A good friend of mine moved away, which was good for me for the sole reason that I wouldn’t have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the cinema opening week for another lackluster experience, and I could view the new Mission: Impossible movie in my own time. Mission: Impossible is a franchise where I can’t comprehend how popular it is – take out the stunts, and the stories are always incredibly dull. Mission: Impossible always promises to be grander in the next one too, and as some of you may know, I’m only human, so I can be suckered into believing it when the trailer comes around, time and time again. The notion that this movie is a ‘Part One’ does up its epic factor, and I’m wanting to believe in Tom Cruise again after Top Gun: Maverick brought renewed rejuvenation. A 96% on Rotten Tomatoes is very exciting.
A digital software ‘Entity’ causes havoc for a Russian submarine off the artic coast, and sets off an intelligence race to figure out where the Entity has come from, what the Entity is, and who can control it. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team get whiff that the Entity can only be manipulated by two halves of the same key, now scattered around the world, and they will accept the mission to find the key, discovering just how dangerous the Entity can be while doing so, and deciding Hunt should destroy it.
Holey hell! It’s hard to believe that this Mission: Impossible bares the same writer/director as the previous two; although it seems Erik Jendresen has come on board for a writing credit as well, who has a spot on Band of Brothers to his name, and maybe he’s the one to reshape Christopher McQuarrie’s vision in ways where the previous movies have failed me. Because, it is too simple to say that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is excellent? From the story to the score, performances, set pieces, and everything in between, this movie is banger! Yet despite my perceived public fervor for this franchise, it seems a lot less people saw this movie in cinemas, as it’s grossed more than $200 million less than the previous instalment, and has been labelled a box office disappointment. That’s disheartening, for Tom Cruise and the gang, who have definitely put together an action epic, and the best Mission: Impossible for me by a mile.
Ahead of this movie, I got to thinking about why this franchise disappoints me, while other spy franchises draw me in, and I think the simplest answer is style. John Wick has oodles of it, James Bond is entrenched in it, and especially while Sam Mendes has been at the helm of the most recent James Bonds, those movies have been beautiful. I also think the others – and this is a bigger reason – don’t contain plots that treat the audience like babies; whereas in all the Mission: Impossible movies, there seems to be always a double-crossing double agent, infiltrating secure lines, and I end up wondering why Ethan Hunt cares so much about saving the world when every system in it set up to be altruistic, ends up being corrupt to the core. This movie had an early moment where I saw the same hint of script carelessness that always leads me to disconnect too, when the food delivery agent, trusted with the most sensitive of U.S. information, forgets the simplest of protocols, and is still complimented by Hunt – where’s your standards, man? But I think this movie also rebrands how the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) should be viewed, in the boardroom scene with America’s finest, and I appreciated that; if not, found it necessary. The IMF are an invisible branch of the US government, given the missions the others can’t solve, and as the movie goes on, the IMF can also be viewed as a refuge for those with skills discredited elsewhere – this may’ve always been obvious, but it’s never been clearer before 👍 While all the major spy franchises out there have their own gimmicks, there’s no reason I shouldn’t love Mission: Impossible has the American equivalent to the sophisticated James Bond, and this movie finally marks a huge step in my reconciliation.
I also saw another spy movie from earlier this year, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, and ruminated on a problem I found, whereby modern technology has really made the world very small, too easy for spy mysteries to manipulate their environments, and therefore dampening the skills and stakes involved. A ploy where an undercover agent may be wearing a disguise to drop off money or important information are almost unnecessary when you can use video or voice modifiers over Zoom, transfer cash from the other side of the world and airdrop documents. The A.I. has outwit the artisan, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One could be revolutionary in how spy movies conduct themselves in the future, for this plot hears my concern, and takes technology off the table, making it the ever-looming threat where our heroes must second-guess their every convenience – so refreshing, and so simple, and just what I wanted 🤗 The only knock I might have on this fast-moving plot is that I was numb to the provocation that the Entity can predict the future, put forward by the Entity’s right-hand man Gabriel (Esai Morales) – but I take it, that it’s just a philosophical interpretation of the Entity’s manipulative power, due to its far-reaching and calculating capabilities. And while Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One still does contain a few duplicitous good guys that I was whining about before, bugging down this franchise, they are a consequence of the story, not the cause of it, and only a minor part.
The movie also doesn’t seem to be one where you need to know all that has come before – you may not care for Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) as much as if you go in blind, but that’s about it. Yet, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One does respect its roots, and I liked the touch of the blue entity stalking the walls in the Venetian nightclub, reminding me of the beautiful soon-to-shattered fish tanks in the first Mission: Impossible, where Ethan Hunt first chose the path of a renegade. The finale of this movie on the train, also takes a dip at the first movie’s ending, and as the train goes through a long tunnel during a rooftop battle, I was so grateful that there was no ridiculously unbelievable helicopter attached to it at the same time 😅 A movie can’t always repetitively pay homage to the past, for it gets weary, but since this movie feels so fresh, I say it’s respectable. The action throughout this movie is thrilling and there’s loads of it. Even the quiet moments provide more tension and drama than most movies equivalent – I was totally invested, and came to feel comfortable that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One had the goods to surprise me, and the control to accommodate me. Even a moment where Hunt is trapped in a car as a train approaches, came with intrigue for me, not knowing how he might escape even while aware that our hero won’t die.
Rebecca Ferguson is such an asset to this franchise. In the movie, she provides a love for Hunt that I don’t recall from her character in previous instalments, but neatly adds a strong feminine rapport to the team’s circle of friendship. Aaand she’s gone – just as I cared for her the most, down she falls 😥 Pom Klementieff made me excited in the trailer alone – I’ve come to love Mantis through the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and she really gets some underrated moments in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. And while we’ve seen countless silent henchmen in spy movies over the years, considering the tired-eyed styled-swagger was coming from Klementieff trying something different, it had me keen to see, and she’s just as good as I’d hoped for… I’d probably give the nod to Ruby Rose in John Wick: Chapter 2, who simply has more screen time, but it’s not a competition. I also liked Vanessa Kirby as the villain with money and influence, and I think it’s fun that she gets to play two characters really, since she is sometimes Grace (Hayley Atwell) in the mask. I’m so glad to see Henry Czerny return, while Hayley Atwell gets to have her cake and eat it too, coming across a step ahead in early matchups with Hunt, before becoming completely in over her head, reaching damsel levels of competence for Hunt to protect, as the scenario balloons out beyond her scope. I guess she’ll be replacing Rebecca Ferguson on the make-shift IMF team going forward, and while she’ll make a fine addition, Ilsa’s loss is still too raw 😭 Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, and Cary Elwes play characters who add fine weight and class to this story too, with the former pair hopefully having a similarly keen influence on proceedings moving forward too. And quite comfortingly, Luther Stickell (Vin Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) feel like partners to Ethan Hunt in this movie, instead of sidekicks, and I don’t know if I would’ve said that before – another big tick for an element in this movie undertaking a maturely warm evolution ❤
And, it’s hard to describe, but Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is also one of those intangibles that make you want to be excellent in the face of excellence. Beautiful cities, dazzling contemporaries, and competent competition that you have to outdo – the movie makes you feel alive vicariously, and I can see myself lifting weights or studying books after writing this review, just to be my best, in a hope of being as suave and prepared as possible in the face of whatever the future may bring. Gosh, it may sound silly, and it may be hollow fantasy, but an inspiration from exhilaration must be better than a dour or defiant message that comes in the opposite type of movie. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both winter-cold and summer-warm feelings when the time’s right, but it’s good to know that Hollywood can still produce the feel-goods, and perhaps even a masculine-aligned product, where I might even come to expect it again. To some folks, this paragraph will probably be dribble, but I’m going to keep it in as it might lead me to a clearer way of explaining it if I need so in the future 🤔
And what’s going to happen next?! 😱 I’m giddied to find out. It’s become a bit of a copy-and-paste job for me to say of a ‘Part One’, that I cannot judge an entire story until the conclusion comes, but I think enough happens in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and it’s concise enough, to not be all that concerned with how Part Two might go, as I can’t see it ruining or undoing the goodwill contained of this movie – which is lucky, because apparently the writer and actor strikes have tampered with the timeline for the next chapter’s production, so it’s a very real possibility that the sequel could be hampered in its potential. Let’s hope we don’t hear stories leading up to its eventual release where that be the case. Yet just for now, the race is on, to see if Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse or Mission: Impossible – Deadly Reckoning Part One, can conclude their stories first. And while Tom Cruise is over 60, in his 42nd year in the business, I may’ve just borne witness to his most exuberant action adventure yet.
5.0
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