Boy, that title sure is a mouthful, huh? But at least it’s honest about being a part one. That is somewhat refreshing. And on top of that, out of all the big first part films to have come out in the past couple years, this one feels the most complete of an experience. The mission as setup in the very beginning does have a conclusion. Sure, there is an overarching thread that is yet to be resolved, but that’s all information that is slowly being revealed over the course of the film. It’s not like the story stops at the most dramatic possible moment.
And yet, despite that. It is by no means my favorite of these part ones to have been released. I would say that goes to Across The Spider-Verse. As a whole, I would honestly say that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a bit of a letdown after such a strong string of released, even going all the way back to the Brad Bird directed Ghost Protocol. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad movie. It’s still by and large pretty good, and a fun time at the movies. But “pretty good” just doesn’t cut it for these, especially after a film like Fallout.
What’s the setup? This time, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is faced with the task of finding a special key, which is split into two intertwining halves and long separated. He doesn’t know what the key is for at the moment, but he soon learns that it involves a creation called The Entity, an A.I. intelligence that has become self-aware, and seemingly on a rampage causing or at least threatening to cause disruption in economic, defense, and military systems all around the globe. Utilizing the help of his team – Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), and Grace (Hayley Atwell), a thief who crosses paths with Ethan, he must locate the keys and find out what the deal with The Entity is.
Let’s start with what bugged me, since it’ll be easier to get all that out of the way before getting into what worked. First thing is mostly involved with the villain of “the entity.” It is never really made clear what limitations this A.I. has, if any, and it leads to moments where you wonder why it may not have acted. It also pushes the series into some weird sci-fi territory that I’m not fully sure works for this particular series, it feels more like something out of a Bond movie if I’m being honest, and probably one of the lesser Brosnan films too. But The Entity isn’t acting alone, it has a human liaison in the form of Gabriel (Esai Morales), a figure from Ethan’s past. Which was a bit confusing at first because the film shows flashbacks that I had mistakenly assumed were from one of the previous movies that I just forgot – because let’s not mince words, the actual plots of these movies are not the most memorable.
There’s also a weirdly off feeling that I got during a lot of the slow down scenes in between all the set-pieces. They often felt very flat, sometimes rushing through emotional beats, and often repeating full exposition dumps. There’s maybe three scenes devoted to explaining what The Entity is, and little to no new information is given out about it until one last bit of info dumping in the final act. And guess what? It’s all information we already knew because the beginning scene of the film explains pretty much everything we need to know about the problem, and yet, the film continuously has our characters slowly piecing information we have as an audience. It’s weirdly tedious, the fun in the discovery is basically gone.
I also felt like some of the returning players got a bit of the short shrift in this one, with Ilsa being the biggest one. I won’t get into detail about what her character goes through, but it does feel like a waste, and very anti-climactic. Plus, it gets into some weird gender stuff that I can’t really get into without spoiling. I’ll just say, given what we know about Gabriel’s history with Ethan, and what happens to Ilsa, it reduces a promising and compelling character to just another trope. Something I feel returning co-writer and director, Christopher McQuarrie, was above.
McQuarrie also tries to bring a bit more style into the film, seemingly pulling directly from Brian De Palma’s visual language. A natural choice since he directed the very first Mission: Impossible film. But that seemed to only translate to dutch angles galore, and not much else. Brian De Palma is the kind of guy who would be able to take iffy tropes and run with it. And considering the McGuffin of the film is a set of keys that interlock is the kind of subtle sexual imagery that De Palma would have had a field day with, but McQuarrie just isn’t that kind of guy. His most sexiest image is still Ilsa in the dress holding the gun in the opera sequence in Rogue Nation, and I’m starting to think that was completely by accident.
Fortunately, when it counts, the film works because it’s still planned and put together by some of the most talented and professional craftspeople in the industry. The action set-pieces are top notch, the work put in by second unit director and stunt coordinator, Wade Eastwood, is spectacular to say the least. I love how effortlessly the set-pieces build as they go along, adding complication upon complication as it goes along, while making it easy to follow. The emphasis on doing as much in-camera as possible results in some breathtaking imagery. The bit where he jumps off the cliff that we’ve seen in the trailers, I was practically holding my breath the whole time.
I love how playful these movies can be, especially when they work in the team dynamic. I especially loved this early bit at an airport where Ethan is there to find someone, but things get complicated when Grace becomes involved as a pick-pocket, which gets more complicated as a team searching for Ethan led by the hilariously committed Jason (Shea Whigham) enters the scene, which gets more complicated when Gabriel and his personal assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff) enters the scene, which gets more complicated when Benji investigates a bag and discovers a time bomb, which gets more complicated when he has to stop it by solving riddles. The sheer amount of things this sequence has to juggle is baffling, yet it remained cohesive and and fun and suspenseful. A masterclass in editing by Eddie Hamilton.
So, as you can see, there’s still lots to like – love even – about Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. All the joys of these movies are still for the most part present, and the returning cast is as engaging as ever, and newcomers like Atwell feel like an effortless addition to the franchise. She just feels like she belongs here. I just wish some of the other elements that did not work as well for me were a bit more ironed out. I don’t know if it was due to COVID restrictions or if there was something else, but something did feel missing here, and sometimes, it felt like everyone was making things up as they went along. It may sound harsh, but I’m only doing that because I’ve enjoyed these movies so much. I am still very much looking forward to how this concludes when Part Two comes out next year. I don’t know if this is a hot take or whatever, but I think after this, it’s time for this franchise to be handed over to another filmmaker, maybe that’s what we need, and I’d be OK with that. Nothing wrong with injecting some new blood.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is now out in theaters.