Review of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING PART ONE:

July 12, 2023

The mission of IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), which he chose to accept, was to retrieve one half of a special key from Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) before she was captured by bounty hunters in the Namib Desert. With his skill in infiltration and disguise, Hunt learned that this key, when assembled, would give its owner the power to control a powerful AI technology called "The Entity" which had gone rouge and had wormed its way to sabotage digital security systems all over the world. 

That is the bare bones plot of this seventh installment of Tom Cruise's 27-year old "Mission Impossible" film franchise which started in 1996. Hunt, together with his computer-tech team of Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), was caught in an intense web of danger which involved charming pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell), glamorous arms dealer "White Widow" (Vanessa Kirby), silent killer Paris (Pom Klementief) and the "invisible" terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales). 

Christopher McQuarrie, who directed, wrote or co-wrote the last two MI adventures -- "Rogue Nation" (2015) and "Fallout" (2018) -- continues his brand of engaging storytelling of intricate espionage plots and breath-taking action sequences with amazingly conceptualized stunts. Both these aspects levelled up in this current film with its unseen main antagonist that subverts reality and wild stunts that make Ethan Hunt defy death several times over.

While Tom Cruise's real age is more evident now in his close-up shots, he is still a very credible action film hero here. Knowing that Cruise did all these dangerous stunts by himself gave them extra star points. That awesome scene where he rode his motorcycle off a ramp-like rock protrusion into mid-air had been seen since the first teaser it seems, but it never lost its exhilarating power, especially when seen now in its full context on the big screen.

We see Cruise riding a horse in the howling desert  sands while being chased by bad guys. We see him steal a police motorcycle to elude pursuers in Rome. He would later drive a yellow Mini-Cooper while handcuffed to Grace, a tricky scene which also tests Cruise's skills in physical comedy. The most heart-stopping scenes would take place on a runaway train as Ethan and Grace scrambled for safety before their train car plummets into the river below.

Stunts aside, it was the mind games -- hatching the plans, analyzing the situation, reading other people's thoughts --  that captivates discerning audiences. These had been the signature of "Mission Impossible" since its TV series days in the mid-1960s up to the present. Things were made more complicated this time around because their enemy was not human and can distort data to throw even the best set plans into disarray. Getting the key now was just the beginning, the rest is for Part 2. 9/10.