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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (12A)
Review: In the summer of 1996, Tom Cruise accepted the mission to reimagine a beloved 1960s TV series as a high-octane blockbuster film franchise replete with self-detonating task briefs, latex face masks, high-tech gadgetry and daredevil acrobatics under the auspices of the amusingly monikered Impossible Missions Force (IMF). The series ratcheted up a gear in 2011 with the fourth instalment, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which memorably featured a sequence in which Tom Cruise’s IMF alter ego, Ethan Hunt, clung to the exterior of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, using suction cups. Cruise performed the heart-stopping stunt himself.
Since then, Christopher McQuarrie has been behind the camera, working closely with Cruise to develop jaw-dropping practical stunts such as Hunt hanging on to the exterior of an Airbus 400 as it takes off. In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, the saga’s giddily entertaining seventh outing, Cruise performs daredevil antics on two and four wheels and in the air for our gob-smacked pleasure.
The most advanced digital effects cannot replace the pulse-quickening thrill of watching the actor (58 years old when production began) ride a motorcycle off a cliff, trade punches on top of a fast-moving train or slalom a vintage yellow Fiat 500 through the crowded streets of Rome. It’s a blast that brings the series full circle with a retrofitted plot tethered to tragic events in the 1996 picture. The 163-minute running time feels considerably shorter, culminating in a delirious set piece on the Orient Express that will leave audiences salivating for Part Two, scheduled for release in June 2024.
Ethan Hunt (Cruise) enlists the help of fellow IMF operatives Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) to track down two halves of an interlocking 3D key that can regain control over a rogue artificial intelligence that is responsible for sinking a Russian nuclear submarine in the film’s nail-biting opening sequence. A shadowy figure from Ethan’s past, Gabriel (Esai Morales), also seeks this key and he is willing to kill to acquire it with the help of a sword-wielding assassin (Pom Klementieff).
Opportunistic thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) unwittingly picks a pocket that marks her for death and Ethan engages two more fiercely intelligent women – former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and illegal arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis aka the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) – as he seeks to save the world from cyber-armageddon.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a ridiculously entertaining romp that ruthlessly mines timely concerns about artificial intelligence while Cruise sprints breathlessly from one audacious set piece to the next. McQuarrie’s script, co-written by Erik Jendresen, marks every legacy character including Hunt as expendable with affectionate nods to iconography from the series. Lalo Schifrin’s propulsive theme tune is lovingly appropriated by composer Lorne Balfe for spectacular, edge-of-seat moments that enhance Cruise’s credentials after yesteryear’s aerial acrobatics in Top Gun: Maverick. Your mission to see the best film of the summer so far, should you choose to accept it (and you really should), begins here.
Find Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One in the cinemas
