Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Review

The Mission: Impossible film series has arguably been getting better and better with each installment. After a five-year gap since its previous entry and three years since it started filming, the series returns with the first part of a two-part finale.

An Artificial Intelligence program known as The Entity has developed self-awareness and has been infiltrating computers around the world. The only way to control The Entity is a special key that has been split into two parts and every government and terrorist organisation is on the search for it. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is forced to go rogue again since he knows no one should have the key and goes around the globe to find it.

Mission: Impossible has been a series that has been constantly escalating. The first film was an action-thriller, Mission: Impossible II turned the franchise into a Tom Cruise action vehicle, and every film since Ghost Protocol has had a marquee set piece like climbing the Burj Khalifa and performing a HALO jump into Paris. The films since Mission: Impossible III can keep a high standard with its story. Mission: Impossible III had a personal story, Rogue Nation was the film that Spectre should have been and Fallout was both a great follow-up to Rogue Nation and tied up story threads from the previous films. However, Dead Reckoning Part One felt like the first real dip in quality.

Dead Reckoning Part One was following on from Fallout which was a brilliant blockbuster. It would have been hard for any sequel to follow on from that film. The other issue was Dead Reckoning Part One. A criticism of the Mission: Impossible series has been that it’s a collection of stunt scenes that are loosely strung together. This was the first time I felt this with Dead Reckoning Part One. The film’s structure was simply an exposition scene, followed by an action sequence. The screenplay felt like it was short but the run time was extended by the excessive action sequences.

In 2015 Christopher McQuarrie was a guest speaker at the London Screenwriting Festival. He said when he got the job to direct Rogue Nation he went to the editors at Paramount to make a sizzle reel based on scenes from Mission: Impossible and Bond films. Dead Reckoning Part One felt McQuarrie used this approach when writing and directing. The story of a malicious AI took the series into the realm of sci-fi. This plot was basically Tom Cruise fighting Skynet.

There was a bit of franchise repetition in Dead Reckoning Part One since the villain of the piece, Gabriel (Esai Morales) acted as a prophet to the cause, and the character of Grace (Hayley Atwell) was an ambiguous figure whose loyalties were in question, like Ilsa in Rogue Nation. Ethan Hunt has gone rogue in all the Mission: Impossible films, except Mission Impossible II. This has become a trope to the franchise and Dead Reckoning Part One had to point it out. Ethan and his team have to go rogue straight away in this film.

References were also made to other spy and action films. The chase in Rome was filled with them. Ethan and Grace were handcuffed together like James Bond and Was Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies and they were chased whilst driving a small car which felt like a combination of For Your Eyes Only, The Bourne Identity, and The Italian Job. Other references were unintentional since Fast X also used Rome as a setting and Dead Reckoning Part One had a three-way car chase like Indiana Jones and the Dial Destiny.

Where Dead Reckoning Part One did succeed was the action sequences. The Mission: Impossible series has always impressed in the action department and Dead Reckoning Part One was no different. The car chase in Rome felt like McQuarrie and the stunt team were trying to one-up the car chase in Paris and it did thrill as Ethan and Grace had to avoid the local police, American operatives, and a determined assassin. The highlight of the film was the sequence on and around the train with Ethan trying to find a way on the train whilst riding on a motorbike.

Hayley Atwell was also a fine addition to the series. She played a thief who gets caught up in the world of espionage. Grace was given the most character development in the film since she was a self-interested pick-pocket. She was similar to Nyah in Mission: Impossible II. Atwell has always been a likeable presence in other films, and it shows so it’s great to see her in another franchise.

Dead Reckoning Part One has suffered from being overhyped because of the thin story. It doesn’t match the quality of Rogue Nation and Fallout. Fortunately, it was a great popcorn experience.