“Mission: Impossible” films have been an exercise in creatively pushing the action and stunt envelope. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more extreme than climbing the world’s tallest building or capturing the experience of jumping out cargo plane, “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I” raises the stakes with its death-defying action sequences by deliberately putting Tom Cruise in harm’s way and giving us a front row seat to that show. Though the timely plot involving A.I., terrorists, and shadow governments is thin, the heavily action-driven sequel will have audiences gasping from beginning to end.
In the first half of the two-parter, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) finds himself on the hunt for a dangerous self-aware and self-learning A.I. called The Entity. The A.I. has the power to compute every permutation and possibility. Such a program is dangerous in the wrong hands as it could change the world with a single computation. So, whoever controls this power will have the world in the palm of their hands. The only problem is that one must have two halves of a key to control The Entity. And the film’s cold opening gives us an idea of The Entity’s power by tricking those aboard a Russian submarine, the “Sevastopol,” into firing upon themselves. And when the cleanup crew arrived to clean up the mess, the keys were split and separated from each other, with their ownership somewhere across the globe.
As such, Ethan is tasked with retrieving both halves of the key for the U.S. government so that they can control the entity. But Ethan knows that such power in anyone’s hands is dangerous, so he goes off mission to destroy it rather than hand it over to his superiors. IMF handler Kittridge (Henry Czerny) orders him to find Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) because she has the first half of the key. Of course, those who remember Kittridge know him to be an opportunistic agent of the U.S. government isn’t exactly the most trustworthy of people. And the roguish Ethan has his own way of doing things, even if it means going against the IMF.
Eventually, going rogue helps Ethan better understand what is at stake and why he needs to get the key before anyone else does. This leads him to thief Grace (Hayley Atwell), a pickpocket hired by the black market arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby) to steal one-half of the key. Though she may not know it at first, she is about to get into the world of espionage, where the stakes couldn’t be any higher. Especially when Gabriel, a ghost from Ethan’s past, is also hunting for the other half of the key. He serves as a reminder that anyone whom Ethan has ever cared for has ended up dead and will use that against him when the time comes. It’s a tragic memory that The Entity will operate as a deadly weapon against the like of Ethan. At the same time, it feels like the film runs in place – it wouldn’t be much of a “Mission: Impossible” entry without Tom Cruise running – without exploring any new ground. And it’s only using Ethan and Gaberiel’s adversarial dynamic to mine more of the former’s mysterious history.
Since “Dead Reckoning – Part One” is only half of the story, the film acts more as an exposition piece, overly explaining what The Entity is and how it threatens humanity. However, since there is a lot of ground to cover in the two-hour and 43-minute runtime, it does this in a very convoluted and vague way. The key is of great importance. Though we know it grants access and control to The Entity, the film goes about telling us this fact in such a way that is convoluted and overcomplicated. We are led to believe that the A.I. is self-aware and self-learning, so it has evolved into something far more dangerous than anyone could have imagine and that whoever has the key gets control over it. It’s a timely story but one that’s merely a front for the blockbuster action sequences. Adding to the complications is Gabriel, who hints that there is more to the key than just control. While this keeps us guessing, there’s no definitive answer as to what it does. As such, we are left with more questions than answers. Not only that, the film ends on a cliffhanger without giving us an idea of what The Entity is fully capable of or what the key truly unlocks. Though we are left to believe that the answers are hidden somewhere below.
While those are some fun moments that give the film some levity and keep us guessing, it also overcomplicates the story. The story is disconnected from what is happening, and the dialogue is rote. There doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency or anything at stake because of all of the double and triple crosses, as well as the need to tell us about how dangerous the AI is. Sometimes the characters leap into the action not because it calls for it or convenience but because we expect high-caliber action.
Of course, the story cannot hold a candle to the physical demands. And for “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One,” those demands are high as ever. We’ve seen Ethan and the cast run before, but never like this. The car chase through Rome involves some silly slapstick physicality, some slight of hands, and a tiny Fiat going against patrol cars and motorcycles and a heavily armored vehicle. Then there’s the train sequence, which sees Ethan trying to land on a running train by leaping a motocross bike over a mountain ledge. Eventually, there are more physically demanding sequences that require Ethan to run on top of the train cars and then run through them. The latter isn’t as practical as previous stunt work from other “Mission: Impossible” films. Still, McQuarrie utilizes the various train cars to put obstacles in Ethan and Grace’s way. One wrong move by either of them, and they are dead. The entire third act of “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I” is exhilarating.
Some of the emotional stakes in “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I” should leave more impact than it should. But it doesn’t. In one of the scenes, we see Luther (Ving Rhames) trying to balance simultaneous ops between Ethan and Benji (Simon Pegg), with the latter trying to steal back the key from Grace, all the while trying to stay out of sight from Kitterage’s men at an airport. At the same time, he’s also helping Benji disarm a nuclear bomb by solving various riddles. Even a fight scene between Ethan and one of Gabriel’s unhinged henchwomen (Pom Klementeiff) is a fun watch between the tight alley is claustrophobic and suffocating. All of the warning signs about the Entity are there, are there is nothing that Ethan can do to predict such an unpredictable program. That makes protecting his friends at all costs nearly impossible since The Entity will force Ethan into a lose-lose situation.
“Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I” is an action-packed globetrotting adventure that begs to be seen in a massive theater, even if its story is convoluted, dull, and uninteresting. The incompleteness is purely intentional because it is only one half of the story, leaving us hanging in hopes that we will be back to see how they up the ante. And this works to a certain extent because the action sequences are big in this, and it can only get more prominent in the second. Hopefully, the sequel can deliver a better story.
7.5/10
Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part I now in theaters.
