chases, and ridiculous stunts. Now he’s back for another “impossible” mission – fighting artificial intelligence.
The ‘Hunt’ for Dead Reckoning
Ethan Hunt is on a new mission – recovering two pieces of a fancy, hi-tech key.
Well, that doesn’t sound very exciting. Let’s see here… one of the keys is stolen by a gorgeous professional thief named Grace (Hayley Atwell, Captain America: The First Avenger). The IMF (Impossible Mission Force) and CIA have marked Hunt and his team as rogues (again). All military defenses and intelligence agencies have been infiltrated by a sentient AI known simply as “The Entity.” Gabriel (Esai Morales, ABC’s NYPD Blue), a terrorist working for The Entity, is also after the key pieces and is partnered with a French terrorist named Paris (Pom Klementieff, The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy). Once combined, the key is meant for a vault inside a sunken Russian submarine no one can find. And somewhere in there, Hunt needs to pull off an extreme stunt to save the day.
There’s your Mission: Impossible stamp of approval!
“SHOW ME THE MISSION!”
Tom Cruise movies rarely disappoint (aside from that disappointing Mummy movie), and that goes especially for Mission: Impossible. They’re fun and exciting, and you gotta love that theme song.
Cruise is again great in this. He’s very active and energetic for a man in his sixties, and his age has yet to prevent him from delivering great moments on screen.
When he’s not sneaking around and fighting bad guys, Cruise throws himself into stunts that are hard to believe. The biggest one achieved is literally strapping himself to a plane as it’s taking off, and yeah, he did that for real. While I don’t think anything here tops that, he does launch himself off a cliff from a motorcycle to parachute onto a moving train. The same train eventually dangles over a destroyed bridge, and he’s running through collapsing train cars as each goes over the edge. Something right out of an Uncharted game.
A well-timed villain
Maybe I’m leaning into spoiler territory (to be fair, it was in the trailers), but the main threat this time is not an ex-IMF agent or an international terrorist – it’s literally AI trying to take over the world. At least, I think that’s The Entity’s goal even though everything seems to be functioning electronics-wise. Laziest Skynet ever!
Normally, this kind of global threat would be laughable and cheesy, like aliens in an Indiana Jones movie. Like, how many Mission: Impossible movies do you have to go through before you have to “jump the shark” and make Ethan Hunt fight a super-computer?
And yet, the timing for Artificial Intelligence could not be better. AI technology is starting to be implemented in movies and TV shows now, becoming part of the reason for the current Writers Guild of America strike. I can see AI becoming a serious issue in the future, and Mission: Impossible is attacking it head-on.
Okay, James Cameron technically attacked it first over 30 years ago with The Terminator films, but you get my point.
Remarkably, this film started filming a few weeks before COVID-19 quarantine and was delayed. So, this idea of AI being a villain was already written in 2018-2019. But now finally released, 2023 is the perfect year for Dead Reckoning’s The Entity.
Today I Learned…
Lalo Schifin wrote the Mission: Impossible theme for the show. And the creation behind that theme is way more creative than you’d think. The first four notes are actually Morse code: dash-dash, dot-dot – which stands for M-I. The first part of the friggin’ theme song is the show’s initials in Morse code! Now that’s some classy spy shit!
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”
That line in every Mission: Impossible briefing was always weird to me. Are you telling me there’s really an actual choice in these missions? Can agents just be, “Nah, that’s too impossible for me,” and swipe left for no?
End Part One
Well, it’s in the title – Dead Reckoning is a two-parter. While the film ends with a cliffhanger, I like that this one ends with closure. The ending leaves the audience with the mission far from over, but the whole ordeal with the fancy keys is dealt with. Now the second part can deal with this pesky tech-controlling A.I. that’s totally not Skynet.
Luckily, the wait is only a year away with Part Two set to release on June 28, 2024. That is unless this strike keeps going. Freaking pay your people what they’re owed, ya bastards.
“Light the fuse”
I’m a long-time fan of Mission: Impossible, and Dead Reckoning (Part One) does not let up. With AI becoming more obtainable in driverless cars and drones, the idea of AI as a threat is more feasible than before. The threat of it just replacing people is already a concern enough in the real world. So, as a world-threatening force, it amplifies the audience’s involvement.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (Part One) is currently playing in theaters.
