In Review: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Synopsis: In Dead Reckoning, Ethan Hunt and the IMF team must track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity if it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, a deadly race around the globe begins.

The Story

When an experimental Russian Submarine gets destroyed by a new weapon that is run via Artificial intelligence. Ethan Hunt and the IMF are brought in to try and track down part of a key that can operate the A.I. The problem is Hunt’s old friend Ilsa Faust has half of the key and it is unclear what side she is working for. Subsequently, Kittridge sends Hunt after Ilsa and the key and tasks him with returning the Key to him. When Hunt catches up with Ilsa he starts to realize that Kittridge has pretty much stitched him up and instead of taking the Key back to Kittridge. Hunt gathers his team and attempts to go after the other half of the key himself. But with the authorities on their tail. The IMF team of Hunt, Luther, and Benji find themselves having to play cat and mouse with the law while simultaneously trying to run a covert intelligence op to contact the person with the other half of the key. 

Things get complicated when someone from Ethan’s past turns out to be the person that is trying to get both parts of the key and he is being helped by the A.I. that is running the entire operation and playing all sides against each other.

The Acting

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt for the seventh time and doesn’t seem to have lost a step. All the team from the last two movies returns as we catch up with Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) embark on their most terrifying mission to date. Somewhat reluctantly joining the team is Hayley Atwell as Grace, a professional thief who unwittingly finds herself caught up in the mission as she is hired by a fence to deliver half of a key that can control the A. I. System that seems to be controlling everything and everyone else. Atwell brings her A-game to her performance and very quickly feels like a part of Ethan’s team. 

In terms of villains. None are as frightening as the A. I. that seems to be controlling everything. But we get a great performance from Esai Morales as Gabriel who is absolutely no angel. In the film, Gabriel is the person that is partly responsible for Hunt joining the IMF and not much love is lost between the two men. Vanessa Kirby returns as The White Widow and plays quite a big role in the plot of the film.

Pom Klementieff puts in an impressive performance as Paris, who is a more white-knuckle advertisement for the beautiful city that she is named after. She’s the version that will hit you full-on with a crowbar or any other sharp or heavy implement.

Returning to the film series is Henry Czerny as the manipulative Kittridge who we have not seen since the very first Mission: Impossible movie from 1996. He is still the cold-hearted agent that we remember from that first film and one of the villains of this film. As the plot focuses on all the various intelligence agencies trying to get the key to this A.I. system. 

Overall

MI7: Dead Reckoning is every bit the white knuckle ride that we’ve become accustomed to from this movie series. The team delivers a compelling and topical story involving an A.I. system that has gone rogue. And we get tonnes of great action sequences as well as one of the most fun car chases that I have seen in years. However, the real thrills come when Ethan must get himself a ride on the Orient Express, which is a runaway train by the time Hunt is able to catch up with it.

Like the previous Mission Impossible Film’s Dead Reckoning, part one delivers and leaves things on a real cliffhanger for the second part, which is expected to drop in the summer of 2024.